From the wings, the stage looked very bright and frightening. The media fixers must have worked all night. Set at an angle at the far side of the stage was a table covered in ruched blue velvet. It had distinguished signs bearing the Board members' names. In front of it were large sprays of flowers. Centre stage stood a single modern office chair. That would be for Trehearne. She had a small desk, again covered in blue velvet. She felt grateful that it was only a couple of metres from where she stood. She would not have to walk far under the bright lights before she could sit down.
They had already clipped a microphone to her lapel and tested the sound level. She looked at her watch. Nearly time, and no one else had come. She looked at her watch again. It seemed to have stopped.
She sensed movement behind her, and up stepped a distinguished looking man in a faultless grey suit. He posed in front of the wing mirror while an effeminate assistant picked an imaginary fleck of dust from his jacket. Ignoring Priscilla, he strode onto the stage and stood for a moment centre front.
“Good morning, people. I would like to welcome you on behalf of Associated Media Logistics. We have been asked by both press and television to provide a more appropriate setting for these important hearings. Can I ask if everyone is content?”
Priscilla looked up at the darkened balcony and realised with a jolt of surprise that every metre of balcony frontage was taken up by cameras. Television cameras large and small, still cameras hanging from the back of ridiculously large lenses, batteries of hand-held cameras. The photographers were using the announcer as a test piece.
“More light!” shouted a voice from the gods.
“Right. I'll check that. Can you bring up the lights some more, Rudy?” In answer, the brightness increased by an impossible notch. “How's that?”
“Better,” shouted the voice.
“And the sound? How are you hearing me? OK? Good. Now, just a couple more words. Please make some allowance for the people on the stage. They are not professionals but they will be doing their best. Don't make their jobs more difficult.
“We've licensed a few roving cameras to move around the stalls. Just use your common sense and don't get in each other's way. I'd better leave, the Board will be here in a moment. Good shooting!” He strode off, again ignoring Priscilla.
Without a sound, Trehearne appeared at her elbow. “Hi,” he said, offering his hand. “I guess we're lambs for the slaughter today.”
She shook his hand without thinking. He felt strong and dry. It was a relief to have a human being recognise her. “Don't worry about all this,” he continued. “Just carry on as you were yesterday and you'll be fine.”
“I don't need your advice,” she said sharply.
“I know, I know. But it's nice to have some sympathy, isn't it? Now, where's my water? They've got water, and you too, but I'm meant to sit out there in the middle with nothing at all. I'll be back in a moment.”
He did not stay away long and returned to stand beside her in silence. A suspicion came into her mind, and she stole a sideways glance. No makeup; perhaps his tanned face did not need it. She began to regret not heeding Valerie's advice. A stage-hand appeared with an antique cake-stand and a water carafe. “You right-handed, Chief? OK.” He strolled out into the lights and set up the cake-stand.
“Right,” said Trehearne, smiling at her, “Let's go to it. Let me get settled and count to twenty before you come on. Break a leg!”
He patted her elbow and stepped onto the stage. With what appeared as complete composure, he made himself comfortable and sat looking out into the middle distance. Eighteen, nineteen, twenty. She moved out of the wings and sat at her table. She saw nothing beyond the foot lights, just a dark blur. Her knees trembled behind the velvet drape. She looked across at Trehearne and cherished his smile of encouragement.
The Board members entered from the other wing, fussing into their seats. Valerie's chair must have been set on a dais because she towered above the others. The Major's hairdo was everything she had feared. Tight little girl curls. It must have been her favourite style from childhood. Susan looked wan and reluctant.
Valerie wasted no time. “Members of the public, we reconvene the hearing on Foreign Affairs 1 written by John Trehearne. Our new venue will make no difference to the way in which I am going to conduct these proceedings, so I will ask the Investigator to start. Priscilla?”
Shakily, she rose and held up her notes. Today her remarks would be measured and planned. “Members of the Board, yesterday we heard three episodes from Foreign Affairs 1. They demonstrated quite clearly the warped and perverse nature of Trehearne's writing and his desire to use sexual fantasy to make money. The stories were distressing to hear, and I am afraid I must warn the Board that there is worse to come.”
An excited buzz rose from the audience as she changed note cards.
“Today's first story is a terrible example of two men abusing a woman for their own pleasure. Although the word is not used, in fact, what happens is no less than rape. May we start the recording please?”
An Evening at El Botanico
Tim enjoyed looking out of his window at the street below. He could hardly believe that places like this still existed. Crowded along each side of the narrow way, tiny white-washed town houses pressed one against the next, topped off with crazy roofs of red, Mediterranean-style channel tiles. Planted in the edge of the sidewalk, brown wooden posts supported tiled awnings. The shaded walkways gave the narrow street an unmistakably Latin American atmosphere. All it needed was a few poncho-clad gauchos with jangling spurs to complete the scene. As a concession to modern times, the road had been surfaced with hexagonal concrete pavé, but walking down the sidewalk still seemed like a step back in time, until you reached a corner and risked your life in the crazy traffic.
Young though he was, Tim had already been sent to a variety of places around the world searching for oil and minerals to exploit. Of all the places he had worked, Santa Cruz was definitely the most civilised. The difference lay not in the office work with maps, samples and aerial photographs. That was much the same as exploration anywhere, and a thousand times more congenial than the mechanical tyranny of working on a drilling rig. What made life so comfortable was that the evenings and weekends were so much fun. He had such a variety of things to do, and together with the locals and expatriate gringos, he threw himself into enjoying them. The small city boasted a galaxy of shops, restaurants and bars. It had a surplus of discos and night-clubs. Walking the streets in the evening was fun too, watching the self-consciously beautiful girls cruise slowly up and down with their friends.
Now that was something he had not sorted out in the month or so he had been in town. Finding a girlfriend. He could see plenty of attractive girls around. They made themselves very obvious. They dressed well and looked very good. They chattered to each other endlessly, laughing, calling out across the street with broad smiles and sparking eyes.
The very way the girls walked was calculated to stir a man's heart. Tim believed they must practice it, or perhaps Santa Cruz girls were just born with swaying hips. Whatever the reason, watching a retreating girl (who just knew you would have to keep watching after she had passed) was a world-class erotic experience.
It was the fashion that year to wear tight trousers, very tight trousers. So tight that there could be no room for anything but girl inside them, and the swaying display of curves and secrets was driving Tim to drink. If only he could reach them. His friend Vladimir, a fellow geologist from Brazil, seemed to have settled in very well. In the last month, he had run through a succession of girlfriends, each one more passionate and generous than the last. Perhaps it was simply being able to speak Spanish to them, but Tim suspected it had more to do with his Latin ego and the way the girls reacted to it.
Tim did not understand exactly how Vladimir managed his affairs. He said he just sat around in the Plaza, smiling at the girls, trying to talk to them, admiring their beauty until one would stop and perhaps lea
ve a note of her phone number. From then on, everything came easily. Santa Cruz had its own special motels, each set in secluded surroundings beyond the town edge. They existed solely for girlfriends.
This, too, fascinated Tim. The thought that a whole business sector had been founded on the town's desire to make love in secret amazed him. He wondered what sort of person owned such a motel. Were they respectable? Did they attend Rotary meetings?
Vladimir had no difficulties at all with the idea. If he picked up a girl who lived with her family, or persuaded a married secretary to spend her siesta with him, naturally they would need a discreet and congenial room in which to indulge in the pleasures of love. Of course he would have to pay for the service, and if people were prepared to pay, the business community would fill the need as a matter of course. Did not such places exist in England also?
Vladimir would not go to a motel this afternoon, however. He had taken pity on Tim's obvious incompetence in the field and, in return for some covering up Tim had done during one of his absences from the office, he had decided to take his English friend out to the botanical gardens and to introduce him to his latest conquest. The lucky girl, a secretary from Chile was (if Tim could believe Vladimir) very hot stuff indeed.
Soon Vladimir knocked at his hotel door and they set off together down the street. Tim's mind was still on the motels. “If there are so many motels, there must be enough business to keep them going, right? School-boys and youngsters don't have money, so it must be business people, older men, who are paying.”
“That is true. Most people who use the motels are not poor people.”
“But most of them must be married then.”
“Of course. Most businessmen are married. They take their girlfriends and secretaries.”
“But where do the women come from? Aren't they married too? There can't be enough single girls to go around. Unless they keep very busy. Or are there a lot of professional girls involved?”
“Professional girls? No, there are not many businessmen who are girls. In Latin America, the girls stay at home and look after their families.”
Vladimir could not understand what Tim was trying to say, so he tried again more directly. “I mean prostitutes. If the ladies are all at home taking care of their families, who is making love? Are a lot of the girlfriends professional? Are they getting paid for going to the motels?”
Vladimir laughed. “There are not many like that. Why should a man pay for it when there are so many girls who like to do it for nothing? Maybe one day I will take you to a casa de putas for your interest, but the best way is for you to find a girlfriend. She will be like a long-haired dictionary for you, and you will learn Spanish quickly. Once you speak Spanish, you can have many girlfriends.”
“Like you, you mean.”
“Yes, like me.” Vladimir was imperturbable.
For a while they walked in silence, avoiding the traffic and pedestrians. Tim had more questions about the society in which he was living. “How come there are so many beauty salons? It seems as if every other shop is a salon de belleza.”
“It is because the girls of Santa Cruz are very beautiful. Also very hot. They must look their best to catch their man and to keep the interest of their husbands. They must spend much time on their faces and their hair and much money on their clothes. They are very linda—what is the word in English?”
Tim searched in his pocket dictionary as he walked “Pretty? Lovely?”
Vladimir thought a little. “No. You do not say a steak is pretty. But a steak can be muy linda also.”
Tim consulted the dictionary again, but it had not been written by a connoisseur of female beauty. He fell back on his imagination. “Tasty? Is that the word you want?”
“Yes. Tasty. The girls of Santa Cruz are very tasty.”
“Are they good to marry?”
“I do not know. My wife, she is from Brazil, and the girls from Brazil are very good to marry. They make a good home for their man, and they cook very well.”
A wicked thought entered Tim's head, provoked by Vladimir's impenetrable self-confidence. “What does she do while you are away from Brazil?”
“She stays at home and takes care of our baby. She visits her mother in the day and at night, she comes home. But she says it is very boring and she is glad when I come home.”
Their walking had brought them to La Plaza, the tree-lined square in the centre of town. Here they would meet Dulcina, the hot Chilean secretary, on the steps of the cathedral. Tim was eager to see what sort of girl won Vladimir's favours. He was also keen to know if she had brought a friend.
When Dulcina appeared, he felt doubly disappointed. First, she came alone. And second, she looked rather ordinary. Vladimir, it seemed, was not narrow-minded about these things.
Dulcina was short, with frizzy black hair that could not be grown more than collar length, and her nose was prominent to say the least. Her body looked more interesting, her loose blouse being well filled. Below her tightly cinched waist, the generous curves of her hips and thighs were displayed rather than concealed by skin-tight blue jeans. In the end, it was her flashing smile and dark eyes that drew Tim's attention as she ran up to Vladimir. Without any attempt at coyness, she hugged him, and Vladimir made the introductions.
“She says that she is pleased to meet you and hopes that you will help her with her English.”
“Tell her to speak to me in English then.”
Translated, this brought a peal of laughter and yielded only, “How are you very fine thank you.” They crowded into a taxi and headed for El Botanico.
Dulcina chattered vivaciously as the taxi forced its way through the late afternoon traffic. She had a continuous flow of questions, translated by Vladimir, wanting to know about England, the cold and the people. She seemed to have no idea what the place was like, perhaps imagining it as next door to the California she knew from television. She was surprised that Tim had no girlfriend and promised to bring him one next time.
The taxi drew up at the gates of El Botanico. Beyond the white arch grew a near wilderness of dark trees shading a rough path. As they strolled along, they saw faded remnants of plant labels, relics of some by-gone scientist, exclusively in Latin and meaningless to them all. Dulcina could recognise some trees as living also in Chile—she was a country girl originally. Vladimir was hopeless and responded only to a strange, bottle-shaped tree with bark covered in fierce thorns, like those of a rose but much larger. Not a comfortable tree to lean on.
The unkempt path wound on through the trees until it suddenly opened onto a small tarmac road leading to an open-air cafe. During the weekend, and perhaps later in the evening, this must be a busy spot. Now, as the sun faded, they sat alone apart from a listless waiter who set their cold beers in front of them. Dulcina had lost all interest in her foreign visitor and was apparently recounting the day's events to Vladimir. Her voice blended with the piercing shriek of the cicadas and the throat-clearing of the tree frogs getting ready for their nightly chorus. Tim called for more beer and let his mind drift.
He returned with a start to find his friends preparing to leave. The sun had set, and the short tropical dusk had ended. “We go,” said Vladimir. “I must telephone to my wife.” They set off in the dark along an unlit path.
A short distance into the trees they came to a park bench beside the path. “You wait here, please,” said Vladimir. “We will go on a little and I will call you later.”
Bemused, Tim sat and watched them disappear into the darkness. The hubbub of the frogs and insects grew louder as the night closed around him. It had become very black under the trees. He could see his legs, but only as vague shadows. Experimentally, he held his hand up in front of his face and was disappointed that he could still see it. That would have been something to remember, truly not being able to see his hand in front of his face. He felt a bored with only the pinpricks of the fire-flies to look at.
Suddenly, his ears pricked up. Above the jungle noise
s he began to hear another persistent sound. As he listened, the pulses of sounds became clearer and more recognizable. He smiled to himself. He was listening to the unmistakable gasps and pants of a woman being thoroughly pleasured. Vladimir had not taken Dulcina far away before stopping to enjoy her.
Her panting grew harsher, and Tim was surprised at how quickly his sex stood up to listen. By the time her cries ran together in a climatic wail, it threatened to burst out of his trousers. He felt sick with frustration at being so near to the fun but not part of it.
The noise stopped, and only moments later Vladimir called him in a low voice. Tim set off to find them. His eyes straining to pick them out, he fumbled down the path until he saw the light of a cigarette. “Vladimir? Is that you? That all sounded very satisfactory.”
Vladimir laughed. “Yes, she is very hot.” He translated Tim's comment. Dulcina's reply seemed to surprise him, and he questioned her sharply. Still surprised, he turned to Tim. “She says you can have her too, if you want.”
Tim was shocked to the core, and for a moment heard nothing but his heart pounding in the silence. His cock bounded to attention again. “Er—you don't mind?”
“No. Why should I mind? If she wants you as well, that is her business.” Tim thought he heard a trace of sulkiness, but the blood rushing through his head set friendship aside.
“I go and wait for you. She will not take long.” As Vladimir moved away, Dulcina spoke to him again.
“She wants me to stay and translate your English.”
Feeling events overtake him, Tim stood dumbly and nodded. For once, Vladimir was also at a loss, not knowing how to start. Dulcina, however, knew just what she wanted. She pulled Vladimir along the path to a park bench, presumably the one on which they had just made love. Then she came for Tim, taking his hand and leading him behind the bench.
He put his arm around her shoulders, but Dulcina had no time for the courtesies of lovemaking. She was already fumbling with his belt buckle, pushing his trousers down on his hips and reaching for his lengthening sex. She hummed to herself and muttered as it stretched out in her hands. The touch of her hot fingers felt incredibly exciting as she reached down below and cupped him gently with both hands.
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