By the time Jallen learned Zoey and he would be seated apart inside the theatre the time to object had come and gone.
Lady Anyys, Zoey and her grandmother swept up to the balcony soon after they got inside. Jallen would not see her again apparently until the ceremony concluded. That left him alone with the woman in hornrims and wild hair who'd coyly admired his bulge at the card table. She was amiable enough, and knowledgeable about the Ceremony of the Virgin. She ought to, she'd written the script.
"Mrs. Arista Spladt," she introduced herself, chest outthrust, hands on her hips. She'd worn a chiffon dress that evening, roomy and loose above the belt but tight as a pencil skirt around her hips and thighs before it fanned wider out above the knees. Sturdy ankles, strappy heels.
"Missus?" he asked. Spladt was 28 or 29 at most.
"Yes. My husband bailed out on me tonight. Conducting business in the Black Country. He says. You won't terribly mind filling in?"
Her request seemed an odd choice of words. "But of course, darling," he said.
Her luxurious hair smelt of vanilla when she bent forward to formally peck him on each cheek in greeting, tits pushed against his chest. He felt her nipples through his shirt and her blousy top. Her body splash doubled as an aromatic aphrodisiac. Zoey had met the woman too and been in her presence so she had to know about the overt scent, and the fact Lady Anyys (in league with granny?) had adroitly separated them. Why had they caused that? What would Zoey think? Was someone running a bait and switch con on him? In the event Mrs. Spadlt inquired about Mr. Darling's nonexistent curriculum vitae he would stick to Zoey's script no matter what. Jallen doubted Arista would try to pump him, not that way anyhow.
Squashing excess tit meat against his arm, Mr. Spladt's wife latched onto him to be properly escorted inside. Was that important to her, was that why this happened? Her body exuded heat. And that is a nice long neck you have, dear.
The theatre seats afforded ultimate privacy unlike any known to him. Wide as loveseats and set apart from other enclosures like them, their big clamshell backs enclosed each couple in a velvet cocoon, unseen from sides, back or overhead, open only in front to allow visibility of the stage. From the balcony Zoey would be unable to observe Mrs. Spladt or him, or anyone else under her. He didn't know how seating worked in the balcony, but downstairs no one saw anybody else except the performers. From the stage to the back wall the floor gradually elevated like in a regular cinema. Everyone downstairs commanded unobstructed lines of sight to centerstage and an inordinate amount of privacy. The novel approach so impressed Jallen he wondered why it hadn't been adopted in movie and playhouses worldwide.
At first Mrs. Spladt sat at the opposite end of the loveseat; she was a married woman, reserved, respectable. Had Zoey sat by him instead he imagined fingerfucking her then, or she honking his horn. His imagination created more distress in his trouser front. Or was the culprit Mr. Spladt's wife and her narcotic scent? Jallen's penile strain ever increased as the woman scooted closer and closer to him throughout the ritual. She missed no opportunity reminding him she had authored the silent playlet. Understandably she was prone to explaining its murky significance to newcomers and the symbolism of sundry props and gestures made by the actors. No doubt lingered once their actions became abundantly clear.
Shortly after the curtain rose Jallen ceased to regard the players as actors. Certain acts typically mimed in performance actually occurred on the Runesgate stage: actual action, reacting instead of acting, the only dialogue infrequent verbal articulations of the virgin, a gasp or moan of pleasure from the sole female performer. Large mirror panels lined the three sides of the stage. As the action began Mrs. Spladt drew attention to the mirrors subtly repositioning themselves, but not by means of magick. Stagehands stood behind each reflective section clutching its handles like a shield large enough to hide behind and not distract from the featured players.
"Moving mirrors is an art form in and off itself, takes years to master," Mrs. Spladt whispered. "All of them are magnified to enlarge subtleties for the benefit of those seated in back of the house."
Jallen didn't need to be told most of the performers were naked or soon would be. The soft parade of mirrors enabled close up reflections of the virgin's nakedness from all angles. Would the play end with her on a stage full of naked men? Would she prosper or perish? While he enjoyed the ingenuity of what he saw of the entire production it was down to Mrs. Arista Spladt's hands-on style to etch a memory he'd never forget.
The ceremony ritual opened with the virgin walking onto the stage, an astonishingly beautiful girl with blonde hair cut shorter in back than front; her breasts, pubic hair and divide of her buttocks visible through a white truncated shift. She laid facedown on a white platform. The mirrors on stage right reflected her face and blunt tipped breasts spilling from her shift, exposed. From stage left the audience viewed her pubes between her parted legs and crack of her bottom in the magnified mirrors. The only sound in the theatre as the audience held its breath came from a guitar, out of sight and softly strummed.
"Wait till you see this girl's tits," enthused Mrs. Spladt. "She won the role for two reasons. The left one and the right one."
Jallen said, "One would think every young starlet has them."
"Yeah, but not like our star. She's too old to really be a virgin anymore but those tits take off five or six years," the wistful author/directress said.
"But they're imperfect, Mrs. Spladt, they don't seem fully fleshed out yet, the nipples point in opposite directions."
She pushed her hornrims up with one finger. "Call me Arista please. You would not believe the titty casting call debacle. Nothing but beautiful girls with perfect breasts everywhere."
"You should have rung me."
"The casting director and I diligently sought character vulnerability and unusually shaped breasts, less than perfect, to project a reachable tangent warm and fuzzy."
Jallen thought it wise to not make the flippant comment he almost made.
Arista spoke in whispers so only he could hear, requiring her moving closer. His head whirled. She said, "The major symbols in the opening scene are the colours white and red. That couch on which our virgin lies is white, as is her shift. White is virginal: simple, uncomplicated, obvious." She sighed, "And in this case, unfortunately spurious."
"Seems fine to this untrained eye."
"The other prominent colour you see is red."
Jallen swiveled toward her to reply. Arista sat closer to him than he realized. Another inch and she'd be in his lap. Inadvertently the top fastenings of her top had come undone accidentally baring the fleshy globes of her splendid breasts, one nipple visible. Arista must have grown warm in the theatre, she'd hiked the hem of her long skirt all the way up around her waist. What woman would want to hide legs like hers? Jallen noted a triangle of purple nylon between her thighs. Her tanned skin went well the purple panties. Jallen played a fingertip up her thigh to the edge of them.
He almost forgot what he turned to ask her while his fingers readjusted the nylon so as not bar entry to where his fingers wanted to go. "Have you any children, Arista?"
"No unfortunately, and me with three husbands. Oh, you are exciting me, Doctor Darling."
"Mister. If it's any consolation you are still blessed with a charming figure, a flower in bloom, a blessing in disguise perhaps."
His fingers located her clitoris. Arista gulped, hugging him and lightly kissing at his ear, hornrims halfway down her nose. She looked very sexy wiggling her bottom down to the edge of her seat to more handily display herself and increase accessibility for Jallen's wandering finger.
On the stage a young man in a white loincloth carried a white bowl of cherries to the facedown virgin on the platform. Jallen said to Arista he knew the meaning of the lad holding a single cherry to her mouth. The virgin licked it seductively before eating it. She sat up on the couch facing the audience. Her loose fitting shift was now a circle of silk around her waist revealing pale pear-shaped breasts with pink tips. Those plump imperfect mounds quickly endeared themselves to Jallen and his prick desperately sought escape from his trousers.
The youth fed more cherries to the virgin. She chewed them slowly and purposefully. Arista leaned still closer to ask Jallen what he thought the symbology of this portion of the ritual was, placing her left hand almost in the middle of his lap to balance herself. The next time he checked her other nipple had freed itself from containment of her gown. He and she touched one another as they talked, and talked like nothing happened in each other's laps.
The temperature in the theatre rose nonstop as the ceremony on the stage progressed. Jallen felt uncomfortably warm. He reminded himself it was a sex magick ritual and he'd anxiously volunteered to attend. Was the unnatural heat generated by the crowd or supernatural means? Off the top his head Jallen knew at least two conjurers who could heat up a room like a furnace. Or plunge it down to icy cold.
"I think I'd interpret this as the aging young entering into innocence lost territory," he said eruditely while his finger experimented with her anus.
"Well done," she gasped in a long groan as his experiment proceeded. "You talk like a poet."
"So glad you didn't say anything about a chap named Sean."
On the stage the youth had set aside the unfinished bowl of cherries, an erection evident in his loincloth. The virgin's shift was now around her ankles. The young male gently thrust her knees apart to reveal the virgin's pussy causing an appreciative murmur from the crowd. The young man put a finger and thumb on the rounded tips of her nipples. He squeezed them uncertainly, searchingly.
The strumming guitar increased in tempo and volume. Jallen couldn't tear his eyes away from the mouth of the girl's pussy. Its lips glistened then parted, opening like a blossom in new sunshine without being touched. None of this helped Jallen suffering the most uncomfortable erection of his life, confined by the zipper of his pants. Arista's adventurous hand contributed to the delinquency of his penis as well. The young man on the stage experienced the same condition, the tip of his penis pointing higher by the second till it poked from his white loincloth. A woman in the audience gasped, the rest laughed.
