"So? Don't go on so! What are you trying to say?" asked Louise.
"Just – well, you know that there's a girl here, in Athens, whom I visit occasionally. Her name is Riva Bera. I've known her a couple of years now. When I came here from Nice, I phoned her. She's quite delightful, but also quite different. To begin with, she's a Turk. But she's cultured and lovely, for all that, though – basically and always – a Turk."
"Well, I was chatting with her last week and I got drawn into a discussion of Louise's theories. At first, Riva didn't agree. Did I say, didn't agree? Hell, she was plain condemnatory! And that was a laugh in itself, because Riva's a bit like Claudine in some ways. She numbers her lovers in three figures, but what a selectivity she maintains! Finally, she grew a trifle thoughtful, and I could see all her earlier conviction was being undermined."
"At all events, I wound up promising to take Riva back to Nice for a while, when I left. I promised to introduce her into our circle, so to speak. She wanted to discover what it was all about. She seemed genuinely interested."
"And now, of course, now that Nice has come to Athens, so to speak, well I still think I'd like us, to get together. It's a pity about Claudine. I'd like to have thrown Claudine at Riva. I wonder what power of catalytic attraction, or even repulsion for that matter, would have gone on between those two?"
"Well," said Louise. "I don't mind meeting Riva. I don't say I've learned everything. But of what I've learned, I feel I've had enough. In my life, however, there's always going to be room for a new experience. When, then?"
"You, Andrew?" asked Hector.
"Me? I'm like Louise, I think. This past month's been the most fantastic in my life. I'll never cease thanking God for you two Hendersons. I didn't know people could be like you, and that's a fact. But I suppose because I'm a man, I don't think I'll ever get to Louise's stage of satiation."
He crushed out a cigarette, and went on: "Make no mistake, there have been women in my life. Wonderful women they were, too. A man is what he is. But never such breadth of mind, of sheer scientific taste for novelty, for sheer breadth of experiences, as I've found with you two people! So, with this Riva person – count me in."
The meeting was fixed for the following evening.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
Riva Bera lived in a flat in a large modern block on the southern outskirts of Athens.
As she opened the door for the three of them, Louise looked round and found herself quite impressed by the interior decoration. Accustomed to Western styling, she was overwhelmed by the Oriental decor of the living room, with its low tables, filigreed furniture, heavy carpet drapes and its bronzed, brassy ornaments.
"Like it?" smiled Riva.
"Oh, very much," Louise enthused. "It's quite different, of course, and it must be very satisfying to live in a room like this."
Riva herself was as extraordinary as was the room in which she lived. Louise found herself studying the other girl. Tall and dark-skinned, Riva was wearing the long, voluminous habit of Eastern women. Fun sleeves carried the diaphanous material of her blouse to her wrists in it graceful, billowing cascade. The material was caught into her waist by a narrow brass band, and it ballooned from there down to her ankles in that fluent, trousered effect so beloved in the East.
Riva Bera was dark, almost swarthy. It was her coppery skin that gave emphasis to the whites of her eyes and her teeth, to the rich red of her lips and which, in turn, was emphasized by the jet blue-black of her gorgeous, vigorous hair, worn long and flowing down her back.
She was in many ways the most striking woman Louise had ever seen. She hit one with immediate impact. Yet her smile gave promise of a disarming friendliness, of a desire to set her guests at ease in the shortest possible time. Louise liked her from the very first.
"I'm so glad," said Riva, leading her visitors into the luxury of her carpeted lounge. "Please make yourselves at home. How nice that you could all come."
In the room was the fragrance of rich, dark coffee.
With the coffee, Riva served a sweet, syrupy liqueur in tiny glasses. Two such tiny potions, and conversation flowed easily among the four, as if they had known each for months instead of merely minutes.
"Do you know," said Riva, "I find I'm quite excited at the prospect of this evening. Here in Athens, one becomes accustomed to anything so that there is little left that's novel enough to surprise one. I think it's the mingling of East and West that makes it so. No sooner do you think you know all that the East has to offer than, like this, up comes the West with an idea that pole-axes you! Ah, Athens! Where else could I live but Athens?"
"So you know then?" asked Andrew.
"This long time, I've known," said Riva, smiling. "Hector told me. The anticipation has been delightful. Now that it's all going to materialize, ah-h-h…"
"Then you don't mind?" asked Louise.
"No, not a bit," said Riva. "Years ago, perhaps I might have minded. In Turkey and in Greece, when we have affairs, we keep them apart. It is how I was brought up, how I brought myself up. But you people from Europe, you are so different. You treat these things, it seems, from another point of view altogether."
Andrew laughed.
"Not all of us," he smiled. "I can assure you of that. Western peoples live by a strict code, much the same as yours. If you have affairs, you confine each affair to its own limits. To mix them is fatal, at least that's what I always thought. But you can blame Louise for what's going to happen tonight. Two months ago, she had the darndest idea, and life's never seemed the same since for any of us!"
"Then," said the dark-skinned girl. "Let's wait no longer. Teach me the difference."
She rose and moved gracefully to a master wall switch which plunged the room into subdued, diffused near-darkness. When their eyes accustomed to the diminished light, she undulated back into their midst.
"So?" she whispered. "We start, yes?"
She paused opposite Andrew and, extending a hand to him, drew him to her. He rose and balancing easily on the balls of his feet, moved in to embrace her, heeding the heady perfume she emanated.
They kissed, and Andrew got the full impact of this delightful creature. She darted her tongue warmly, deliciously, between his parted lips, licking it lasciviously over his teeth. And the taste of her was in his mouth and her perfume was in his nostrils as he pressed her sinuous body to his powerful frame. He felt her yield expertly to each movement he made. With his fingertips, he searched her body, feeling that beneath the silk of her garment, was nothing, that her exquisite body was uncontained by either brassiere or panties. He slid his hands to the firm softness of her buttocks and drew her hips inwards to his, feeling her go limp as she made contact with his rising, demon prick. And he reveled as she twisted into him to meet that protrusion. She'll do, he thought merrily, as he explored her body and forced his own into intimate contact with it.
Under his questing fingers he found what he thought was the clasp of her blouse, and he fumbled at it. When he had struggled ineffectually for some time Riva, without ceasing the sexiness of her kissing, gave one spasmodic wriggle and the clips came apart under Andrew's fingers. And then his hands thrilled to the electrifying contact of real, naked woman-flesh as the garment parted down the back.
With a swift movement Riva slid first one, then the other shoulder from the confines of her blouse and it fell to her waist, where it was still held by the brass band of her belt. Then, naked from the waist up, she came back into the mounting fierceness of his embrace.
Louise and Hector watched, entranced, each entering in respective fantasy into the mood of the two lovers locked in silent stance before them. Each was imagining the delight of Andrew and Riva. Each was stirred at the immodest display of Riva's body. And then Andrew, too, in one or two swift movements, had stripped to the waist, and his powerful torso pressed into the magnificence of the Turkish girl's tits and belly. Riva moaned musically in her mounting desire.