All Night Stand
David sat in Anna’s apartment and waited for her to return. She had sneaked him in. At first he thought she didn’t want prudish Petra to know that they would be spending the night together. Then he heard Petra’s voice. The door opened and she appeared, followed by Mario. He clasped a picnic hamper and she carried plastic bags. Anna followed with Constantia.
Petra dumped the bags down.
‘It’s simply disgraceful.’
‘It certainly is,’ Mario agreed.
David hoped they had, at last, come to realise that Carla posed a serious danger. He was wrong. Their fears weren’t for their own lives. They were worried about the marine environment.
‘They should use paper,’ Mario said. ‘Plastic gets into the ocean and causes incalculable harm. Turtles become entrapped in it. Thousands die every year …’
David fully agreed but this was no time to worry about turtles and other things that swam around in the sea. The sisters’ lives were at risk and they were behaving as if they were on holiday.
He guessed Anna was always on holiday. Petra and Mario were different. They were serious types. Petra hung on his arm. It was understandable that she would want support. Her father had vanished under mysterious circumstances and was almost certainly dead.
What about Mario?
David’s feelings toward him were the same as those he’d had towards Sipho. He felt the guy was genuine. Others wouldn’t place much score on that line of thinking. He imagined himself as a CIA or MI5 agent, filing a report and saying something as insubstantial as that. A rival for promotion would shoot his balls off.
That was one of the reasons why Charlie was in high demand. His people didn’t file reports. They flew by the seats of their pants. The only thing that mattered was to get results and do nothing that could embarrass the people who paid them.
He returned his attention to the lovebirds.
It was probably an exaggeration to call them that. Good friends would probably be more accurate. Petra de Villiers was clasping Mario Mendez-Klein’s hand but she did not look as if she was about to lose her maidenhead. Both appeared to be concerned about what was going on around them.
David decided to adopt a low profile and wait for an opportunity to speak to Petra alone. There was no point in talking to Anna. As far as she was concerned, he was a stud male who was about to perform acts of virility on her sensuous female body.
In the meantime, his stud male duty was to open cans of cat food that Anna had bought for Constantia. Despite her advanced years, the cheetah had a healthy appetite. David laboured over his task. Cheetahs are much bigger than the domestic members of the cat family and they consume far more food.
A couple of cans went nowhere to satisfy Constantia’s demands. His wrist began to ache as he emptied can after can into the cheetah’s bowl and tried to listen to the conversation between the two sisters.
Anna wanted to know why Mario was with them. She teased Petra about her new boyfriend and got nowhere. Petra continued to fuss over her plastic bags and remained silent. Anna gave up and turned her attention to Mario.
‘Darling …’
She reached out and touched his arm playfully.
‘I’m sorry to disappoint you.’
Mario looked puzzled.
‘David is keeping me company tonight, my sweet.’ She stroked his chin. ‘You know I yearn for your charms but I like my men one at a time.’
She turned to Petra.
‘Some people prefer quantity.’
‘That’s something I know nothing about,’ Petra replied primly.
‘Then you should, darling.’ Anna smiled. ‘Our dear cousin will be entertaining two men.’
‘Our cousin?’
‘Dino and Rambo yearned for our bodies, darling. When they found we weren’t available, Carla took pity on them. She has a generous heart and a great capacity for love. She won’t disappoint the poor boys.’
Petra stared into her plastic bags.
‘Don’t look so shocked,’ Anna smiled. ‘Carla will have two men to protect her and I’ll have one. It’s a shame you won’t have anyone to protect you.’
‘I’ll have Mario to protect me.’
Petra blurted out the words.
‘Oh, darling!’ Anna reached out and squeezed her hand. ‘You are going to lose your virginity at last.’
She turned to Mario.
‘You do know what to do … don’t you?’
Mario ignored her.
‘If you had told me, in time, I could have brought you one of those books. They’ve got illustrations to show you where things are and what to do with them. The Anglican Church sells them in its bookshops so they must be alright. I’m sure Archbishop Tutu would approve.’
Petra grabbed her bags.
‘Mario and I will eat in my room, Anna. I find your humour distasteful. There is no need for such vulgarity and there is no need to insult the archbishop. Mario is concerned for my safety … that is all.’
David watched them leave. Petra stomped out and Mario raided the picnic hamper for a bottle of wine before joining her.
Was he really concerned for Petra’s safety?
Anna’s younger sister was hardly a sex kitten. Mario might think differently. Or, he might have reason to think Petra was in danger. Or, both. There was no way to tell.
Anna uncorked a bottle of Champaign.
‘I thought they’d never go.’
She poured two glasses and sat beside him. Constantia stopped chomping on her food and turned towards them. David wondered what it would be like to make love to a super-sexy woman with a cheetah looking on.
Mario set down the wine bottle. Anna had winked at him when he pulled it from the hamper. She probably thought he was going to ply her little sister with alcohol and try to seduce her. He had no intention. South African wines were amongst the very best in the world and he lusted for them … not for Petra’s body.
He admired Richard de Villiers but felt no physical attraction towards either of his daughters. Anna was amusing so long as you kept her at arms’ length. Petra was different. They got on well and he could imagine her as a best friend but he couldn’t imagine her as a lover. Some girls turned him on. Petra didn’t.
Perhaps it was body chemistry. That was something he was studying in his final year towards a degree in biological science. There was evidence that people unconsciously rejected potential partners who had too many genes in common. Race didn’t come into it. Smell did. The nose craved something different.
His mother was probably unaware of that. She wanted him to spend the night with Petra. Her dream was of a marriage alliance between the Mendez-Kleins and the de Villiers. He had rebuffed her attempts to get him into bed with Carla and Anna. Now, she was making a bid for Petra. Mother had seen them together. At one point he had put an arm around Petra. That was not out of affection but to stop her falling overboard on the way back from Cuthbert’s yacht.
Petra had gone into the bathroom to change. She had been wearing her business suit. Mario wondered if she would slip into something more sexy. He tried to imagine her in a skirt with a slash down the side, like the one Anna wore. Or, perhaps, an ultra-short skirt that stretched up her slender thigh. Neither image fitted and he wasn’t surprised when she emerged in a one-piece tracksuit with a zip up the front. There would be little opportunity for groping even if he had that in mind.
She sat down opposite him.
‘You’ve taken one of Anna’s wines.’
‘Yes,’ he smiled. ‘Would you like some?’
‘Just a little … with lots of mineral water.’
Mario poured a small quantity into a glass and topped it up with water. He handed it to her. Petra’s legs remained tightly together. Even in a tracksuit she seemed wary of him. It occurred to Mario that she had never been alone with a man before.
‘Cheers!’
He raised his glass and clinked it against hers. That seemed to break the ice. A leading question seemed in order. He had been putting it off for a long time.’
‘That man David …’
‘Yes.’ Petra looked up from her glass.
‘He thinks you are in danger.’
‘David knew my father,’ Petra replied cautiously. ‘He doesn’t think his disappearance was an accident.’
‘I knew your father too,’ Mario said pointedly. ‘I had great respect for him. He wasn’t the fool he pretended to be.’
‘What do you think happened?’
‘I think the disappearance was arranged.’
‘How?’
‘I don’t know. But, if I could see that his idiot act was a sham, you can be sure others saw through it too.’
‘What others?’
‘Your father had the means to do immense damage to some very powerful people, Petra. You met some of them yesterday. They won’t stop at anything if their interests are threatened. Believe me. I was brought up with them.’
He took a swig from his glass.
‘Your father protected you, Petra. Your sister mixes with them but she’s too stupid to see what’s going on … like a lot of the rich kids around here. They crap on about the environment and social issues. They’ve got no idea what their parents are doing.’
‘Who do you think did it?’
‘Cuthbert Maguire for starters. Nothing happens without his permission. People think of him as a media mogul. Cuthbert is far more than that. His family owns petrol refineries and chemical plants. He’s in the arms business. You name it and you’ll discover that Cuthbert has a hand in it. He makes and breaks governments and they give him lucrative contracts. Your father was investigating what was going on and they didn’t just kill him. They killed his entire team.’
‘You think he’s dead?’
‘He has to be Petra,’ Mario dropped his voice. ‘It’s almost two weeks now.’
‘And you think they might try to kill me?’
‘Not after the performance you gave on the yacht. It was brilliant. They think you are one of them. In a few years they will be inviting you to join them.’
‘David thinks Carla wants to kill me,’ Petra said.
‘That’s nutty,’ Mario spluttered into his glass.
‘Sipho thinks there’s a danger …’
‘From Carla?’
‘Yes.’
‘They’re both nutty.’ Mario reached for the wine bottle. ‘Carla couldn’t kill a mouse, even if she tried. She’s all talk and no walk. I’ve heard her threaten to kill the president of Columbia and his entire cabinet but they’re all alive and well.’
He was interrupted by excited shouts from the neighbouring apartment. Carla had returned with Dino and Rambo and they had lost no time in catering for her needs. Petra had no idea that so much noise could accompany the sex act. Anna and David were as quiet as church mice in comparison.
‘She’ll tire them out,’ Mario remarked casually.
‘Does that matter?’
‘It does if you want a safe trip out tomorrow,’ Mario grinned. ‘Rambo is skippering the boat and working the shark cage. You’ll want him to be in top form when you are on the inside of the cage and there is a Big White staring at you through the bars.’