Those in Peril (Unlocked) Read Online Free PDF Page A

far distant future. In the meantime it made a perfect home for her beloved mother, who had scrimped and saved every penny to enable her daughter to follow her quest to the great tennis tournaments of the world. Now the old lady had a magnificent home, filled with servants, and a uniformed chauffeur to drive her to the village in the Mercedes Maybach every Saturday, to do her shopping and to drink tea with her cronies.
    Rogier stood up from the bed and made a sign to Cayla. Then he sauntered naked to the bathroom. His muscled buttocks oscillated tantalizingly. Cayla jumped up from the bed and followed him, with the telephone receiver still held to her ear. Rogier stood at the urinal and she leaned against the bulkhead beside him and watched with complete fascination.
    She had met Rogier in Paris where she was studying the art of the French Impressionists at the Université des Beaux-Arts. She knew that her mother would never approve of her relationship with him. Her mother was only a lip-service liberal. She had probably never been brought to bed by any man with darker skin pigmentation than orange skin pith. However, on first sight Cayla had been enthralled by Rogier’s exoticism: the glossy iron blue patina of his skin, his fine nilotic features, his tall willowy body and his intriguing accent. She had also been titillated by the accounts of the girlfriends of her own age, those with more experience than her, when they described in prurient detail how men of colour were so much more abundantly endowed with masculine apparatus than those of any other race. She recalled vividly that when she had first seen Blaise in his full imperial tumescence she had been terrified. It seemed impossible that she would be able to accommodate all of him inside herself. The task had not proved as difficult as she had at first imagined. She giggled at the memory.
    ‘What are you laughing at, baby?’ her mother asked.
    ‘I was just remembering Grandma’s story about the wild baboon that got into her kitchen.’
    ‘Granny can be very funny,’ her mother agreed and she went on talking about their impending reunion at Ten League Island in the Seychelles. Hazel owned the entire 1,750-acre island and the big sprawling beach-side bungalow where she planned to pass the Christmas holidays with the family, just as she did every year. She would send the jet to Cape Town to fetch her mother and Uncle John. Cayla put the thought aside. She did not wish to be reminded of her coming separation from Rogier. She reached down and took a firm hold of Blaise and led Rogier back to the bed. Her mother ended the conversation at last.
    ‘I must go now, baby. I have a very early start tomorrow. I will call you again the same time tomorrow. I love you, my little one.’
    ‘I love you a zillion times plus one, Mummy.’ She knew the effect that her baby talk had on her mother. She broke the connection and tossed the telephone onto the antique silk carpet on the deck beside the bed. She kissed Rogier and slipped her tongue into his mouth then she drew back and told him in a peremptory tone,
    ‘I want you to stay with me tonight.’
    ‘I cannot do that. You know I can’t, Cayla.’
    ‘Why not?’ she demanded.
    ‘If the captain finds out about us he will wrap an anchor chain around my neck and drop me overboard.’
    ‘Don’t be utterly wretched. He won’t find out. I have Georgie Porgie under my thumb. He will cover for us. If I smile at him he will do anything for me.’ She was referring to the ship’s purser.
    ‘Anything for your smile and a couple of hundred-dollar bills.’ Rogier switched into his native French with a chuckle. ‘But he is not the captain.’ He stood up and went to where his uniform was thrown over the back of an easy chair. ‘We cannot afford to take that chance, we’re taking enough chances as it is. I’ll come to see you again tomorrow at the same time. Leave the door unlocked.’
    ‘I am ordering you to stay.’ Her voice