Page 22 of Just Say Christmas
Well, not all of them. Tom and Ella and Caro, Victoria and Kane headed into the kitchen with the last of the dishes instead, which was awkward, surely. “A bit like Cinderella, eh,” he told Kane. “Not really fair.”
“Nah,” Kane said. “No worries.” He didn’t look exactly relaxed, but then, Marko couldn’t always tell what Kane was thinking. Also, Chrysalis was saying, “Sure nobody else wants to give it a go? A five-sided shape would have better energy, though I’m feeling very positive about all of you. I thought you’d be participating,” she told Victoria, zeroing in on the one person Marko couldn’t imagine participating.
“Oh, no,” Victoria said. “Thank you. I’m fine. I’m all good. I’m just . . . ah, supervising. Making lists, that is, not supervising this. Making sure we’re all good for tonight. Tomorrow. And so forth.”
Marko was getting a bad feeling. Victoria finally shut her mouth, and Chrysalis said, “Bring out the music player for me, then, and we’ll be all good. I’ll just light the candles.” Since she had at least a dozen of them out of a bag now and set onto her table, and each was taller and chunkier than the last, that would be a pretty massive undertaking. Was she going to haul out a Christmas tree, too? Also, if they burned the house down, it might put a crimp in the wedding plans, because he’d be in debt for life.
“We all set for speakers?” Chrysalis asked Victoria, and Marko thought,Of course, she’s probably got liability insurance, which means she’ll be the one paying for the house fire,and felt a little better.
“Yes,” Victoria said. “Already networked. I double-checked to make sure. Here, I’ll show you.” She looked to be in her comfort zone again, and also like she couldn’t wait to get out of here.
Nyree came out of the house at that point in her bikini, which was red, had a ruffle at the low waist where it rode below her bump, and was absolutely adorable, and he lost the plot a little. He did love that bikini. It might say “Maternity” on the tag, but it worked for him. It showed her belly, and he might have a bit of a thing for her belly. Also some other parts of her.
“Still wet,” she told him, plucking at the top and making a face, “but I couldn’t really subject everybody to my pregnancy undies, even though they cover more. What are you going to wear?”
“Togs as well,” he decided, as the other girls came out of the house similarly dressed, Chrysalis finally finished lighting her blazing pyre of candlepower, and he exchanged a glance with Koti.
It wasn’t that he wasn’t used to getting naked in front of the boys, or being physical at any time. He’d taken a shower with his teammates every day, sometimes twice a day, since he was in school. This felt a bit odd, though, didn’t it? South Island sheep farmer or not, unsophisticated bastard or not, wasn’t it odd?
“We’ll do girls onto the tables first,” Chrysalis said, in that kindy-teacher voice. “Tummies down, except for our lady with the belly. You can be on your side, and we’ll adjust. Never mind, it’ll be just as blissful. Maybe more so. Pregnant energy is powerful. Boys, drape the sheet over her, once she gets comfortable, before you head in to change. We want tokeepher comfortable, and then keep her feeling pleasure all the way through, and that starts with being lovely and warm. Owners of the yoni, the lady folk, are brilliant at giving, but we’re not always so good at receiving. That’s why we’re going to be starting there. That, and that giving her a half hour or so to warm up will never be a bad idea. Afterwards, you boys will get your turn, and it’ll be all about the lingam for the next little while. Givingandreceiving, that’s the idea tonight. Yin and yang, you could also say, the masculine and the feminine in harmony.”
Nyree raised her eyebrows at Marko, looked about to laugh, and then climbed onto the table, settled onto her side, and said, “Keep me blissful, boy. It’s an order. I’m liking this activity.”
“This is odd,” Marko said in an undertone to Koti. “Isn’t it odd?”
“Where’s your sense of adventure?” Koti asked. “Yeh, cuz, I’m getting a bit of an odd vibe myself. I won’t tell if you don’t. What happens on Waiheke stays on Waiheke, I guess.”
Nyree propped herself on an elbow and asked them, “You do realize what the ‘yoni’ and the ‘lingam’ are, right? This wasVictoria’sidea? Tell me it wasn’t yours,” she said to Koti.
He lifted both palms in protest. “Not me. I’m as shocked as anything.”
“Ha,” Nyree said. “Except you’re not.”
Marko was getting an idea himself of what the “yoni” and the “lingam” were. What. The. Hell.
The feeling grew stronger once Chrysalis got the music going, since it turned out to be heavy on sultry licks of saxophone, the whisper of a steel brush over the skin of a drum, and a dark-chocolate male voice. The sort of music a bloke played when he was hoping for the best. Every other fella out here was a back, of course, not a forward, andnotfrom the South Island, so that could be part of it, especially once Koti grinned and said, “Well, if we have to do it . . . let’s go get changed, cuz. Call it a training session, eh.”
Music. Candlelight. Wine. Darkness. The scent of jasmine and orange blossom on the warm breeze, and Nyree in her bikini, lying on a table and waiting for him to touch her. A night lit by stars, and the white semicircle of a full moon just appearing on the horizon, offering up a shimmering path along the black water, so bright you felt like you could walk along it. Unless, of course, you were blinded by the glare of the candles.
All of which might be wonderful if he hadn’t had half the bloody team with him. “Awkward much?” as Ella would say. At least she wasn’t here. Tom had more sense than that, it seemed, which was an interesting thought.
On the other hand, itwasa stag night, and Nyree’s hen night, and they were doing it together. It wasn’t like she was stuffing twenty-dollar notes into the G-string of a gyrating blonde bloke in black leather chaps who spent too much time focusing on the non-functional in the gym and too much money on waxing. As he gave her a lap dance. If she was good with it, he didn’t have much choice but to give it a go.
He wasn’t having sex out here, though, and he wasn’t watching anybody else do it, either. Some things, you couldn’t unsee. He also wasn’t getting naked, and neither was Nyree. If that was domineering of him, or overly possessive, or whatever other unflattering adjective Ella would trot out—too bad. If it came to that, they were out of here. He’d bolt, and he’d take her with him. There was a ping-pong table, Victoria had said. Also a swimming pool. They’d do something else. Something appropriate to do in front of your teammates. And their bloodywives.Like, for instance, ping-pong. Very wholesome game, ping-pong.
He might be getting old. But then, he was a forward. He’d been bornold.
13
Truth-Bombed
ELLA
Ella cleared the last dishes from the table with Caro as the massage teacher lit candles and gave instructions, and the rest of the women climbed onto their tables.
She wasn’t going to be doing it with them, then. Even though she was meant to be part of a couple, and the other half of the couple was righthere.
What, she needed this weekend to be even harder? She stuffed the feelings down and told Victoria, “You and Kane go on. We’ll do the washing-up, eh, Caro.”
