Читать онлайн «The Artful Egg»

“Er, madam?” Ramjut Pillay said hoarsely, stepping over to where the sliding doors stood ajar, but keeping his eyes humbly averted. “Good morning, madam, so sorry for the disturbance—many, many apologies, madam. ”

There was what he took to be a stunned silence, so he went on hastily: “All in the line of duty, you see, madam. When I feel the weight of this cream letter in my hand, I say to myself, ‘Pillay, you are the bearer of some very important tidings—see there is no delay in the conveyance. ’ And so, when I am ringing at your bell and there was no immediate answer, I. …” He had just taken another peep at her, and now realised her eyes were closed. “Asleep?” he whispered, hardly believing his good fortune.

Why, he need only sneak away as quickly as possible, and nobody would ever know he’d been there.

Then he hesitated for a fateful fraction of a second.

Long enough anyway to want a closer look at those splendidly rounded white limbs, at those womanly breasts, at the gently domed belly, and in that same blink of an eye another side to him took possession. This frightened Ramjut Pillay—in fact, it scared the wits out of him—but it also somehow excited him, and excited him enormously, if the situation behind his postbag was anything to go by.

At first, he acted with cold calculation. He cleared his throat loudly, and when this failed to produce a reaction he gave a rap on the glass door. He did not rap a second time, however, having satisfied himself she was not merely dozing. And then he took his boots off, leaving them outside on the patio before setting off on tiptoe across the wooden floor of the sun-lounge.

This was when a feverish, dizzying feeling overcame him. He would never have believed such a perfect pallor of exposed skin possible, not in a million trillion years, and wanted desperately to caress it, to feel its cool sheen soothe his brown fingertips like magnolia blossom. Nothing could stop him now, and if she awoke suddenly, too bad—he’d just have to do something drastic.

There was a low buzzing in the room. He ignored it.

He marvelled instead at the glittering bluey-green bikini, shimmering as though stitched over by thousands of iridescent sequins, and moved closer, his weak eyes greedy for strong detail. The bikini had some red in it, too, he noted. The blurry face was as he remembered it—rosebud lips and long sweeping eyelashes. The breasts seemed heavier than he had suspected, the mound between her thighs far more pronounced than he could have dreamed. All of a sudden, he hated that bikini and wished it away, wanting to see beneath it.

He got his wish.

No sooner had his advancing shadow fallen across the female body lying languorously before him, than the bluey-green glitter disintegrated into a buzzing swirl of angry flies, rose up and disappeared over his shoulder.