“If that was premature, I’ll eat my hat!”
“How about a different menu? Since that’s all you’re capable of.”
“All right.” As we hit the trampoline, I tried to swivel around to meet her request. Because of this, however, the bounce caught me off balance and we lost our hold on each other. We sprang apart and soared separately.
“First my husband his goddam bridge! And now this!" Mrs. North wailed as she rose in a flight path paralleling my own.
She was quite a sight, and I felt a resurgence of desire as I watched her fly. Her heavy breasts, panting, preceded her like aerial balloons straining at their moorings. Her hips moved like quivering masses of sculpted Jello flung at the stars. Her legs strained, white thighs tensing the muscles more with frustrated passion than athletic intent. Her lush derriere was a bisected meteor streaking through the night and blurring with its own frenzy. Her hands, her fingers, were a flock of wild birds frantically trying to crowd into their own nest. Mrs. North was nothing less than a giant-sized Venus on the wings of lust.
I came to rest on the trampoline, a little distance from the other three girls. As Mrs. North bounced near me, I called to her. “Light somewhere, and I’ll give it a try.”
“Oh, yes!” She became so excited that she aborted her upward flight, twisted in midair, and came down hard on the trampoline some distance away from me. But instead of coming to rest, she shot up again — hard and fast; surprisingly so by comparison with the way the trampoline had been reacting all evening — almost as if she’d been shot from a cannon. She soared off at an angle, for all the world like a shell gone wild. She zoomed high up in the air, just clearing the tallest of the ship’s masts before she started her descent. Watching the parabola her Amazonian body was describing, I could see she wasn’t going to land back on the trampoline. Nor in one of the swimming pools. Nor on the Lascivia at all!
She disappeared into the night. There was a moment of silence. And then I heard it. A loud splash! Mrs. North had landed in the ocean!
The lookout on the bridge had heard it too, or perhaps dimly seen the body flying toward the ocean. Now he raised the most dread cry that can be heard at sea. “MAN OVERBOARD!”
Alarm bells sounded. The ship’s engines were suddenly silenced and then thrown into reverse. More bells, and then a voice over the P.A. system.
“MAN OVERBOARD! MAN OVERBOARD!”
The crew scampered to the railings. The passengers flocked from their staterooms. Soon everybody was out on deck. Everybody but the bridge players. Their game continued as usual, despite the cry of—
“MAN OVERBOARD!”
CHAPTER NINE
“MAN OVERBOARD!”
With the confusion mounting around us, the three ladies and I managed to scramble back into our clothes behind the backs of those crowding the rail. My formal get-up felt clammy, to say the least — cold, soggy and dripping, to be more accurate. Chief Purser Yenta, arriving on the scene, took note of it.
“A midnight dip, Mr. Victor?” He raised an eyebrow.
“In the good old F. Scott Fitzgerald tradition.” I refused to be chastened.
“This is not the fountain at the Plaza,” he pointed out.
“Has anybody informed Mr. North?” the bikini’d Mrs. West demanded, coming up to Yenta and scratching .
”‘No, Madam. Why should he be informed?”
“Because it’s his wife that’s gone over the side,” I told Yenta.
“MAN OVERBOARD!”
“Tell that sailor to stop shouting that!” Mrs. East snarled, scratching above her tanned thighs.
“It’s traditional, Madam.”
“It’s sexist!”
“Beg pardon, Madam?”
“It’s a woman overboard, not a man!”
“I believe the phraseology is all-encompassing. As in ‘mankind,’ it includes the female of the species.”
“That’s male chauvinist pig etymology!” Mrs. East scratched.
“Mr. North should be informed!” Mrs. South joined us, scratching.
“That’s what I said.” Mrs. West rubbed against a bulkhead.
“Why?” Mrs. East demanded, nails digging into her bikini bottoms.
“Because he’s her husband!”
“And that makes her his property? And a man should be made aware that his property is in danger?” Mrs. East snorted and scratched. “You’ve been brainwashed!”
“I still think -”
“I will go and inform Mr. North immediately.”
Yenta took the opportunity to cop out on the discussion. He headed down the deck toward the bridge salon.
“MAN OVERBOARD!”
“Discrimination!” Mrs. East kept insisting each time the cry was repeated.
A spotlight on the bridge was sweeping the water. The engines had stopped and everybody was very quiet as all eyes followed the beam, searching the inky sea for some trace of Mrs. North. Then, suddenly, there was a shout: “There he is!”
“There she is!” Mrs. East was furious.
“MAN OVERBOARD AHOY!”
“Think how she must be feeling, being robbed of her identity like this!” Mrs. East scratched and grumbled, grumbled and scratched.
“Ready the harpoon gun to shoot off a life jacket to him,” an offficer commanded. '
“Beg pardon, sir.” A sailor on the bridge was peering through binoculars. “I believe he’s already wearing a Mae West.”
“You see where sexism can lead!” Mrs. East took a deep breath and stopped scratching long enough to yell at the officer on the bridge. “That’s a woman! She’s not wearing a life jacket. Those are her breasts!”
“Breasts?” The officer took the binoculars and looked for himself. “They’re awfully large for—By Jove, so they are! I’ve never seen a pair as buoyant as those before!” He kept staring.
“They’re going to lower a boat.” Yenta returned with the information.
“Where is Mr. North?” Mrs. West and Mrs. South asked, scratching in unison.
“He’s just finishing the rubber.”
“Did you tell him his wife was drowning?”
“Yes, madam, I did.”
“And?”
“He’s the declarer, madam. Four hearts vulnerable.”
“Here he comes now.” I spotted Mr. North approaching.
“Isn’t it awful?” Mrs. West greeted him, scratching.
“Damn right! I went down one trick!”
“She was over the side before we even realized what was happening.”
“I ducked in dummy when I should have ruffed.”
“Look!” Mrs. South pointed excitedly. “The boat’s reached her.”
“I should have figured from the bidding that West had the king of diamonds.”
“They’ve got her! They’re pulling her into the boat!”
“She’s nude,” Yenta noticed.
“They’re starting back. The boat officer is giving her artificial respiration. . . . Now he’s giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation at the same time.”
“Are you sure that’s what he’s doing?” Mrs. West panted, scratching.
“West bid and East passed. I should have known about that damn king!”
“Some guys have all the luck!” The officer on the bridge refocused his binoculars as the longboat pulled up beside the Lascivia.
There was an awkward moment of disengagement, and then Mrs. North was helped aboard. Sobbing, the naked Amazon flung herself into her husband’s arms.
“It was just awful!” she wailed.
“I know.” Mr. North sobbed back. “If only I’d ruffed!”
“I almost died!”
“That’s how I felt when he came up with that diamond king!”
“If you’ll take the lady to your cabin, sir, and-— umm—get her some dry clothes,” Yenta suggested diplomatically, “I’ll have Dr. Quotabusta come down and give her a sedative. She’s been through a harrowing experience.”
“Harrowing!” Mrs. North echoed.