Each year, in a show of noblesse oblige, John Duncan, publisher of the Daily News and a member of the parish gentry -- for whatever that's worth -- put on the most extravagant Christmas party in newspaperdom. I got to attend two of them, but it's the first one that I remember best. That was where I met Diane, gorgeous wife of my editor, Elliot Barr.
Diane was pretty with a delicious shape and legs up to her armpits, Her reddish brown hair that made her green eyes even more alluring. She was of medium height with very large breasts. In other words, she'd give the pope an erection. She was also the third daughter of terribly wealthy Cajun businessman with social ambitions: the perfect wife for a Mississippi Rhett Butler.
Elliot was Mississippi middle class, which in the poorest of the 50 states was determined by family and profession, not by economics. At home he acquired a Southern speech that was slow, calm and lyrical, always grammatically correct and free of slang or profanity. At the University of Mississippi he acquired all the trappings of an arrogant and obnoxious fraternity boy. But, he was tall, athletic and good looking: the perfect husband for a Cajun Scarlet O'Hara.
John's party my first year began with cocktails at his huge house on the Feliciana Highway, and continued with this monster bacchanalia in the banquet room at Tony's Lodge, a few yards away via a lighted footpath that wound through oaks and reeds. The Lodge closed early that winter Sunday, allowing the cooks to concentrate on prime rib, turtle soup and crab dip for the Daily News, and the bartenders on pouring industrial quantities of whiskey and wine. There was a jazz band that could also do Rolling Stones and Louie Prima. Not well, but they tried.
That night, after four Maker's Marks, I decided I wanted to get in Diane Barr's pants. So, I asked her to dance. Of course, she had had a few belts herself, and when we danced it was terribly close. I moved my hand over her back looking for, and finding, that sensitive spot between the shoulder bades. I pressed her closer to make sure she could feel my emerging erection. She, probably even drunker than I, was soon snuggling at my neck. I really wanted to fuck her right on the spot, and I was hoping she was having similar ideas. But, when the music stopped, she jumped away, dropping my hand and rushing to the buffet table to talk to Peggy, the publisher's 30-year-old trophy wife.
Well, I danced with a few of the composing room girls and printers' wives. I tried a few times the same maneuver that seemed to have worked so well on Diane. I didn't get slapped in the face by the women or punched in the face by their husbands, but I certainly came close a few times. After one particularly close encounter, I went to take a break, drink coffee and smoke a cigarette in the dark, empty dining room. Well, it was not empty after all: Diane was there, taking a break, drinking coffee and smoking a cigarette. My imagination went into high gear.
"Thought I'd be alone," I said as I walked to where she was sitting. "Didn't mean to startle you."
"Well, you did," she laughed, loudly.
"Quite a party," I began, and for the next few minutes we swapped vacuous clichΓ©s about the noise and the crowd of drunken newspaper workers. "Would you like to dance, I asked. "There's no crowd here." She hesitated for a moment, knowing what would happen and trying to make up her mind.
"No shenanigans?" she said.
"No shenanigans," I replied.
And, so we danced in the dark, quiet dining room, closer and closer and closer. I began moving my hand up and down her spine, my fingers counting each vertebrae, from her neck to the tip of her ass.
"I thought we agreed, no shenanigans?" her lips said though her body disagreed.
"OK, I lied," and I cupped that delicious ass in my hand and pushed her toward my growing cock. Again, she snuggled at my neck, this time kissing so as to leave her mark. "Now, how am I going to explain this?" I asked.
"That's your problem." She began nibbling at my ear, her tongue moving through each and every crevice. Her teeth pulled at my ear lobe. I put my hand on an ample breast, and when she didn't object I began massaging, feeling the nipple grow through her sheer bra. I kissed her, a long wet kiss, more seductive than passionate. I wasn't sure if she was moved more by booze or by passion. I mean, after all, the husband was still in the next room. Soon, we stopped pretending to dance and just held each other, feeling our bodies tight and together. Heat. Sex. Each kiss was longer, wetter, hotter, I soon had my hand up her dress, and she was fumbling for my zipper, when we heard Emile, the Creole head waiter: "Mr. Jack, if you don't get straighten up, your ass and your smashed-in face gonna be back in New Orleans by sun up. "
We went back to the party as if nothing had happened. I quickly said my goodbyes, walked back to my ancient TR3 and undid the top -- a pantomime worthy of the Stooges -- in hopes the breeze would sober me up a little. It didn't work. I, of course, didn't put the top back up when I arrived at my apartment, and Nemesis, of course, had it rain all morning for me.