Day After the Night Before
Anna claimed that David was her most exciting male to date. He returned the compliment and she demanded further proof of his masculine prowess. They practiced all the positions he knew and she taught him more. Only two immensely fit and athletic people could have managed their feats of strength and endurance.
David hadn’t anticipated anything like it. They kept going longer than he thought humanly possible. Carla’s wild screams could be heard from two doors away. They died down long before he and Anna collapsed onto the floor and lapsed into a contented sleep.
Anna insisted on total silence. Heavy breathing wasn’t allowed under any circumstances. She said she didn’t want to shock her little sister. David found that amusing. Earlier, she had teased Petra about her virginity and subjected Mario to similar jibes.
She fondled David and explained her philosophy towards marriage. Someone in her position needed a spouse with lots of money and good connections. Mario wasn’t her idea of an ideal bedfellow but that didn’t matter. He was passionately interested in the environment and would be fabulously rich one day. He could devote his energy to saving furry animals and she could get on with her life.
Mario evidently had a very different attitude towards marriage. Anna regarded her chances with him as zero and didn’t doubt that Carla’s were even lower. She gained immense satisfaction from the thought that Petra would beat Carla to the prize. Their role was to play cupid and bring the two together. An unplanned pregnancy would be a perfect way of achieving that aim. Anna wondered if David could find a way of providing Mario with defective condoms.
They lay in bed as the sun rose and talked about all sorts of things. David did his best to get Anna to take Sipho’s recording seriously. He had it in the pocket of his denims and wanted her to listen to it. Anna said that would be a waste of time. Carla spent her life threatening to kill people. You couldn’t take Carla seriously … but you could steal her dog.
She wanted David to help her kidnap the ridgeback and smuggle it back to Brazil. He could go with her. She would introduce him to all sorts of exciting people and open up all manner of opportunities. It wasn’t clear if she was planning to launch him on a highly-paid career as a gigolo or had a more professional role in mind.
The buzzer on his watch sounded. David climbed out of bed and began his early-morning exercises. Anna invited him to shower with her. He declined the offer. Being naked with Anna could lead to only one thing. He needed to conserve his energy: not dissipate it in yet another round of sexual gymnastics.
A busy day lay ahead. They were putting to sea with Carla and her two lovers. David had never dived in the waters off Africa’s southern tip. They were famous for their amazing variety of sea creatures and he was determined to see them.
From what he had heard, he could dismiss the idea that the sisters were at risk from Carla. In all probability, they weren’t at risk from anyone. Richard de Villiers’ enemies had eliminated him. There was no reason why they should turn on other members of his family.
His task was to identify the people who had murdered Richard and gather evidence against them. Anna could be a rich source of information. Unlike Petra, she mixed with the people who were under suspicion. David chuckled to himself. His mission had taken on a new dimension. He could screw Anna for information during the day and screw her for pleasure during the night.
Mario peered out of Petra’s window and saw Dino and Rambo emerge from Carla’s apartment. They looked none the worse after their night of excitement with Carla. She looked a trifle jaded. He wondered if the boys had overtaxed her with their hectic performance. Both had been with her before so she must have known what she was taking on. Having the two of them together was perhaps more than she could handle.
He had listened to their exploits during the night. Not because he had any desire to be serenaded by Carla’s grunts and groans. His sleeping arrangements made it impossible to avoid them. Petra felt uncomfortable with him lying on the floor beside her bed and he had retreated to the far side of the room and spent the night with his head beside the dividing wall.
Carla’s room was on the other side and her bed banged against the wall when she and the boys got to work. The knocking was difficult to ignore. He tried stuffing his fingers in his ears but that didn’t help. On top of that, he couldn’t escape the nasty feeling that he was somehow missing out.
His sexual experience was limited to ineffective groping. The girls he wanted didn’t want him. He could have scored with Carla and Anna. Sometimes he wondered if he should have given into their persistent offers to teach him the facts of life. After listening to Carla’s attempts at love making he was glad he didn’t let either of them try.
He had watched fish cuddle up together in tanks in the marine science laboratory at his university. He had read that birds enjoyed sex and some paired for life. His aim was to gain some worthwhile first-hand experience before finding his ultimate partner and doing his dutiful bit to keep the human genome alive.
Mercifully, the banging didn’t go on all night. Carla calmed down after a couple of hours and started to talk. As far as Mario could make out she was making a business offer to the boys. At least, it sounded like that. Mario could catch no more than a few words. When she made love, Carla yelled and screamed in Spanish. When she talked business she used Afrikaans.
Dino and Rambo spoke Afrikaans. Mario didn’t and he wouldn’t have understood a word if the boys hadn’t wandered off into English. That tended to happen when an English word came up and was particularly noticeable when they spoke about dollars. The amounts were usually given in English and they were big.
Rambo wanted to be paid in gold. Dino favoured dollar bills. Mario couldn’t work out what the business venture was about. It had something to do with boats. Apart from that he didn’t know what they were planning.
Petra heard a knock on the door. She hoped that Mario had returned. Instead, she found Anna. Her sister breezed in and immediately started to ask questions.
‘So how was it?’
Petra looked puzzled.
‘Your night of passion, darling.’
‘You mean Carla?’
‘No, darling. I mean you.’
‘I slept well if that’s what you mean, Anna.’
‘Did Mario sleep well?’
‘I don’t think so. He was disturbed by Carla.’
‘By Carla!’ Anna looked shocked. ‘You don’t mean he was in there with her. Are you saying he was one of her lovers?’
‘No. He slept on the floor by the wall.’
Anna glanced across to the pile of cushions that Mario had removed from a sofa and stifled a smile.
‘Whatever was he doing over there?’
‘He thought I wanted him to sleep over there,’ Petra tried to explain. ‘He put the cushions down beside my bed. I was concerned that I might disturb him went I went to the bathroom during the night.’
‘So you asked him to leave?’
‘I didn’t expect him to go that far away.’
‘Too far to hold hands?’
‘Too far to speak to him, Anna. I wanted to talk about father. Mario knew him and so did David. They think his disappearance wasn’t an accident.’
‘David didn’t say anything about that to me,’ Anna feigned surprise. ‘We talked for a long time before retiring for the night. David is a very serious young man with strong religious views. We discussed the decline of moral values. David was greatly distressed by the sounds of debauchery coming from Carla’s room. Those were his very words.’
‘And he said nothing about father?’
‘No. I will question him about it tonight. His concern for our safety has more to do with wild animals than people. There are leopards and baboons in the mountains near here.’
‘But, there’s a security fence and guards to protect us.’
Anna ignored the interruption.
‘Darling. We are going to dive with the Great Whites today. I want to get some stunning photographs. Carla has done it before with Dino and that other man. She’s always swanking about it. We can’t let her get the better of us. We need a really good underwater camera.’
‘Mario has one.’
‘Yes, darling.’ Anna patted Petra’s hand. ‘That’s what I was thinking. Perhaps you could speak to him about it. He won’t lend it to me. I’ve already tried. We’ve known one another for a long time and he doesn’t trust me with his things. I once lost his special binoculars and he’s never forgiven me for that.’
‘I’ll ask him, Anna.’
‘Thank you, my sweet. And there’s another thing …’
‘What’s that?’
‘Don’t wear that awful bathing thing I saw you in. You’ve got a good figure. Make the most of it.’
Anna reached into a bag.
‘I’ve bought you this. Mario will be stunned.’
She placed a white bikini on the table.
‘It’s your size, darling, and not too daring.’
Anna left and Petra picked up the bikini. It looked rather swish. She decided to try it on and hurried into the bathroom. There were mirrors on the walls. She examined herself from several angles and decided that Anna was right. Her figure wasn’t too bad after all. She wondered how Mario would react when he saw her in it.