by Lou Cameron
He went to his quarters, caught a servant in the hall, and ordered a hot bath. While he was waiting, he peeled off his jacket arid shirt, sat under a ceiling fan with a handy Edison bulb mounted in its hub, and cracked open Lloyd’s little Voodoo book.
It read pretty silly, even to a man who’d met a zombie.
The French doctor who’d written it thought the priests of Mambo Jumbo used some unknown tropic plants to induce a deathlike trance in their victims. Breathing and vital signs faded to where even an M.D. might be fooled into signing a death certificate. So the semi-dead victims were buried, the Voodoo guys dug ’em up, and revived them.
So far, so good. But then the Frenchman suggested that the revived victims were kept in a trance with other drugs and made to slave for their Voodoo masters. They worked at night partly to keep their living relatives from spotting them, and partly because the drugs sensitized their eyes to sunlight. Zombies had just enough muscular control to carry out orders, not enough for reflexes like squinting in bright sunlight, etc. The good doctor said the Voodoo priests got a year or so of unpaid hard labor out of them before they died again for keeps, of malnutrition and the effects of the dangerous drugs.
Captain Gringo muttered, “Bullshit,” and ran that information through what the locals had told him. He didn’t see how a poor guy too doped up to squint at sunlight could charge and overwhelm a machine-gun crew, even badly positioned. Besides, the attack that afternoon had taken place in broad daylight and … wait a minute. It had been raining and the sky was overcast. Hmm.
The hall porter knocked on the door and announced that his bath was ready. Captain Gringo decided he’d better read some more in the tub. Maybe, just maybe, the French doctor who said he knew about zombies might have something after all.
A small shy mestizo let him in, when Captain Gringo knocked on the Burtons’ door an hour later.
She led him down a hall and past the dining room he spotted through an archway. The dining room was dark and the table hadn’t been set. They had said tonight, hadn’t they?
The serving girl led him into a back room opening onto the patio. Alice Burton was lounging on a couch by a small table piled with fruit, cold cuts, and a magnum of madeira. She was wearing a kimono of maroon silk. Thin maroon silk. As the serving girl left them, closing the door after her, Alice waved her guest to a seat on a hassock near the couch and said, “It’s cooler and less stuffy in here. Would you prefer to fuck or eat first?”
He sat down and answered gravely, “That’s the dumbest question I’ve heard in a long time, doll. But what about your husband?”
“What about him indeed? As you see, he’s not here. I thought we’d be more comfortable together if we got the sexual tension out of the way right off.”
He slid off the hassock to kneel over her and she calmly smiled up at him. He slid a hand inside the kimono as he bent to kiss her. She responded hungrily, and her tongue entered his mouth at the same time his fingers parted the thatch between her thighs. He felt her clit was already turgid, and her vagina was almost gushing. So he asked, with his lips against hers, “Shall I douse the lights?”
She sighed, “No. Just do it. I don’t like these long seduction scenes.”
He laughed and said, “I noticed,” and started ripping off his clothes. She unfastened her kimono and opened it in welcome as he mounted her. She looked better in the nude than he’d imagined and he was already frustrated, so his performance delighted her. She moved her perfect body expertly and suggested, “Prop yourself up a bit. I want to look down between us and watch you going in and out.”
He did as she asked and found it exciting, too. They both stared down at their pounding genitals and she said, “Oh, isn’t that beautiful? You have a lovely prick, Dick.”
He went as wild and came as fast as any man would at a time like that. Then he settled in for some serious screwing.
She licked her lips and said, “Oooh, I like what you’re doing. Don’t ever stop.”
He said, “I don’t aim to, but while we’re on the subject, that patio door is wide open, the lights are on, and you’re a married woman!”
She bumped teasingly and said, “A neglected married woman, thank you very much. You must have guessed by now that this is more than simple lust.”
“Oh? Are we talking about revenge?”
“I’m past caring that much. Charles only married me for my father’s money. We haven’t done this sort of thing for months.”
“Old Charlie must be crazy. You don’t mean he’s cheating on you?”
“Don’t slow down. I love it when you hit bottom. I don’t know what’s wrong with Charles, but I know my own needs. The servants say he’s been mucking about in the native quarter with some Dago wench. But he was rather disappointing on our honeymoon. I’ve always suspected he might be queer, if not impotent.”
“I like that better than cheating. It’s impossible for him to be getting anything better than this away from home.”
As he’d expected, she responded to the flattery by wrapping her legs around him and getting wilder. He’d said it to be polite, even though he knew Burton would have to go some to get better loving. Alice was a little unromantic in her approach to sex, but she was beautiful and a fantastic partner. He supposed it was like that old joke about the guy who’d been having filet mignon every night and wanted beans for a change. The cheating was cutting Alice up, despite her cool comments on it. Nobody liked to be used, and a beautiful woman needed even more reassurance when she felt rejected. She was less used to it than the rest of the human race.
So he made love passionately as well as skillfully, though it hardly took much effort with anyone so lovely in his arms. She sensed his sincere desire for her and responded harder. She screamed aloud in mingled pleasure and surprise and gasped, “Oh my God, I’m actually coming!”
He didn’t ask dumb questions and just pounded against her sobbing flesh. He knew she’d done this before, with God only knew who, and that up to now it hadn’t worked for her.
She sighed and said, “Jesus, you’re going to have a hard time getting away from me, Mr. Walker.” Then she throbbed her way down from heaven in time with his slow gentle thrusts.
He chuckled at her mock formality and said, “I wasn’t planning to leave you on somebody’s doorstep, Alice.”
“Do you love me? Would you do anything I say?”
He was too polite to laugh. He said, “It’s a little early to know, honey. At a time like this it would be very easy to say I loved you. I have too much respect for you as a person to say things I’m not damned sure about.”
“Pooh. I’ll bet you’ve said that before to someone else.”
It was true. She was too smart to be talking so dumb. He kissed her to shut her up and started moving faster.
She responded, but pleaded, “Let’s change positions. We’re getting sweaty rubbing tummies. I want to try it deep and dirty, doggie-style.” He said, “Okay, but let me turn out the damned lights.”
“Are you afraid you’ll blush to see my arse winking up at you?”
“Hell, I’ll shove it in there if you want. But the damned door is open and the whole fucking world can see us!”
“Nonsense, there’s a wall around the patio and Charles will come in the front way, if he comes at all.”
Captain Gringo got to his feet and Alice rolled over with a roguish laugh and peeled off the kimono. She braced her knees under her center of gravity and thrust her lovely rump up at him, saying, “As a matter of fact, Charles always comes in the front, when he can manage to come at all.”
He thought, “Boy, she’s really pissed off at her old man!” But that wasn’t his misfortune, so he placed a hand on each of her hip bones, and, standing upright, pulled her on like a tight wet sock. Her passion-flushed buttocks slammed against his own hip bones and she gasped with pleasure and moaned, “Oh yes, that’s the way I like it. That’s the way I need it. Slam it in as far as it will go and never stop.”
His distraction put Alice ahead of him and he wasn’t expecting it when she gasped and straightened her legs to fall forward. As they lost contact she sobbed, “Help! I’m coming, damn it!” So he followed her down, spread her cheeks with his hands, and got it in again as she gasped, “Oooh!”
He realized where he was too. But as he started to withdraw for a better aim she clamped down hard and moaned, “Leave it there! I’m … Oh Jesus!”
He came too. Neither moved for a few moments as her rectum throbbed around his shaft. Then she suddenly twisted out from under him and ran out of the room.
Careful not to soil the upholstery, he rolled over, and got to his feet. He bent down, got a kerchief from his crumpled pants and wiped himself reasonably clean. That open door was a pain, so while Alice was away he stepped over to do something about it.
But he had second thoughts as he stood naked in the doorway, staring out onto the patio. Alice had been right. There were three solid walls facing him with the usual glass shards imbedded in the stucco atop the walls. They were safer with the door open than if it suddenly burst open by surprise. There was another room opening onto the patio, but the small window was barred. Anyone aiming to surprise them in the act first would have to come over the wall and then drop down.
He moved back to the couch and Alice returned, totally unabashed by her nudity, and carrying a damp towel. She said, “That would be a nice way to fuck if it didn’t act as an enema. Sit down and let me clean you too.”
He did so and when she sank to her knees to wash him off, she smiled fondly at his erection. She said, “It’s still nice and hard,” and she squeezed him teasingly. He ran a hand through her golden hair and said, “Ladies built like you have that effect on me.”
So they made love again and Alice made him show her every position he knew, and he even thought up, or remembered, a couple of new ones. But all things must end, so they finally wound up sitting on the floor with their backs to the couch, sharing the cold cuts and wine.
Alice said, “As soon as we get our wind back I want to try it out on the patio under the stars.”
He said, “There are no stars. It looks like it’s going to rain some more.”
“All right. Let’s rut in the rain.”
He took a swallow of madeira and said, “Listen, this may be safe, but it’s making me nervous. Why don’t we go over to my quarters and, for Chrissake, lock some doors?”
Alice answered, “Heavens, my parents live right next door to the headquarters building and my mother tends to prowl at night. I’d die if she found out.”
“You don’t seem worried about your husband, doll.”
“Pooh, he’s not my mother. You see, my silly parents approve of Charles. I was more or less forced to marry the dumpy old thing.”
“You’re over twenty-one, Alice. Why do you stay with him if it’s as bad as you say?”
She popped a pickle in his mouth and sighed, “What choice have I? My parents are High Church and they’d disown me if I got a divorce. I’m really not cut out to be ‘play the typewriter or take in washing,’ and despite what you might think, I can’t give myself to just anyone, so that source of income is out.”
As he chewed and swallowed she fondled him and asked archly, “If I wasn’t so prim, do you think I’d make a good whore?”
“You’d make a fortune. But you’re right. You like it too much to peddle it. How the hell did old Charlie get in so thick with your folks? He’s a Yank, like me, and I didn’t think he was all that smart before I learned he was neglecting something like you.”
Alice shrugged and said, “Oh, he’s a jack-of-all-trades-and-a-master-of-none. So he’s useful to the company, in his own plodding way, and besides that, his family owns some shares in Pantropic.”
“Charlie’s rich?”
“His family is. They do something odd to pigs in Chicago, I think. They had a little trouble with Charles as a boy. He kept getting thrown out of schools for some reason. Anyway, when they invested in sugar they sent their black sheep to reform him, and my silly old father likes him for some reason. I seem to have been a bit of a worry to my family, too, though I can’t see why. Anyway, they more or less forced the two of us into this ridiculous marriage.”
“You mean he was drafted, too?”
“I don’t know what I mean. I suppose he thought it would advance his career. But I hardly remember if he proposed or if it was my father.”
Then she suddenly rolled over and sat in his lap, facing him with a thigh on either side of his hip and said, “The hell with the past. Let’s make tonight count!”
It was raining again when Captain Gringo walked through the dark of midnight. Alice had begged him to stay longer, but sleeping over would have been pushing it past common sense. He knew the servants would talk if he wasn’t in his own quarters when they came to waken him at dawn.
As he passed the infirmary, he saw a light in Mab’s window. He chuckled fondly and was about to walk on. Enough was enough and she’d had her chance. He didn’t think he could get it up right now with a block and tackle.
So why did the idea give him a tingle?
“You’re getting to be a dirty old man before your time,” he chided himself. But on the other hand, Mab was going to be sore as hell, and like the joke said, after filet mignon a bowl of beans tasted fine. He might need an alibi, too.
He went to Mab’s French window and tapped. The curtains parted and Mab peered out, nodded, and let him in. She was wearing a black lace nightgown and had let her red hair down. He noticed she was shorter and built rounder and softer than he remembered from their boat ride.
She said, “Oh my eyebrow, you’re soaked. Where have you been? I was beginning to think you’d never come.”
He grinned and said, “Coming was what I had in mind.”
She lowered her lashes and said, “I don’t know, Dick. If anyone found out …”
“Look, if it’s that upsetting to you, let’s forget it.”
“Well, I wouldn’t want to disappoint you after making you wait half the night, dear.”
So he couldn’t get out of it, and once he got into it, it was better than he’d expected. He naturally took a long time coming and it drove Mab wild. But once the first excitement was over, she started dithering about her reputation again, while he held her-in the dark in her old-fashioned bed. She said, “I’m trying to respond properly, darling. But I feel so low to be carrying on like this in front of the help.”
“Oh? I thought we were alone in here.”
“You know the servants always know what’s going on. By this time tomorrow night the whole town will know about us.”
“Look, Mab, the whole town is busy getting laid or trying too, if I’m any judge. Can’t you get it through your pretty head that nobody that matters gives a damn about us?”
“There are always gossips.”
“Sure there are. They gossip whether they know anything or not. Who listens?”
“That’s easy for a man to say! I remember this girl back home, when I was little. The things my mother and maiden aunt used to say—”
“Okay. I’ll nip back to my own trundle bed and make sure the hall porter spots me there in the cold gray light of dawn.”
“You won’t be angry, dear? We could do it again before you leave, but—”
“Maybe it’s better this way. Quit while we’re ahead and all that rot. Jesus, I’m starting to talk like these veddy veddy colonials. It must be catching.”
He sat up and started to get dressed, so naturally, she suddenly wanted more. But he was tired as well as a little pissed, so he kissed her good-night and ducked out into the rain before she could fuck up their heads further.
He was really dragging by the time he at last got into his own bed. He’d intended going over the charts of the company holdings on the island before he turned in, but that had been a million years and two women ago. He’d worry about setting up better defenses in the morning. Nobody was going to burn anything in all this rain. So the natives didn’t figure to attack until things dried off for a spell. If they did, it was still Burton’s problem. So far he hadn’t agreed to do anything but check the guns. There was nothing wrong with the fucking guns.
He slipped naked between the cool linen sheets and was asleep in minutes. He might have stayed that way indefinitely. But as he was just getting into an interesting dream he suddenly became aware that he was no longer alone in bed.
Captain Gringo opened his eyes in the dark as a hand gently fondled his shaft. He was surprised about that, as he was at the erection it was producing. He lay still until he got his bearings. The door and window had been locked when he turned in. But there seemed to be a naked lady in bed with him. She snuggled closer and he asked quietly, “Are you sure you’re in the right room, honey?”
His invisible bedmate tittered and replied in a whisper, “Don’t raise your voice, dear boy. It’s almost morning and the servants may be stirring.”
She rolled atop him and as he automatically embraced her he felt that whoever in hell she was, she had a nice body. But he couldn’t place her. She didn’t feel or sound like Mab or Alice. He’d heard of musical cunts, but this was getting ridiculous!
The unseen woman settled onto him and sighed, “Oh, nice. I was so afraid I was sacrificing myself to the usual banalities. But you really are quite nice in bed.”
He started thrusting up to meet her. But he frowned and asked, “Did you say sacrifice, doll? What are you, some kind of a religious nut?”