The Courts of Pleasure

Chapter 12: The Patron Pursues His Pleasures of Passion.

The Patron, finishing the last of his dinner and relaxing with his glass of Chardonnay, viewed these beauties dawdling upon the monitor before him, their images life-size in the screen.

The Patron sipped the wine with more than satisfaction. The display this afternoon with the three guys had been all that he had hoped for. This recording would be a treasure, a new entertainment at the next soiree.

Most interestingly Sarah had shown herself as a woman well versed in the Shakti positions, undoubtedly she was a disciple of Tantric sex. He had marveled at the delicious strength, mobility, and suppleness of her pelvis and thighs in her movements upon Stephen's huge phallus, the aggressive energetic eagerness of her thrusts upon him. Much might be expected of her. And as for the girl Vivienne, her own display of youthful lust for anal invasion added a nice piquancy to the entertainment. She was a Shakti, like Sarah, full of spontaneous vibrations that could lead to pure bliss when released. She would be a delight as well when added to the menu for the Connoisseurs. The Patron studied them thoughtfully for some moments. Such lovely, skilled, and enthusiastic amateurs were even more satisfying than the professionals when it came to entertainment. He turned, spoke into his intercom and left the room, leaving the huge display of monitors to record the endless intimacies of Bountiful Towers.

Evening had descended upon Bountiful Towers as Sarah and Vi emerged from their bath and stood by their windows in soft white robes watching the last streaks of light in the sky and the shadows filling the garden below

This room was more like an art supply store than a workplace. Every conceivable painter's aid lay before her. The easel was a magnificent affair. A rack held a variety of stretched canvases and she pulled one out and held it before her. The gray-white mat surface pulled at her and she placed it on the easel staring at it disconsolately. The taboret loaded with brushes stood invitingly beside the easel. In a way her hands itched to handle the brushes but the inspiration was lacking, her muse was busy elsewhere.

A strange foreign mood had overcome her. Somehow the commission and The Court seemed very far away. She had a memory of her urgency to connect with them but the necessity of it was fading into a comfortable indifference to such things.

The pleasures surrounding them seemed to be increasingly all that was important right now. She wondered if Vivienne felt the same way. She must remember to ask her. Sarah leaned against the window and gazed aimlessly into the depths of the dark garden below as Vivienne came to her.

"Where do you suppose they are," Vi muttered.

"Cliff and Zack? Down there fucking their heads off like we were this afternoon," Sarah answered.

A gentle tap on the door interrupted them. The supper cart had arrived. But this time it was accompanied by a pair of young women every bit as seductive as the young hunks who had brought them their lunch. The girls were garbed as the boys had been, in white vests and trousers that offered their bodies in the same tempting display that the young men had achieved with their costumes.

"Compliments of The Patron," the pretty young woman with a mane of glorious red hair cascading down her back said as she offered a large folio volume in a rich leather binding.

"We'll serve ourselves tonight," Sarah replied.

The tall brunette with the smoldering eyes and pouty lips wheeled the cart to the table by the windows while Vi accepted the book. "As you wish ma'am. Is there's anything else?" "We'll ring," Sarah finished and the girls left. "I'm famished," she groaned as they settled to the meal. "What's in the book?"

"Can't you guess?" Vivienne smiled.

"Dirty pictures," Sarah offered sanguinely attacking the savory broiled salmon before her.

"Erotica," Vi corrected her. "

Speaking of which would you be interested in visiting The Baths tonight?" Sarah proposed. The tour that the guys had given them yesterday had touched on the Baths but they had seen little of what was offered.

"Why not," Vi shrugged. "What did you have in mind?"

"To see what we can see," Sarah answered noncommittally. "What shall we wear?"

"I've got my eye on that sheer ankle length indigo rayon dress with the high halter neck. The one with the open back and the flare at the hem and those rows of gorgeous damask roses on the bias."

"Oh yes, Vi. You'll look smashing with your long dark hair. I can't wait to see you in it!" As soon as they finished their meal they left the table and found the dress. "Well if you're going to wear that then how about if I wear this?" Sarah pulled out the pale gold silk ankle length off-the-shoulder dress with the print of bamboo leaves over the left breast and on the bias down the right leg to the hem. We'll be the talk of the forum in these numbers," Vi crooned.

An hour later they studied the dramatic and elegant effect of their appearance in the bank of mirrors by the bed. The fit of the dresses outlined their shapes but only hinted at all the enticing details beneath. The simple sheath harmonizing beautifully with the honey gold tints of Sarah's hair, left her right shoulder bare, its pale gold over her bosom shading off into white over her hips and merging again into pale gold below her knees. The effect was to subtly direct attention to her loins in the front and her buttocks in the back while keeping them chastely concealed. And the spray of bamboo leaves over her bosom hinted nicely at the curves of her breasts. The effect was similar for Vivienne. The rows of deep indigo roses against the paler background molding on the bias across her breasts, her hips, her loins, her thighs, and her calves offered a muted symphony of her charms.

"Well let's see what else this place has to offer," Sarah muttered as she touched the intercom button and summoned the young women attendants to guide them to the Baths. ****

Vavosar Feake hunched over the wheel of his car and stared disconsolately at the dismal aspect of Ryker Park. The stake-out was a bust. No one resembling the women in Trapnell's transmission had appeared. He glanced down at the photos of Katia and Denise on the seat for the hundredth time. He didn't even know why he was here. There was no warrant out for them anyhow, unlike the Murdock woman.

He would have left hours ago if it hadn't been for the tape of the shoe-store sting Trapnell had just sent him. He had played it and replayed it on his car's monitor. That Sarah Murdock would be well worth whatever it took to find her for sure. He glanced again at Sarah's photo beside the girl's. If the Cornucopians didn't want her he knew who did. She would fetch a fine price in quarters that Trapnell knew nothing of.

In fact the tape of Sarah Murdock had whetted his own appetite in many ways. Feake chewed his lip in frustration. There was no way the woman could just disappear along with her husband from the apartment in Southshore and not turn up somewhere else. But she sure as hell wasn't going to turn up in this god-forsaken dump.

The evening seemed even gloomier here under all these damn trees and narrow old streets. There was still light in the sky but the houses were almost lost in the shadows, the park an impenetrable wall of darkness.

His hand reached for the ignition, there was no way he was going to see anyone now. Suddenly a pair of headlights stabbed through the gloom off to his right. He watched the beams flickering distantly through the trees, growing more distinct as the car pulled out onto Ryker from a driveway that he had totally missed.

The car, an expensive late model Webster, turned onto Ryker and passed directly in front of him but it was impossible to see the driver. Feake nudged his car into motion, crept out onto the street and cruised past the park to where the obscured driveway turned off and led into the woods. Picking up the flash-light he aimed its beam through the trees and there, barely visible, was a dark decrepit little house with a long garage beside it.

Odd, he thought. You could put eight cars in that shed, and who would own a 2070 Webster in this trashy neighborhood? Feake licked his lips and let his car coast to a stop in the shrubbery. Silence and darkness surrounded him as he watched and waited.

Coverly cruised down the street, the anxiety that had assailed him all day settling into determination. The failure of Vivienne and the Murdocks to return to The Court last night without sending him word was utterly incomprehensible. Katia and her dancers had not seen them after the reception and Orcutt's cryptic message had only raised his misgivings. He was determined to go to the Towers and know for himself that they were all right. The feeling that something was deeply amiss haunted him.

****

When the girls arrived at the suite to conduct Sarah and Vivienne to the Baths they had exchanged their vests and trousers for simple loose, high-wasted, sleeveless, linen dresses with square necklines and deep side slits. The pale cream of their costumes offered a harmonious setting for the dramatic elegance of Sarah's and Vi's dresses, and they made a striking quartet making their way to the Baths. The lush ripeness of Sarah and Vivienne played handsomely against the fresh youth of these girls in their late teens. Sarah studied the way the girl in front of her had combed her dark hair back in a twist leaving generous bangs over her forehead. As if sensing Sarah's attention she turned her head and smiled. "My name is Maya. If you like I will be your attendant this evening."

There was a smoldering sensuality in her soft brown eyes under her fine well-shaped eyebrows, and she had an extraordinarily lovely mouth with a generous upper lip curving delightfully over the whiteness of her teeth and the inviting fullness of her lower lip, a mouth made for loving Sarah decided. Her face was slim with high cheekbones, a straight classic nose, and a small chin that dimpled beneath the fullness of her lower lip. Maya was taller than herself with a long slim neck and delicate shoulders. Except for her slim bare back her figure was concealed in her loose creamy dress. "Thank you Maya," Sarah replied. "I've never had an attendant before. I'm looking forward to it." Maya silently tossed another of her lovely smiles over her shoulder to Sarah.

"And I am Lisa, " the redhead offered with a toss of her luxuriantly abundant chestnut curls. Definitely taller than Vi, her green-blue eyes glanced mischievously from beneath her finely arched brows and she laughed with an almost impudent gaiety. In repose her mouth curved sumptuously, her lower lip full and broad under the luscious high curves of her upper lip. She had a high forehead and high cheekbones that tapered to her round chin. Her neck had an energetic strength to it that contrasted with the delicacy of her shoulders, and like Maya her figure was concealed by the drape of her dress. "So what can we expect at the baths, Lisa?" Vivienne queried.

"Well, everyone goes there most every day to socialize," Lisa glanced back. "There's games if you want to exercise, and masseurs if you want a massage, and then when you're ready to bathe we go to the Tepidarium where the air is quite warm, and after that to the Calidarium where the air is hot, and then to the Laconicum, which is like a sauna where you really sweat. After that we take a warm bath and wash with a good soap. And then we go the Frigidarium and cool in the water. And if you feel like it you can take a swim in the Natatio.

Then we oil our skins to keep them soft. Afterwards if you like games you can play chess or cards, or you can visit the gallery upstairs and the libraries and the reading rooms. There are rooms for music and poetry and teaching, and for...other things..." Lisa tossed another one of her generously impudent smiles at them and raised her neat brows knowingly, "...and best of all the Baths are where you learn all the gossip and all the naughty scandalous things that are going on here in the Towers."

Her clear laugh embraced them as Maya added, "And it's where everybody flirts and you meet the most delicious people." The girls exchanged glances and giggled. The glance that passed between Sarah and Vivienne was of surprise and pleased expectation that turned to awe as they passed into the Thermae from its grand entrance. Before them a beautiful mosaic floor in an intricate pattern of crescents led to a magnificent arch that stretched three stories above them to the vaults of the ceiling, and beyond the arch shimmered the cool waters of the Frigidarium.

Bathers strolled about the spacious room into which they had entered in every manner of dress other than bathing suits. The women wore dresses long and short; the men robes, tunics, or shorts. They stood in couples and groups chatting and watching, and when Sarah, Vi, and the girls entered all heads turned to them. "Now we begin the baths and the Tepidarium is first," Lisa announced leading them to its warm ambiance. The room was large and filled with bathers but there were little alcoves and chambers here and there and when they found one that was empty they slipped into it.

"May I help you out of your dress, ma'am?" Maya offered.

"If you like, Maya," Sarah responded submitting to the pampering with pleasure as the girl carefully lifted Sarah's dress and slipped it off over her shoulders, observing Maya's appreciative appraisal of the revelation of her body, noting that Vivienne was undergoing the same pampering under Lisa's hands and eyes.

Now it was the girls' turn to offer the revelation of their bodies and Sarah and Vi were equally bold in looking these young women over as they shed their dresses.

For all her delicacy Maya was a low slung round-breasted beauty with lilting upturned nipples. She dropped her gown and stepped out of it with an easy erect grace, her body tanned to a light bronze, fresh with the firmness of youth. She carried a neatly trimmed little swirl of hair upon her mons that formed a lovely accent for the graceful roundness of her thighs and calves. The red tints in Lisa's chestnut hair bloomed as well in her rosy fair skin and in the little flat tuft she had left upon her delta. Smaller breasted than Maya her nipples were as generous but paler. She was long through the belly and loins. The focus in her figure centered upon her generous sex, and in all her movements it was if she was offering her loins to the viewer.

"We're ready for the Caladarium," Maya laughed with a gesture at the arch opening before them, offering her hands to Sarah. She took the girl's hands in hers, Lisa seized Vi's hand and together they entered a huge round chamber where the dry air was noticeably hotter. Here the bathers sprawled in the dim light on long couches in various stages of undress, though none as naked as themselves.

Sarah's eyes roamed the room, following the huge marble columns up to the round vault of the unbelievably ornate lighted ceiling above where a gorgeous fresco of nude nymphs entwined in an eternally erotic embrace. The artist, a superb craftsman, had left no caress to the imagination. Every erogenous zone, every embrace of the mouth, the breasts, the vulva, the buttocks were offered for the viewer's inspection and delight. The scene was one enormous display of female sexual excitement and gratification.

Casting her gaze about this huge circular room Sarah observed the bathers reclining in the heat, many engaged in embraces mirroring those upon the ceiling, others reclined quietly, simply soaking up the warmth. On the couches next to them a woman reclined on her back, while another seated beside her gazed adoringly into her eyes, while yet a third gazed with rapt desire at her companions.

A pair of empty couches beckoned ahead of them and Sarah was well aware of the heads turning to appraise their naked charms as they made their way through the crowd of loungers to the feast of lesbian love with these luscious beauties escorting them.

*****

Just beyond the walls of the bathrooms the cool waters of the Frigidarium rippled with the movements of the bathers. Orcutt stood in the grand archway scanning the crowd for The Patron's guests. Patiently he sorted through the familiar faces and figures without success.

Vivienne Valienti, Sarah Murdock and the girls were in the Clidarium of course, they'd been there for over an hour already and by looks of things on the monitors they'd be there a lot longer. But it wasn't the women he sought. They were well occupied and that was what mattered.

It was the men he needed but he only knew what one of them looked like. This lapse in security was most distressing. Murdock had been well tracked but Zack Herman had simply disappeared and of course no one knew what he looked like since he had arrived disguised as Hermes. Most oddly no unaccounted for strangers had appeared amongst the other newly arrived guests of which there was quite a number. Orcutt sighed with discontent. Zack Herman was the one he most wanted. Perhaps he and Murdock were in the Natatio. Orcutt paced his way to the swimming pool and there he soon spied Murdock's bright blonde head bobbing in the embrace of two young ladies. A nubile young lass stood conveniently at the edge of the pool and Orcutt commandeered her to fetch Murdock. Moments later they stood face to face.

"Mr. Murdock I trust you are enjoying yourself?" Cliff nodded. "Have you seen Mr. Herman?"

Cliff shook his head. "Not since last night. But of course I've been... occupied. In fact I haven't seen Sarah or Vi either."

"I know," Orcutt replied disingenuously "the Towers are so vast and the entertainment's so engrossing that it is easy to lose tract of one another for days at a time. I wonder if you would be so good as to reassure Mr. Coverly who has arrived here to inquire about your decision to visit us that everyone is well looked after."

Cliff glanced out over the pond at the two sleek heads bobbing in the waters. A slender arm lifted and waved happily at him as he turned back to Orcutt. "Be happy to," he replied.

Half an hour later Coverly left Bountiful Towers more upset than ever. Murdock's jaunty reassurances had done little to quell his misgivings about Vivienne's and Sarah's welfare.

The fact that Cliff hadn't seen Zack for hours was not surprising. No one could keep track of him. But everyone at The Court was well aware of the power of the entertainment's at the Towers to entrap even the most sophisticated connoisseurs of pleasure. Vivienne was sorely needed at The Court and he had no intention of losing her to The Patron. Somehow he must penetrate the wall of security at the Towers and get to Vivienne and Sarah. As his mind turned over the possibilities his thoughts settled on Katia and her dancers. But two weeks was such a long time before they were to perform at the Grotto Theater that anything could happen. If only he could find Zack there was a chance that he could do something. Grimly Coverly aimed the MacLane into the gloom of Old-Town and threaded his way back to The Court.

Slumber had entrapped Feake. His head nodded over the wheel of his parked car as the headlights of the occasional oncoming car passed over his unseeing eyes. Yet his senses roused instantly when the headlights slowed and turned abruptly in front of him. He watched the tail-lights of the MacLane bounce slowly over the rough drive but they didn't wink out when the car came to the garage, instead the headlights continued probing deeper and deeper into the darkness and then there was nothing but an occasional flicker that moved deep within the park before even that disappeared. The cool night chill enveloped Feake as he got out of his car and followed the drive to where it ended far past the house and the garage. There, barely visible in the dark, a cobble stone path led off into the deep shadows. Feake followed it, his feet stumbling on the rough stones, and it seemed to go on forever into the black. He would have missed the tunnel in the laurel hedge if the moon hadn't come out over The Court and sent a glimmer of light through the arbor.