After the Dreams (Caroline's Company) (7 page)

Cassie, who had heard of the
early reading primer, thought that at least these people could laugh at
themselves.

‘And welcome from me as well.’ Another woman embraced her
and kissed her on one cheek. She was tall, and Cassie thought she was quite
loud. She was almost overpowering in a glossy red velvet dress that showed off
her considerable bosom.

‘I’m Poppy.’

As she stooped to kiss Cassie’s other cheek, her breasts
almost seemed to assault the younger girl.

‘Careful Poppy,’ said a very civilised sounding voice, and a
firm hand shook Cassie’s.

‘She’s always enthusiastic is Poppy, it’s what she’s famous
for!’ The third dinner-jacketed man had silver hair and a very fit looking
posture.

‘Poppy is my wife, and I’m Philip. You haven’t got a drink. 
What would you like?’

Suddenly Cassie noticed a girl
at her elbow, and almost fell off her heels in shock.

The serving girl was stark
naked, carrying a glass tray with full and some empty champagne flutes.  She
had porcelain white hair in an ornate arrangement, and was barefoot.

Rather stunned, Cassie
recognised Sylvie, and was going to speak when the naked girl shook her head
slightly.

‘Have some champagne,’ said the man called Philip, taking a
glass from the naked girl’s tray, and handing it to Cassie.

‘I hope you like Caroline’s dinner parties!’

‘I’m sure she will,’ said Caroline, and then drew Cassie
away to one side.

‘I hope everything is not too overpowering for you. If it is
just say, and you can sneak away to your room.’

‘No. You did warn me, and all these people seem interesting
in their different ways.’

‘Yes, they are certainly different,
but they do look a smart group don’t they!‘

Cassie looked round the room.
Everyone was in formal black, except Poppy who was in bright red. Caroline,
Cassie noticed, was wearing a black and silver dress suspended over her right
shoulder with a black lace flower. It complemented her blonde hair which was
looped up a little like Cassie’s. She also wore a round-shaped silver necklace
of something like scales that flashed in the light, and had a matching bracelet
on her left arm.

‘I hope you are not too shocked
by our serving girls!’

Cassie looked round. Girls?
Plural?

There was another naked girl, also in a white wig. This one
wasn’t quite naked however. She was wearing a small white thong, with a strange
little symbol on the front over her pubic mound. As she turned to collect a
glass, Cassie saw that the new girl, like Sylvie, also had a tattoo on her
lower back.

‘Is she like Sylvie? Do you...’

‘No, that is Sadie, and she is
quite different to Sylvie. She lives here but she’s been away for a few weeks.
I would say that you will see more of her later, but that would perhaps not
quite the right expression at the moment!’

Cassie wondered at this
apparently conventional group of people, all formally dressed, grouped around
the sculpture of three beautiful and naked classical figures, and totally
unconcerned at being served drinks by equally naked but flesh and blood young
women.  It was clearly going to be an interesting party!

It only came to her later, if
there three marble girls, why only two real ones?

A gong sounded, and there was a discrete cough. ‘Madam,
Ladies and Gentlemen. Dinner is ready to be served.’

(Cassie wondered at Mr
Newcombe, ‘Fred’ as she had been told to call him the previous day, managing to
remain so formal in this highly exotic company.)

Mr Newcombe threw open the
double doors, and led the way into the candlelit dining room. The full length
curtains had not been closed, and a full moon shone into the room,
supplementing the great candelabra on the table.

Caroline took Cassandra’s hand
and they walked into the dining room together. It looked completely magical to the
younger woman. The butler helped her into her chair at the foot of the table,
and then moved to the other end to assist Caroline into her chair. The other
guests followed and sat with two women and one man on one side, and two men and
one woman on the other.

Cassie had Jo on her right
hand, and John on her left

‘Cassandra, would you please
say grace,’   Caroline asked from the top of the table.

Cassie had been warned about this, and read from the little
card in her place setting.

Her voice was clear, and not
too low pitched.

‘For what we enjoy, may we be thankful.

For what we do not enjoy may we be forgiving.

May we give help to those who are lacking what they might
enjoy.

For all out good things, may we
ask blessing.’

‘May we ask blessing,’ echoed
everyone at the table.

It sounded a strange grace to
Cassie. It was only on the following day that she realised how appropriate it
was.

The two serving girls brought in the first course, a light
dish of melon wrapped round with prosciutto. It looked a strange combination to
Cassie, until she tasted it!

Sylvie and Sadie were now wearing little transparent
dresses, with halter necks.

Cassie saw that Sadie’s tattoo
had the same symbol that showed on her front.

‘Combination,’ said Jo on her right. ‘It’s always about
combination.’

‘Yes,’ said John. ‘Do you think there is a perfect
combination?’

‘Well – prosciutto and mango are delightful as well.’

‘But the melon melts more easily!’

‘So melon and prosciutto are the perfect combination?’

‘Yes.’

‘So just like Janet and yourself.’

‘Well I can only say yes to that.’

‘Did I hear my name mentioned?’ Janet asked from the other
end of the table.

‘Only as part of a perfect combination!’

‘What combination?’

‘Well either wrapped round a melon or wrapped round with
prosciutto’

‘Thank you!’

Mr Newcombe had served a flowery fragrant Moselle. They all
drank to each other.

Cassie wondered what the underlying
part of the conversation meant.

‘There are many different sorts of good combination,’ said
Jo.

‘And do they all have to have just two components?’ asked
Cassie.

‘Ah, you are remembering Caroline’s house rules!’

‘Well, yes.’

‘No there can be more than two “components”. It just depends
on how they fit together.’

Cassie almost sniggered into her wine glass.

She was still learning how to sip delicately, without
smudging her lip gloss.

‘I can see that you are going to enjoy living here,’ Jo
smiled at her. ‘But there are different types of combination. Several round
this table in fact.’

‘But there are three couples...’ said Cassie

‘Just you wait and see,’ said
Jo. ‘No such thing as a standard combination with people. We’re not like food.
All our combinations work in different ways.’

The dinner progressed. All the
courses were quite light, as though planned to avoid over-filling the guests.
The serving girls tripped to and fro. After the beef (sliced very thin, and
served with equally thinly sliced pickled cucumber), David tried to take a
pinch of Sadie’s bottom, but was restrained by Poppy, sitting to his right.
When Sadie was next at the head of the table Caroline spoke softly to her.
Cassie saw Caroline’s hand touch the nearly-naked girls face, and saw Sadie
smile in response.

Poppy for the rest of the time,
carried on a loud conversation with the two men on either side of her, and
sometimes made a braying remark to her husband across the table. Her laugh got
louder and more horsey as the meal progressed.

Cassie talked with Jo and John. She explained something of
what had happened in London, and both older people were suitably sympathetic. 
As Cassie talked about this, her shoulders drooped and some of her girlish
delight in her appearance and the company fell away. She also mentioned her
cousin Lucy and her sudden departure for Africa, and that Cassie had not heard
from her after the first few weeks. John looked up at that. ‘Does Caroline know
about that,’ he asked?’

‘I’m not sure,’ said Cassie.

‘Make sure you tell her,’ said Jo.

Then Jo, to lighten the mood, congratulated Cassie again on
her makeup and dress, and went into a rather giggly account of another friend
of hers with the most appalling dress sense.

‘You women are so lucky,’ said John. ’You can choose
different looks and make what combinations you want.’

‘Well, you know what you could do about that,’ retorted Jo.
‘I’ve told you often enough.’

‘Thank you,’ said John, ‘but I would look hideous, and I,
we, are very good as we are.’

Jo raised her glass in response.

Sadie, who was passing just
then, winked at Cassie.

As the moon rose, it flooded the room with a stronger light.
At a signal from Caroline, the butler and the girls removed the candelabras and
carried them out.

(‘I hope they take care,’ whispered Jo. ‘Hot wax on bare
skin!’)

The women, who had glowed in the candlelight, were now more
ethereal and remote, like silver statues. Poppy, whose arms were bare and whose
dress was the lowest cut, almost appeared to drip with liquid silver. Her
breasts were the most prominent feature on her side of the table. It seemed to
Cassie however, that Caroline whose black and silver shimmered in the
moonlight, and whose blonde hair shone like a ghostly flame, looked like some
goddess of the night. Without effort she dominated the room. She smiled at
Cassie, for although Cassie did not know it her copper and bronze also shone in
the moonlight. Her pale face looked very young, and eager for the possibilities
of whatever might follow.

Jo, John and Janet, who of those round the table were the
least pre-occupied with their own concerns, were the most conscious of this
duality between Caroline and Cassandra. The room had fallen silent. John stood.

‘A toast to Caroline, and to our newest young friend,
Cassandra!’

‘Caroline and Cassandra,’ echoed round the table as glasses
were raised and lowered.

‘And to Poppy and Philip,’ Caroline stood. ‘This is their
night, and may everything that they desire come from it.’

Again the room echoed.

‘Poppy and Philip.’

Poppy’s rather horsey laugh rang
out again.

For the last course, the girls
did not wear their transparent dresses, and were again naked and shining in the
moonlight. This time they wore stone coloured high platform shoes, and they
each carried a single candlestick as they walked one each side of Fred Newcombe
as he carried in a magnificent meringue, topped with a  complicated structure
of fruit and cream.

The three of them processed in,
and stood in front of the moon bedazzled window. The girls turned sideways on,
so that the moon showed the curves of their breasts and their smooth rounded
bellies. The butler placed the dish on a small table in front of the window,
bowed to Caroline, and withdrew. The effect of the naked girls standing there,
lit partly by the cold moon and partly by the warm candlelight, was incredibly
erotic.

Inevitably someone laughed, and
equally inevitably it was Poppy.

Everybody helped themselves to
the meringue; the naked girls stayed standing to provide illumination. It had
been a magnificent meal, and Cassandra revelled in the both the food and wine,
and the very exotic company.

Chapter Five

An Evening’s Entertainment

‘Now we leave the men to whatever the men get up to.’

Caroline, stood up and smiled
at her guests, then lead the way through the far set of double doors into the
drawing room. The fire was burning low, but the big garden doors were open to
the warm moonlit garden.

‘It is a lovely evening. I hope it will be warm enough for
you Poppy.’ Caroline looked at her red-dressed friend.

‘I’m sure Poppy can cope with a summer night,’ said Jo.

’I’m sure I will Caroline,’ said Poppy. ‘If I shiver it’s
just in anticipation.’

‘I hope David didn’t drink much,’ said Jo. ’He’s bound to
want to drive home tonight.’

‘But surely there’s plenty of room here.’ said Poppy. ’I
mean we always stay even when....’

Caroline interjected ‘I asked
Fred Newcombe to make sure he didn’t get too much Jo, and I’m sure the girls
won’t want him to drink too much either.’

Jo stood close to Caroline by
the fire. Her dark looks complemented those of the tall blonde. Cassie thought
that Jo looked at Caroline quite hungrily.

‘Come and sit down by me Cassie.’ Janet invited her. ‘John
will be through before long. He doesn’t enjoy port and nuts or cigars. He does
like a good whisky though.’

What she didn’t say was that John was unlikely company for the
other two men. In fact they were unlikely to sit together for long, apart from
the women.

‘You do know that you look most striking.’ Janet said to
Cassie.’ Who did your hair?’

‘Sylvie did it for me, but she said that I could go the
salon in the town later.’

‘She’s amazing that girl. I’m sure that Caroline doesn’t
value her enough.’

Cassie remembered her first dinner here, and what happened
in this room afterwards, and didn’t know quite what to say.

‘Oh, I know some of the things that happen here,’ whispered
Janet with a quiet giggle. ‘It’s just that neither John nor I want to take
part. We very much enjoy looking though. That makes us like voyeurs I suppose.
We get excited seeing our friends getting excited and enjoying themselves.’

Cassie thought that Janet was a handsome woman, and might
look good if she ‘took part’. Cassie grinned to herself; she was obviously
falling into the mood of the house.

‘You’ll be watching with us
this evening. I think it’s going to be rather spectacular!’

Jo came over, and sat next to Cassie. Janet pulled away.