SV Part 2

Lady Sackable said this while leaning back on her pillows and placing a forearm across her brow in a manner that suggested just how distraught she was at the prospect of going much longer without a horn. “Do come sit by me Miles and tell me all your plans.” She added this as an after thought, though it was not quite the thought she was after.

Miles for his part was approaching a state called “all of a tither” and couldn’t believe his good fortune. He did have a plan of course, well not really a plan, more of a vague hope and it had nothing to do with rhinos in the morning though he thought “rhinos in the morning” a catchy sort of phrase. Miles knew that when a swarthy, hairy chested, white hunter enters a woman’s tent on a swell veldt, he does not go there without conquest a forethought. Miles, lacking swarth and sporting but a handful of chest hair, was nevertheless hoping a light embrace might be possible. Something on the order of buck up old girl, I’ll find a horn for you yet, while placing a comforting arm round her shoulders. If luck then held, violin music would swell mysteriously up and there would be locking eyes, trembling lips and passionate words not needing to be said.

Taking the proffered seat next to the object of his desires, Miles was about to employ his ploy when Cynthia quite suddenly took his hands in hers, placed them on her thinly night-gowned lap and looking up at him earnestly, said… “My, your brow actually is quite fevered.”

“It’s nothing, really” Miles shot back. “Touch of Jungle Fever I suspect. Happens all the time” and then something that sounded a lot like “har har, eh what and wouldn’t you know.”

Lady Sackable, gazing at Miles meaningfully, shifted all four of their hands from her lap to his where she hoped to discover a local uprising and was not disappointed as she in turn said, “Yes, I quite understand.” and “I’ve heard it’s really quite common when two people are alone… all alone… in a tent on swell veldt in the dark of the night… and there’s rain shushing all about them… and… the lanterns are glowing softly… and… gin is available in large quantities… to be suddenly stricken with all sorts of tropical fevers. And,” she added, fearing her point was too subtle “the only known cure as far as I can surmise starts like this.” She moved their hands again, this time to her breasts which were not quite heaving yet as heaving is such a tough go when four hands are involved. She removed her own, the top ones, to achieve the proper quota and allow the heaving to commence in earnest. This abrupt departure of her knowing hands left Mile’s uncertain mitts plastered there alone to enjoy the aforementioned heaving which is, as you know, an up and down sort of thing. While he took this simple pleasure, Lady Sackable searched his eyes for signs that he had caught her drift. She found them opened quite wide and unblinking, no sign of life apparent, so she let her gaze slip to his lap where the evidence of his comprehension was becoming clearer. Or, as she was more likely to put it… ever so clear.

It was at this moment, this inevitable moment when hunter and prey come together in that age old joining that symbolizes man’s ultimate destiny, the fate of the world and heaps more poetic blither, that the lion who had been nipping about the camp in search of scraps, handouts or the hands themselves, decided to enter the tent.

To be continued.