Taming a Sea Horse

24

The Crown Prince Club on the east end of the island looked like a sugar plantation designed by Ralph Lauren. There were cottages constructed from simulated coconut logs and thatched with simulated palm fronds scattered among real palm trees over a couple of acres of absolutely immaculate land. Near the long white beach was the Princedom, a long house built of the same materials as the cottages where the dining room, bar, and workout room were located. There was no fence but a number of strapping blackamoors in raspberry Lacoste shirts and white shorts strolled about the grounds, their biceps gleaming darkly in the dappling shade of the palm trees.

On the beach many of the women were topless, and both sexes were smeared with oil and glistening in a tan frenzy. Waitresses in minimal designer castaway outfits moved among the sunbathers with drinks on trays. Dimly through the palms I could see some tennis courts in use and in front of the Princedom a buffet was being set up next to a semipermanent bar emplacement of simulated palm logs. I moved toward the buffet, where people in white slacks and flowered shirts were already beginning to gather. In the center of the buffet table was a fountain of amber liquid. There were punch cups set out and people were filling them from the fountain. It looked like rum punch. There were large platters of oysters on the table, and lobster tails and cold meats. There was fruit salad in a scooped-out watermelon, and assorted bread and rolls. There was cheese and salad and nearby a whole pig turned slowly on an electric rotisserie. I looked closely. It wasn't Perry Lehman. I shrugged. I was used to disappointments.

Nobody said hey you to me. No one required me to show my membership card, nobody seemed to notice that I was somewhat old and somewhat large and somewhat well conditioned for the group assembled here at the Princedom. I had a cup of punch. I was right, it was rum. I glanced over the assorted buffet items. A man in a white chef's hat appeared carrying a huge bowl of jumbo shrimp and set the bowl down on the table.

"Local catch?" I asked.

"No, man, there don't be no local catch."

"You mean there's no fish around here? We're in the middle of the ocean."

"There's fish, man, there's no fisherman."

"Except maybe a fisher of tourists," I said.

"You got it, man."

He went away back in a side door to the Princedom. I took a shrimp. On the long veranda of the Princedom a three-piece combo was getting organized. There was an electric keyboard, drums, and bass. Two more men in white coats appeared carrying a great tub of iced beer. They set it on an upturned barrel and went back into the Princedom.

A voice next to me said, "Hadn't you ought to try the oysters?"

It was an oriental woman, Chinese maybe, or part Chinese. She had long shiny black hair brushed back away from her face. She was wearing an aquamarine-colored bikini with a short white lace shirt over it. The collar was turned up and the loose sleeves were pushed halfway up her smooth arms. She wore strapless high-heeled shoes. Her nails were painted the same aquamarine as the bikini and her lipstick was a pink so pale as to be nearly white. She had small breasts and firm thighs. A vaccination mark on her thigh meant she was probably older than she looked.

"I think that's a myth," I said.

"Oysters?" She widened her eyes and glanced at me from a slightly oblique angle. Enticing.

"Yeah, I don't think they do anything for potency."

She smiled, still looking slightly sideways at me. "Oh, that's too bad. Do you need any help with your potency?"

"Not as long as I take my powdered rhino horn," I said.

Her seductive sideways look shifted a bit to the hint of puzzlement, but she caught it, got it back in place, and smiled knowingly.

"Well, I hope you keep taking it," she said. "What's your name?"

"Chris Marlowe," I said.

"I'm Suki," she said. "Can I make you up a plate from the buffet?"

"I think that might be out of step with current feminist attitudes," I said.

"Oh, pooh," Suki said. "Oriental women are trained to please men"-she smiled cutely -"in every way," she said. "It is our pleasure."

"Heavens," I said, "what would Eleanor Smeal say?"

Suki shook her head. "I don't know Eleanor, but I know you, Chris, and I want to give you whatever you want."

"I can dig it," I said. "Just make me up a light assortment. I'll take the grapes with the skins."

Suki looked confused again for a moment, but she smiled right on through it and went to get me a plate. I had a second rum punch while I was waiting. The band began to play. Their first selection was a slightly overarranged version of Ricky Nelson's song "Garden Party." There was a good crowd around now. A lot of the people at the buffet table were women making up plates for men. Serving men was apparently not an exclusively oriental tradition.

Suki came back with my plate. She had quite carefully arranged a little of almost everything.

"Let's go to the veranda," she said, "and you can enjoy your meal."

"Sure," I said, and followed her as she carried the dinner plate ahead of me up onto the porch.

We sat together on a wicker love seat with a low table in front of us. The band had started to play "Sleepy Lagoon." Clearly they were working thematically. Suki offered me an oyster on a small fork. I ate it.

I said, "A bit more sauce on the next one, my dear."

"Certainly, kind master," she said, and smiled and put a little more cocktail sauce on the next oyster. "I'm sorry we don't have any powdered horn."

"It's okay," I said. "I'll make do with oysters."

"Oh, Chris," she said. "So, are you married?"

I winked at her. "Of course not," I said. She smiled at me and put a shrimp in my mouth.

"I believe you," she said. "Which bungalow you in?"

"Over there," I said. "Why do you ask?"

"Oh, I don't know," Suki said. "In case I needed you later on, or"-she looked up at me as she put a piece of Jarlsberg cheese on a cracker-"you needed me."

"You been working here long?" I said. Suki slid the cracker and cheese between my lips as I asked her. I bit down on it and held it between my teeth and then lipped it in and chewed.

"I wouldn't call it work, Chris."

"Well, have you been playing here long?"

"Five years," Suki said. "Last May. Yearround. The weather is . : . well, you can't beat the weather."

"Sure can't," I said. "Is there wine?"

"Oh, Chris, I'm sorry," she said. "I'll get it. Red or white?"

"You choose, I want you to drink some too."

"Don't move," she said. "I'll be right back." She ran away toward the buffet table, smoothing her long black hair back from her forehead with both hands. All around me on the veranda were men being fed by women. Maybe the wine bottle would have a nipple on it. The trio began to play "In the Cool Cool Cool of the Evening."

Suki came back with a carafe of white wine and two glasses. She poured one for me and then herself. She handed me mine and raised her glass at me.

"To love," she said.

"And lust," I said. We clinked glasses and drank. Suki smiled at me, her eyes widened. "There's a difference?" she said.

"Not here," I said.

We both drank some wine. It was jug wine, served very cold.

"Ginger Buckey still around?" I said.

"You know Ginger?" Suki said.

"Sure," I said. "Who doesn't?"

"She never really worked here," Suki said. "She used to come down with Warren."

Suki had tucked her legs up under her on the love seat and was leaning against me, her head on my shoulder, looking up at my face as she talked. She drank her wine.

"I don't think she's been down since spring," she said.

I nodded and leaned forward and took a green grape from the plate and tucked it into her mouth.

"Now Chris is gonna feed Suki," she said. She had dropped her voice an octave and given it a slight purr. She took the grape in her mouth and sucked on it a little and rolled it around in her mouth. I think she was being seductive.

She chewed the grape and swallowed it. "What else you gonna feed me, Chris?" She had her wineglass in her left hand. I raised it, hand and all, to her lips and tilted it. She drank.

"She was working in Boston," I said, "when she came down with Warren?"

"Uh huh. She's a nice kid. Got to know her a little in training, you know? All us girls go through training together, one month a year, off to school. Mr. Lehrnan makes sure of everything."

"Really," I said.

"Can Suki have another grape, Chris?"

I slipped one in her mouth. She ate it sensuously. The old suck-the-grape come-on.

"That's how I know her," I said. "I'm from Boston, but I'm trying to place Warren-tall, slim black guy, light skin?"

Suki laughed. "God, no," she said. "Warren's white, about sixty, he's like a banker or something." She dropped her voice. "Very important." She laughed again. "Ginger said he was kind of kinky but I used to wonder if he could get it up."

"Oh, that guy, yeah, I think I've seen him around the club in Boston, what the hell is his name. Beatty? No, Burger?"

Suki said, "I never knew his last name."

"Wonder why they broke up," I said.

"I think they had a fight when they were down here. One day I noticed Warren went home without her."

"And she stayed?"

"No, she was gone too. I heard she took off with one of the musicians. Why? She know some tricks you think I don't know?"

"Naw, just asking. She was a good kid, and then I hadn't seen her in a while. I thought she'd moved down here."

"This isn't a move, Chris. Down here is a promotion."

"Upward and onward," I said.