After that, we stopped tapping out messages to each other. The girls and I did as Pedro had suggested. We relaxed and waited. We could hear muffled sounds of digging from above, but not much more.
It got boring. Just that. There was nothing to do but eat caviar and drink champagne, so that’s what we did. And as the morning passed into afternoon, our little prison began to get unbearably hot. So we drank some more champagne to cool off. But that only made us feel the heat more.
I took off my shirt. Dawn loosened the straps of her halter. Rosita leaned back and waved her skirts higher to cool her legs. Selma pulled the top of her Baby Dolls away from her large bosom and angled her body so that some cool air would reach her breasts. Even Brigid undid the row of buttons down the front of her Chinese lounging pajamas and turned her back to me so that she might get some relief from the heat. But all this female activity only made it seem warmer to me.
I drank some more champagne. So did the others. By the time night came around, there were five dead soldiers lined up and I don’t suppose any of us were feeling too much pain. We supped on more caviar, which made us more thirsty. We varied our liquid diet by washing it down with vodka.
“Aren’t‘ you goin’ to be turnin’ out the flashlight now?” Brigid asked after a while.
“Why bother?” I answered.
“We don’t want the batteries to be burnin’ out on us, now do we?” Her hand was resting possessively on Selma’s thigh. There was nothing surreptitious in the way her fingers were stroking the thigh flesh.
“They won’t burn out,” I assured her. “Not if we left it on for the next three nights. And we should be out of here long before that.”
“Still, it’s time we were gettin’ some sleep and I’d prefer the light out.”
“Oh, all right.” I turned the light off and settled back in my corner.
It wasn’t long before I heard Brigid and Selma thrashing about again. I was just drunk enough to feel playful. I waited a minute and then turned the flashlight on again, catching them square in its beam.
The Baby Doll panties were down around Selma’s ankles. Brigid’s red curls glinted below Selma’s midriff. Her face wasn’t visible. It was buried in the blonde’s flesh. Selma’s eyes were closed. She was breathing very quickly. Her hands were moving in time to the breathing, squeezing Brigid’s small breasts.
Aware of the light now, Brigid sprang to her feet. “Sure that’s a dirty trick!” she exclaimed, her green eyes shooting contempt at me.
“So sorry. I was looking for one of my socks,” I lied. I turned the light off again and laughed to myself.
They were quieter after that. I was almost asleep when I felt a pair of soft, eager lips pressed against mine. Assuming it was Rosita, I kissed back and slid my hand up to encircle a breast. The breast was naked. It was large. It was straining with arousal. But it wasn’t Rosita’s breast.
I broke off the kiss and peered into the darkness. I barely managed to make out the face so close to my own. “Dawn!” I said, surprised.
“And why not?” she replied. “Does Rosita have a monopoly on you or something?”
“Definitely not!” I realized she was stark naked and the liquor she’d been consuming all day had made her bold.
“I’ve been in these damn hills even longer than she has,” Dawn explained, sounding a little defensive.
“Of course you have, honey.” I soothed her, stroking the vibrating curve of her magnificent derriére.
“And you wouldn’t turn down a fellow American in need, would you?” she asked.
“Not on your life!” I kissed her again and we didn’t talk any more.
She was even more passionate than Rosita had been. Her nether-mouth virtually bit at my flesh in its eagerness. And when it secured the grip she so avidly sought, it held on with viselike tenacity as she swung her body over mine to insure the maximum contact. Her beautiful breasts swung to and fro over my face until I halted the motion by catching the tip of one of them between my lips. It was burning and erect and damp with passion. And so was I.
It lasted an ecstatic eternity, but finally it was over. Dawn bent quickly to kiss the instrument which had granted her so much pleasure and then crept away into the darkness. I turned over on my side to go to sleep.
But there was to be no sleep just then. Rosita was determined about that. Yes, she was there. She’d been lying there, only a few feet away, waiting for us to finish. Now it was her turn. But I was so tired. I let her know I thought I was too tired.
That didn’t stop Rosita. First she showed me I wasn’t by emulating Dawn’s farewell kiss with variations. Five minutes of this and I was as eager as Rosita. I don’t know what they put in that caviar, but from the length of time Rosita and I sustained our passion, all I can say is that those Russian fish must really make the Black Sea churn.
It was almost daylight by the time she went back to her own corner. I fell into a deep sleep. The sound of tapping from above finally woke me.
It woke Rosita too. She translated. “Pedro says it will take about another twenty-four hours,” she told me.
“Tell him not to hurry,” I said with a conspiratorial smile.
“I will tell him.”
The others were up already. We had our usual breakfast -- caviar and champagne. “I’ll never eat another hors d’oeuvre,” I commented as the salty taste cloyed in my mouth.
“Rinse out your mouth with champagne,” Dawn advised.
I tried it, but it didn’t work. My Scotch ancestry asserted myself and every time I should have spit the liquor out, I swallowed it instead. The girls found this very amusing. They insisted on catching up with me.
Then it was noon again, and hotter than ever. “If I don’t wash, I’ll co crazy,” Selma commented.
“So wash.” Dawn told her.
“With what?”
“With that.” Dawn pointed at the champagne. “It’s got alcohol in it. It’s antiseptic. Better still, use the vodka. That’s hundred-proof.”
“A1l right, I will.” Selma opened a bottle of vodka and poured it over her arms and legs.
“Let me help you, honey,” Brigid said. She poured some vodka into the palm of her hand, raised the tops of Selma’s Baby Dolls, and rubbed it into the blonde girl’s back.
“Ahh, that feels good,” Selma said. “So refreshing and cool. It reminds me of when we used to open the hydrants on Bushwick Avenue when I was a kid. We used to take off all our clothes and dance around naked under the water in the streets.”
“Don’t let me stop you,” I told her.
“All right, I won’t. I used to be a stripper anyway.” Selma lifted the tops of the Baby Dolls coyly and slowly wriggled free of the garment. Then she put her hands on her hips and did an insinuating bump-and-grind as she inched the bottoms down her legs.
That started it. I guess we were all pretty looped. Rosita didn’t like the way I was staring at Selma’s figure and so she stripped off her clothes quickly and stood in front of me as if to prove she had a better figure. I took a swing of vodka and made some leisurely comparisons. Yes, Rosita did have a better figure. But Selma’s was somehow earthier. For the first time I began to envy Brigid.
Brigid was now succumbing to Selma’s coaxing. She had opened the pajama-tops and was standing with her back to me, facing Selma while the blonde girl rubbed her breasts with vodka. My attention was distracted from them by Dawn coming over with another bottle of vodka to wash my shoulders and back with it.
“How come you’ve still got your clothes on?” I asked Dawn a little drunkenly.
“I’m the modest type. I never undress myself.”