Lap of Luxury

by Lisa-Ann Carey

“Sure did.”

  “It’s gorgeous.”

  Throbbing Australian country music captured the mood of courteous companionship as they were greeted with hugs and kisses all round except that Ann-Marie they were told was still showering.

  The roaring stone fireplace in the kitchen, to look at, took one back to a previous generation keeping the inside of the house feverishly warm.

  Josef removed the girl’s shawls and hung them on the inside of the linen closet door against the wall to the left of the fireplace. Rachel lay back against the colourful cushions on the padded velvet seat of the reading niche beside the fireplace, reading aloud a nursery book called Bedtime Tales.

  John walked up to her carrying the babies, they squealed excitedly, opening and closing their hands, John bent down and let Rachel kiss their cheeks.

  “Any funny parts to chuckle at sweety?” John asked Rachel, squeezing beside her with the wriggly bubs.

  She pointed to a picture in the middle of the book and read him the words above it, “The shaggy black toy dog combed his moustache over his mouth and brushed his bushy eyebrows until they stuck out all over his face. He is quick on his feet and very, very playful Mr. Hare so watch out for the Monkey Dog he is as bold as a bear,” and chuckle they did. Josef had started her on home education early.

  The walls were Jacaranda blue and the exposed beams of fir smelled coniferous. A fresh floral fragrance of freesia took over the air as Ann-Marie bounced in to the all-in-one kitchen and dining room area unclothed and barefoot.

  Her eyes caught John’s surprising him with, “Don’t tell me Doctor, but this has been a long held fantasy of yours to see your neighbour with her shoes off.”

  “He’s not the only Doctor here, you should be shackled, ankles and wrists.” Her nakedness rubbed LisaAnn up the wrong way.

  She ignored the comment.

  Mouths watering, the twins stared at her small upturned boobs while Rachel chuckled and pointed, “Look daddy Ann-Marie forgot to put her dress on.” Josef slammed the lid back on the simmering pot of Osso Bucco and stormed across to where she stood yelling, “Have you lost your mind as well as your clothes? In case you haven’t noticed we do have guests, now come with me you funky beach-babe and cover up your dirty details!” They left the room with great speed.

  “Don’t worry Rachel naughty girls like her fail miserably trying out for the Mickey Mouse Club,” John stated walking her and the twins over to the lounge room. Rachel laughed her head off.

  With a look of disappointment on her face LisaAnn turned to her stunned uncle and said, “I think that style was too strong for her don’t you think Uncle Marsh?”

  “I thought it looked a bit cheap actually,” he answered her they giggled softly then looked through some House and Garden magazines as they lounged on the peach velvet corner sofa.

  Anxious thoughts began to rule LisaAnn’s mind like a controller. What a corrosive twist in my tale, the slut who had an affair with my old man had brought into this world yet another sluttish trollop with the same brainless talents as her, yet similar looks to mine, how repulsive, LisaAnn’s mind entertained.

  The painful part was, just what was she to do with the secret she was browbeaten to keep. What kind of a sick person would use this type of information as a weapon to gain power over part of her own flesh and blood? She thought further.

  Practically overnight Dr. John Wright had become her staunchest and sincerest friend, then soon after, the warmest lover a girl could ever have.

  Suspicion arose inside of LisaAnn as to why all of a sudden Ann-Marie had this change of heart. After all she’d had the term illegitimate mongrel thrown in her face the minute the truth came out. Could she be trusted? “She must not have heard us arrive,” LisaAnn said trying hard to smile.

  John returned an affectionate smile saying very little at this point.

  LisaAnn itched to examine Ann-Marie during the course of the meal to discover as much as she could about her upbringing and her aspirations, to try to trick her into self-confession but decided at the last minute least said quickest mended.

  After the initial shock wore off out came the lady of the night, this time dressed a little better in a gold glomesh full length gown with a revealing side split and a soft halter-neck upper bodice, two quarter moons rising toward the heavens and a pair of strappy sandals all-a-glitter. Her hair was bunned at the top, the way her mother would wear hers but Ann-Marie braided the sides tonight and had pinned them up with the ends meeting in the centre in a kiss curl.

  Typical, LisaAnn thought.

  “Let me help you set the table Josef?” asked LisaAnn walking over to the kitchen to retrieve the Wedgewood Chinese rose dinner set from the glass fronted cabinet. He looked at her with contented expression telling her with joyful voice, “My mother gave me that set for my last birthday it has been in the family for years.”

  Jayne wandered over mentioning how elegant she thought it was too. Together they laid out the set on a bone coloured crocheted tablecloth. A stemmed glass of Stuart crystal was placed on a silver coaster near the crockery and a majenta coloured cloth napkin beside each knife.

  “Ann-Marie be a useful darling and fill the glasses with chilled red grapejuice,” Josef ordered.

  She flashed John a dazzling smile and performed the task with wiggling hips.

  The smell of the meaty gravy floated around the room as Josef carried the open clay pot to the centre of the table carefully positioning it on the grey marbled pot-stand.

  Rachel rolled a colourful rubber ball along the pale pine floor until it bounced gently against the tall timber kickboards at the base of the floor cabinets.

  Josef hung the padded oven mitts neatly by the stove then heaped large portions of the casserole onto the decorative plates.

  The now cranky twins were pushed gently into the double cedar and pine highchair Josef and John had whipped up in the woodworking workshop for the nights they came to dinner.

  Under the dim lights John’s eyes danced from time to time. Ann-Marie watched with delight his robust chin swing up and down with every bite.

  Rachel eventually made it to the table picking at her meal like a sparrow until John choo-choo trained teaspoonfuls of the soft meat and vegetables into her little cakehole. She helped LisaAnn feed Joey-John and Lisa-Marie cooled gravy trying out their new baby teeth on the well-cooked meat.

  Jayne enjoyed two helpings and a double portion of light blackberry cheesecake for dessert. Rachel was busy stabbing her knife into the cheesecake repeating over and over, “Mommy made this,” but she knew all too well Ann-Marie had prepared it.

  Each time Rachel mentioned the word mommy Ann-Marie replaced it with her name until in total annoyance Rachel screeched, “You are not my mommy, you are a bad lady who followed my daddy from town!”

  Ann-Marie wiped her lips with the napkin then excused herself and ran out the door telling everyone she needed a moment by herself in the fresh night air.

  Off toward the Wright’s home she ran stressed to the eyeballs, when she reached the porch she noticed the open window and climbed through. Disgusted with the wretched child and jealous of LisaAnn she rushed toward the master bedroom, so comfortable, so nicely arranged as if nothing had ever gone wrong for her in her life.

  “Ooh a handsome naked man,” escaped the words as she lifted the sterling-framed photograph of John from the bedside table. She placed her long fingers on his ample butt, attracted to his soft colouring and sparkling emerald eyes. His presence relaxed her.

  A bundle of overseas envelopes slipped out of the bundle of treasures stored in the open safe behind the picture, they fell at her feet.

  There was total peace as she thumbed through the letters, the diary. “TOGETHER WE’VE MASTERED THE PAST, TOGETHER WE’LL MASTER THE FUTURE!” she read all the juicy bits then said aloud, “Over my dead body, so that’s your weakness you suffer from Melancholia because your father abused you. You bloody liar my father would never have treated you that
way and he certainly would not have murdered your Mother, your aunt was lying, your crazy mind conjured up this silly story, my mother never laid a finger on your Mother. You just made up this story so that sympathetic Doctor John Wright would feel sorry for you.” Every sexual experience she had with John, Ann-Marie pawed over. She got a strong feel for what he most enjoyed, his favorite positions etc, she would see to it that he show her his best moves. “With all the power in me I’ll trick him into demonstrating just what a fuckle feels like.”

  Josef had told her about the death of LisaAnn’s correspondent Terrance Molakai. “I would have hung onto his letters if he had been mine, sis, this I’ll overlook.”

  Soon the dinner would be over, with no time to look at the video she neatly placed the paperwork back into the safe and hot-footed it back to Josef’s place, now knowing that bit more about the man she had the hots for, her half-sister’s man. On the way the last entry she had read flashed through her mind, “So PT-141 was the substance that made you sexually attracted to Mr. Bardot. I must get me some at the chemists tomorrow,” she whispered to the hooting owls, “and then John will be like a puppet in my hands, he’ll do everything I want him to,” she told herself lastly before walking through the door.

  When asked where she had been she simply told them she’d taken a stroll around the island. John had mentioned he wanted to continue organizing the plans for the Pharos the next day and trusted Marshall-Justus and Jayne to take good care of LisaAnn and the babies. Josef and Rachel would be there also they reassured him.

  John told them he would be working back until nine, tomorrow night.

  Perfect, thought Ann-Marie, a chance to make my move.

  The next day toward late afternoon Ann-Marie wandered around the City Mall then purchased a bottle of PT-141 from the chemist and made a bee-line toward the clinic in Josef’s Ute arriving at six p.m., John had just finished a hamburger and a box of chips.

  About two-thirty that afternoon he had telephoned a few Architects to organize some quotes for a professional layout of the rough plan he had made for the Pharos Lighthouse. He arranged for them to meet with him at different times the coming Friday at his Moreton Bay Outpatient’s Clinic.

  At six o’clock he also made a telephone call to the island to check that his family were happy, well and safe, and they were, he blew them a kiss over the phone and said see ya later.

  Ann-Marie sat in the Ute at the end of the Hospital carpark stuffing her face with Kentucky Fried Chicken washed down with Mountain Dew, not in the least bit nervous about her surprise interview with Doctor Cupid. She checked to make sure the bottle of PT-141 was safely stashed away inside her bag then waited for a half an hour listening to a CD of Led Zeplin.

  Francia Fuch’s file lay open on his office desk. He had seen her earlier in the day for assessment. Her mother was worried about her retrogressive conduct. She had been reared connected to her mother in a close manner, yet also roused by her father and handled in an enticing way, surrendering her chastity to him. As she grew into an adult he blamed her for her germinating sexuality. In her fantasies, John wrote, the sexual conduct of my patient who possesses a nervous affection within her personality trifles with love. In reality there exists sexual fear and frigidity and a glaring masculine protest towards older males. Beneath her incited attention-getting behaviour towards myself lies an impelling reliant need to adhere herself to a young affectionate father-figure.

  Is a social butterfly yet responds to frustrations in reality badly. Is lippy, emotionally suffers unreasonable changes of opinion, and prone to emotional outbursts.

  Her desire of indiscriminate admiration, gratification of desire and selfishly desirous attitude are associated with theatrical behaviour, and exhibitionism, which lead me to conclude possible accomplishment of her wishful vagary of the imagination turns on her extreme agitation. Her active fantasy life is filled with persuasions of the environment into touchy and sexual preoccupations, which increase beyond due limits her agitation leading to tension. She is confused as to whether she is a child or a woman. Impelled towards sex yet fearful of this, persistently seeks through seductive conduct to achieve security and power substitutingly through the passionate attraction of a man to herself, secretly competitive against men, as a means of conquering them and debarring women from fellowship with herself.

  Her seductive behaviour towards myself covers both an aggressive element and a wish for a dependent childish relationship. Appears at times both shy and highly competent in actual social life due to the fact that she is active and winning. According to her mother she avoids and is uncomfortable with the methodical and the correct. At home with father her behaviour is frequently thought of as childish and helpless due to constant mutterings of her feelings towards her Doctor, recommended dosage of St. John’s Syrup: One mL in twenty mLs of water B and D, mother suggests no less than three weeks Hospitalization. Bed booked as from Friday September 22. Nine a.m.

  In walked Ann-Marie just as he closed the file, his door he had left open.

  “Hello Ann-Marie what can I do for you?”

  “Heaps I hope,” she really turned on the waterworks.

  “Take a seat,” he told her closing the door gently.

  “My ties of shallow intimacy with Josef have turned into a brittle relationship.”

  His jaw dropped, his eyebrows arched as he asked, “How ugly could your relationship be and why?” he handed her a tissue.

  “Apt to break, fragile, transitory and insecure because our sex life is boring.” Through observation she knew that this man could give great sex.

  “So you have approached me for a little tuition on the subject.” He crossed his right leg over his left leg and loosened his tie a little.

  “Yes, I’ll tell you straight, I don’t feel anything when Josef makes love to me. I beg you to teach me some special techniques.”

  “Would LisaAnn be able to help you?”

  “Oh no!” she told him nervously, “I’d much prefer you to educate me on the birds and the bees, so I can understand Josef better.”

  “Just because I wear a white shirt, tweed jacket and a kindly smile, doesn’t make me a sex Guru.”

  “From what I’ve seen honey, you could write ten books on the subject.”

  “What do you mean, what you’ve seen?” he asked shuffling in his chair.

  “I have a confession to make. After the Box Turtle wedding I followed you and your sexy wife.”

  “But I thought you were just bird-watching?”

  “I was baby, watching your bird and you go all the way on your yacht.”

  “You shouldn’t spy on us. How would you like it if we spied on you and Josef?” he asked her angrily.

  “Johnny you’d fall asleep from sheer boredom, that’s why I came to listen to you lecture me on sexual intercourse,” she dragged out the last two words, “So I can teach my Josef a few hints. You want to see our relationship blossom and thrive don’t you?”

  “Wouldn’t it be proper for you to wait until after marriage to do it?”

  “I’m too young for a life-long commitment.”

  “Loyalty is important, comicality is necessary and regular verbal intercourse is valuable in order to keep the relationship healthy.”

  “But there’s a dying silence in the bedroom Doc?”

  “So you’re tired of the hush and you want to flush n’ blush.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “You’re after some tips on Curative Coitus.”

  “I just want to know how to give and take great sex.”

  “Well you’ve come to the right fellow. So what’s the snag with your catch?”

  She reached into her bag for a bottle of Napoleon’s Lapis fragrance and squirted the lowest part of her plunging neckline. His nose twitched as he described the scent, “It smells like a balmy thicket.”

  “You want a balmy thicket?” she lifted up her short dress, ripped off her maroon satin knickers and sprayed her tangled thick
et, her vagina captivated his total interest, in his mind he compared it with LisaAnn’s plump peach slices then promptly commanded she put her panties back on and that it didn’t tempt him in the least.

  “You are a spicy shiela Ann-Marie.”

  “The snag with my catch you feisty fiddle-faddler is that he is quite a touchy creature between the sheets.”

  “Dear, if he enjoys playing a tune with a fiddle what the devil are you doing here telling me your sex romps lack romance? I think you are pulling my penis.”

  “I wish I was. What I’m trying to tell you is that he is so sensitive he believes he is a top-notch lover while all the rest are below average. He almost faded away when I strongly suggested his mode of performance with his dull sex act needs a lot of work.”

  “Big mistake lady, you pulled the plug on his sexual power,” he explained shaking his head.

  “How do I repair the damage?”

  “If you don’t explain it to him and help him with it you’ll be forever making love mechanically.”

  “With a machine?”

  “Yes, you’ll be forever making love to a dildo darlin’.

  Believe it…or not!”

  “He just slips it in and slips it out. I don’t feel a thing. I tell him his tool is faulty and that my vibrating cock really hits the spot.”

  “Whatever you do don’t point out his imperfections, there is nothing more crushing.”

  “What should I say to him when he is trying his darndest to turn me on?”

  He looked at her with eyes wide, “Talk muddy. I’ll let you in on a little secret.”

  “I adore secrets and I’m good at keeping them.”

  “Well, LisaAnn has a filthy little name for the action of rubbing the tip of my penis on her tender clitoris.”

  “Tell me, tell me,” she begged desperately.

  “It’s called a fuckle, get it?”

  “Oh I get it, like screw me, screw me.” She reached into her bag for the PT-141 and sprayed his nostrils then hers, jumped onto his lap, feeling his solidity and screaming for him to demonstrate just what a fuckle feels like. “I’m such a slow learner it may take a few attempts.”