by Sandra Hill
Though Simone was sticking to white wine, lots of alcohol was being consumed, mostly hard liquor, and Caroline had a preference for dirty martinis. Twice, Simone had surreptitiously dumped her drink in a potted magnolia tree. She’d seen Gabe do the same with some fifty-year-old Scotch. Yeah, not very original, but effective so far. But poor tree! She vowed to herself that she would give a donation to the Save The Trees Foundation as a penance.
So far, she and Gabe had gotten lots of pictures and audio thanks to the high tech devices they used, but so far nothing extreme enough to satisfy Saffron Pitot’s wishes had happened.
They sat down to dinner in their scant attire out on the wide porch overlooking the lake. A first clue that things were starting to get steamier was that the servers, two young women, wore only skimpy aprons and high heels. No bras and the flimsiest of thongs. The busboy—or busman, since he was in his early twenties—wore nothing at all, not even shoes. No one paid any attention to their nudity, so she didn’t comment, either. She could tell that the others were watching her and Gabe for their reactions, but other than a blush from her, and a wink from Gabe, they pretended nonchalance.
The meal was, of course, excellent. Native red snapper with baby potatoes and snap peas, followed by a decadent chocolate soufflé. And potent lemon liquors to cleanse the palate . . . or freeze their brains. Despite her rationing of alcohol, Simone was feeling a little woozy. She hoped they hadn’t drugged the drinks, as well. That could be a disaster.
Besides Marcus and Caroline and Sam Salter, there was Sam’s wife, Heidi, a young, muscle-defined example of his female fitness program, who was several inches shorter than his bald head, but buff. Really buff! In fact, she’d won a number of weightlifting competitions, her claim to fame being that she could bench press two hundred pounds.
And there was James Allard, a New Orleans real estate developer, and his wife, Chantung (Really!), a former model whose blond hair and pale skin were a sharp contrast to James’s coal-black skin. They were an attractive couple, both tall and very thin, and surprisingly intelligent, as evidenced by the dinner conversation that evolved around several topics—the economy, crime in the Big Easy, and recent movies. They supported the New Orleans Opera Association in a big way.
Gabe could hold his own on the subject of movies and the theater, and Simone knew plenty about crime, big city and otherwise, although she managed to appear not too knowledgeable. Thus far, there had been no big gaffes.
It was no surprise that, as the meal progressed, the talk became sexual.
“I was invited to be in a porn movie,” Sam informed them. “A guy who came into the gym checked me out in the showers and made an offer right on the spot.”
“Are you going to do it?” Marcus asked.
“Nah! I’m saving Big Betsy,” he said, palming himself, “for my wife and a few of my friends.” He waggled his eyebrows at said friends.
Simone sipped more lemon madness to hide her revulsion.
“I was in a porn flick one time,” Gabe said.
Whaaat?
“Seriously, dude?” inquired Sam, not at all pleased to have his thunder stolen.
“When I was in college,” Gabe explained. “Needed to earn some extra cash for tuition.”
“That’s amazing, Larry,” Caroline said, placing a well-manicured hand on Gabe’s arm and squeezing.
“Was it fun?” Simone asked, not sure if Gabe was serious or not.
Gabe shrugged. “Actually, it got kind of boring, as I’ve told you before.” At the hoots of laughter from the other males at the table, he elaborated, “Most of the folks were drugged out, especially the women, and, frankly, I don’t take it in the ass for any amount of money.”
Whoa! Simone had to bite her lip to keep from gasping out her shock, but the others at the table loved his candor.
“I do,” Heidi revealed, “for the right person.” She glanced pointedly at James.
Everyone laughed at what must have been a private joke.
I am so out of my comfort zone here.
Which got even more uncomfortable when Chantung announced, “I got my nipples pierced. Wanna see?”
Everyone, including herself, truth to tell, said yes.
And so the former model, whose perfect breasts were surely silicone enhanced, tugged the top of her sarong down—Right in the middle of the dinner table!—exposing two engorged nipples through which two small gold rings flashed in the candle light. She left the silk fabric lying in her lap while she arched her back and preened.
Compliments abounded. Chantung even let Sam tug on one of the rings to see the effect, which was a gasp from her lips. Pleasure or pain, it was hard to tell. “If she was mine, I’d put a chain through those suckers and lead her around like a pet dog,” Sam said.
To which James should have reacted negatively, but he just smiled.
“Maybe her husband will let you do that, later,” Marcus suggested as he stood and asked, “Refills, everyone, before we move to the Play Room?”
“Play Room?” she mouthed at Gabe, who got her message, and said, “Listen, Marcus. I’m game for just about anything, but Diane here is a little timid. No offense intended, but you’re gonna have to give us a chance to make up our minds if this kind of activity is for us.” He paused and added, “If you want us to leave now, no hard feelings.”
Marcus was not a happy camper, but he exchanged looks with the other members of his club, then told Gabe. “You can stay and watch tonight, if you want, or join in at any time, if the mood hits you. But if you don’t participate, I better not hear about this around town. Anywhere, for that matter. Am I making myself clear?” The steely warning in his eyes was more than clear.
She and Gabe both nodded.
Marcus smiled then and said, “We’re gonna do some role playing tonight, but first we have a little live entertainment that I’m sure you’ll enjoy. Caro, why don’t you show Diane the costume gallery?”
“Sure. Come on, girls.” Caroline stood and motioned for not just Diane, but Heidi and Chantung, to accompany her. “Bring your drinks with you.”
The costume gallery? Oh, boy!
Whatever she’d been expecting it wasn’t this! Practically a department store of nothing but costumes. It was like Dragon Con, Comic-Con, and Porno Con combined in a large room with numerous open closets and clothes racks and shelving units. At a quick glance, she could see Star Wars costumes, as in Stormtrooper does Alien Women, she supposed; pirates, both male and female; superheroes; Roman soldiers and raggedy female attire (Rape of the Sabine Women, Caroline explained.); cops and hookers; dom and dominatrix; doctors and nurses. Amazing what money could buy! And the foolishness it could be spent on.
“We’re doing the Old West tonight,” Caroline told Simone. “The men already took their costumes to the downstairs dressing room.”
“Oh, goody! My favorite,” Chantung said. “I take dibs on being the horse tonight.”
Whaaat?
“You always get to be the horse,” Heidi grumbled. “Okay, I’ll be the Indian captive.”
“Diane and I will be plain old cowgirls, then,” Caroline said.
We will?
When Caroline handed her a buckskin skirt and a shirt, Simone said, “These will never fit.”
“Sure they will. The fabric is stretchy. One size fits all.”
“My underwear is probably still wet. It’s still in the downstairs bathroom.”
“No underwear.” The message in Caroline’s tone was that this was one concession that would not be made. “You might want to take your jewelry off.”
Simone shook her head. “I’d rather not.” She was recording everything she could with her earrings scanning the room, although Caroline was probably referring to the three-carat, synthetic diamond ring on her finger.
A short time later, Simone stood before a full-length mirror wearing a cowgirl hat and boots, a pair of toy pistols holstered in a belt around her waist, a leatherette skirt that hung low on her hips
and was so short the lower curve of her buttocks would be exposed if she leaned over even a little, and a snap-button blouse that only started buttoning about mid-abdomen and which was fitted so that it was skintight from waist up to the ruching that acted as an uplifting device under the breasts. The result was that her bare breasts were practically bursting out. And, frankly, the calico material was way too thin.
She felt silly.
But it was nothing compared to her companions. Caroline’s cowgirl outfit consisted of thigh-high, leather fringed hooker boots, a tiny leather thong, also with fringes, and a leather vest that exposed rather than covered her breasts and was held together by a thin leather cord. Her cowgirl hat hung down her back from a loop around her neck. She carried a whip in one hand and a lasso in the other.
“Yippee ki yay yay,” Simone joked.
And Caroline retorted, “Ride ’em, cowgirl.”
Then there was Heidi, the Indian maid, whose only resemblance to any Native American Simone had ever seen was a feather in her braided hair. Suffice it to say, there were lots of beads and a pair of moccasins.
The biggest shock came with Chantung’s costume. She wore a leather harness fitted between her bare pierced breasts and around her back where reins dangled down. On her head and hanging down her back was a horse’s mane and strapped to her backside was a lush horse’s tail. She wore high heels with taps on them that sounded like horseshoes clippety-clopping when she pranced around the room. When she bent over she wiggled her butt and neighed.
Welcome to bizarro land!
But that was nothing compared to what she saw when she entered the Play Room. First of all, the room was a vast homage to male fantasy. Dim lighting. Low armless chaises and circular couches. Several ottomans similar to ones she’d seen advertised in the back of Cosmo magazine, ones designed to align the body in the so-called perfect sexual position. A very large flat-screen TV. There were probably all kinds of toys and whips and chains in the closed shelving units around the room. In fact, there were a number of brackets in the walls that might be used for restraints, and there was a weird metal contraption hanging high up on the ceiling, but overall it was upscale sexy compared to Pham’s Dungeon Room, which was more lower-class sleaze.
Not that this room didn’t give her the creeps. It did. Big time.
And then the men walked in.
She didn’t know whether to laugh or run for her life.
Gabe was playing the naked cowboy, or almost naked cowboy, wearing a white cowboy hat, a white Speedo or thong, hard to tell from this angle, and cowboy boots. But Gabe was the most conventional of the bunch.
James was the Mexican bandito, all in black with ammunition belts criss-crossed over his chest. He carried a rifle (fake, she hoped) in one hand and a whip in the other. Oh, and did she mention he wore assless black denims and red-embossed leather boots?
Sam had taken on the role of Indian chief, to complement his wife, Simone supposed. He wore a full feather headdress, a bow in hand, and a quiver of arrows slung over his shoulder. War paint formed designs on his face and shaved chest. Beaded wrist and ankle bracelets rattled as he walked. His “Big Betsy” was bare and . . . well, big.
And then there was Marcus. If they got a picture of him, she and Gabe could leave for the night. His costume was so ludicrous and insanely perverted. He was a bull with a headpiece that was furry and sporting horns. There was also a cloak of fur pelts hanging from his shoulders. Devices resembling hoofs circled his ankles and wrists. And between his legs was strapped a dildo so big it would do any bull in stud proud; it swung from side to side as he walked into the room.
She had to blink several times to keep from going bug-eyed. Gabe came over to her and gave her a kiss on the lips and a pat on her butt. “You okay, sweetheart?”
“I’m fine, sweetheart,” she said back at him, in case anyone heard them. They would certainly be watching for their reactions. She tried to smile. But under her breath, she whispered to Gabe, “How soon can we get out of here?”
“As soon as I can slip out and get our car free,” he whispered back, pretending to be nuzzling her neck.
“Sit down, everyone,” Marcus ordered. “We’ll have a little entertainment before our own games begin.”
There was a tittering of laughter around the room, and James remarked, “Yee-haw!”
She and Gabe sat down on a low couch thingee that was curved upward slightly at both ends. They immediately found out that the darn thing rocked, like a see-saw.
The others laughed when they noticed the two of them almost falling off the ends. But they then sat close together in the middle, for balance, and the fun began.
In walked their two servers and the busboy/man, all naked, pushing one of those mechanical bulls on rollers. When they got to the middle of the room, they put locks on the legs. And Simone could see that this mechanical bull was different in that there was a wide hole in the center of the saddle.
To the tune of Aerosmith singing “Back in the Saddle Again,” the three of them did the most incredible things with that bull. On it, under it, to themselves, to each other. Dancing, gyrating, masturbating, copulating as the music got louder and louder, then ended with a crash of silence, as they bowed to the clapping crowd and Marcus walked them to the door, dildo swinging, presumably to pay for their services. Meanwhile Sam and James were moving the bull off to the side. Not out of the room, though, she noticed.
What would she do if they asked her to ride that thing? Bare-assed, as she was?
“Well, that was disgusting,” she said to Gabe.
“Um,” he replied.
She gave him a look, and saw that he was turned on.
Men!
“Hopefully, their car is the one blocking us in,” Gabe said. “I’ll check as soon as I can.”
Marcus was back, and he walked over to them, “Are you having fun so far?”
“Terrific!” Gabe said.
“How about you, Diane? Still feeling timid?”
It was hard for her to answer at first because with them sitting and Marcus standing, it put the dildo at eye level. “I’m still not sure,” she said and had no trouble pretending to blush.
They were saved by the bell then, literally, as the doorbell rang.
Everyone in the room went still, glancing worriedly at Marcus.
Marcus put a fingertip to his lips, cautioning silence. “It’s probably those three who just left. Probably forgot something and locked themselves out.” Even so, he removed his bull head piece and put a toweling robe over the rest of his costume, leaving the room.
The door was shut, but still they could hear voices.
“What the hell are you doing here?”
“I found one of Hannah’s folders—the one you keep pestering me about. I was in the neighborhood and thought I’d drop it off.”
“This is not a good time. Hey, you can’t just barge in here and—”
“Not barging. This will only take a second. Oh, I see that you just finished dinner. Oops. Is this one of your club nights?”
“Just leave the damn folder on the table.”
“Uh-uh. You are signing off on these things. I don’t want you to be bothering me about any missing photos anytime in the future.”
“Why now?”
“I have a daughter who’s nosey. I don’t want her finding these.”
“Okay, let me see them. Whoa, where you going?”
“Just checking to see what you have going on tonight.”
“Why? You were never interested before.”
“I’m lots older now . . . and wiser.”
Everyone was standing now, looking toward the door. She and Gabe were closest, but she’d recognized the voice before the door even opened. It was, of course, Adam Lanier in a rumpled business suit with a five o’clock shadow, looking sexier than anyone in the club, and angry as a bear if that tic in his jaw was any indication.
She groaned. “He’s going to ruin everything.”
; Gabe looked at her. “Who is he?”
“My boyfriend, sort of. Former, as of this minute.”
“Folks, you remember Adam Lanier, Hannah’s husband,” Marcus said, trying to take charge of the situation, knowing how uncomfortable everyone was feeling, especially in their costumes. “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine.”
Adam glanced around the room, nodding at each of the couples before he got to her and Gabe. He arched his brows and said, “And these new folks are . . . ?”
“Dr. Larry Storm and his wife, Diane. They just moved here from Chicago. Why don’t I get you a drink, Adam? Scotch and water as I recall?” Marcus was clearly trying to save the night and soothe his club members’ rattled nerves.
“Sure,” Adam said, even as he shook Gabe’s hand, then just gave Simone a head-to-shoulders lookover. “What’s this, Simone?” he asked. “Annie Oakley Does Dallas?”
“No. It’s about to be called Ex-Cop Kills Dumb-Ass Lawyer.”
“Will you be wearing a cop suit that shows half your ass, like you are now?”
She bared her teeth at him, and at the same time tugged down the hem of her cowgirl skirt.
“I think Diane is losing her timidity,” Gabe joked loud enough for others to hear, then walked over a few feet to chat with Caroline, who’d already indicated an interest in Simone’s doctor husband. She heard Gabe remark to Caroline, “Who’s this new guy? I sense a spark between him and Diane.” Clearly, Caroline, as well as the others, must be wondering why Adam was suddenly interested in sticking around. An interest in Diane/Simone would be one explanation.
“And you don’t mind?”
“Not as long as she shares the honey and goes home with me. Ha, ha, ha.”
Caroline looked at her and Adam, studying them, then concluded, “Instant sexual attraction.”
Not at the moment!
“Go . . . away!” she ordered Adam, at the same time smiling as she tried to hide her upset from the others.
“Not a chance!” Adam said, just before accepting the glass from Marcus and taking a huge slug.
