AREA 47

SECTION 89:

COURTNEY, Chapter 60

The butler led Reed through Griff’s private apartment, instructing him to remove his shoes before entering the sacrosanct bedroom.

The mood, Brandoesque; the style, Beauregardism; the theme, S-E-X.

“Come on in, Byron!”

And there sat the skulking fifty-nine-year-old playboy, spread-eagled on the five-inch thick ivory carpeting, wearing his jammies, his fingers tickling the buttons on the kind of hand-held intricate remote control device that could command whole robotic factories; Peach right behind him, pillowing him with her pair, nuzzling against his back, rubbing his shoulders, whispering rancid somethings into his ears.

And there it was, sprouting up from the pee-slit of his pajamas: HUGE dick, Priapus personified.  The thing was a glistening, veined, throbbing baseball bat.  Horse-sized.  Lindy Loveluck, give it up.

And there they were, rompworthy young ladies of indeterminate origin and age, six of them, taking turns.  Taking turns and giggling.  Taking turns and giggling and masturbating Giles Griffin——diddling the arrogant whang.

And look around you: projection video screens & color TVs placed with Frank Lloyd Wright precision & Las Vegas excess all over the place like a video-disco, each and every one of them filled from high-resolution pixel to hi-res pixel with the real-time image of Giles Griffin at the petting-party.  Remote control ceiling cameras, CCTV for the truly jaded: record the blue, playback the purple.

And up over there: off-screen, leather from tootsie to shoulder, and temporarily between record deals, the guitarist god guest, Timmy Book.  He was on Griff’s bed, the most famous bed in the Western world, getting his brains sucked out by Miss Barbara, a barely bleeding puber groupie who worshipped him.

And (Postscript) there it was, down floor-level on a free space of the lush, sensuous carpeting: the customized Risk board.  All set up and ready to go; but let’s make love, not war.

“All right!” Griff yelled.  “You’re dead meat, Byron.  You’re dust under my dice, dude.”  The speed with which he lost all interest in sex was remarkable.  He was over at the board, tool tucked back into his jammies faster than Reed could think: What the hell am I doing here?

“Hello, Reed,” Peach said, quickly making tracks to the Risk board.  “Sit down and play.”

“You want to play?” Griff asked Peach.

“No, lover, I just want to watch.”

“Are you sure, you little devilkin?”

“I’m sure, lover.”  They nose nudged and expressed affection by quick intimate groping at forbidden flesh.

“OK,” Griff said, “who wants to play?  Four colors available.  Byron, what color do you want?  I’m red.”

“Black.  Prepare for a black plague to descend upon the earth.”

“Ha-ha!”  Griff chuckled.  “You got it all wrong, dude.  The world will bleed blood red; we’re in for a red bloodbath!  Who’s in?  Timmy!  Come down here.”

A horizontal fluff of female in an amazing pink powder-puff ostrich skirt, chose pink, and announced that the world was going to see some pink.

A grossed-out brunette in bluejeans and tailored jacket quietly chose yellow.  Judging from the expression on her face, she was having doubts about the wisdom of remaining here.

Reed noted the markers.  A penis was 1 army.  A vagina was 5 armies.

A dazed and confused bedtime blonde, wearing a sexy, lacy, white merry widow wisp of lingerie and nylons, edged in against the board, and against Reed.  She reached across the board to select a color, placing one hand on Reed’s thigh for support.  She was high as a satellite, and she spilled blue little phalli and pudenda all over Reed’s black army, invading it.  With Mae West innocence she asked if there was someone who could show her how to play.

Byron Reed helped her place her hands back in her lap, and her armies back in her tray.

Timmy Book and friend both wanted to play, and crowded against the board.  When Griff refused to bend house rules to allow a 7th player, Miss Barbara lay her head down on Timmy’s lap for a little nap, penis pacifier in mouth.

“Include me out,” Reed said.  “This is too weird for me.”

Giles Griffin roared with laughter.  “Says the man with his own private mini-harem?  This is the guy who’s trying to break my group-sex Guinness Book record, and he gets upset over a little group-grope?  A little fellatio?”  And he laughed some more.

Reed could see that he had some confessing to do.  All he needed was crap like this to go flying into Courty’s ears.  He wanted to say something to correct the record, especially with Peach there.  But he couldn’t think of a thing.  Nevertheless, Reed resolved to tell Courtney tonight what Estelle had done, and what he had done.

Reed said, “If you’re going to play Risk, play Risk.  If you’re going to have an orgy, have an orgy.  But not both at the same time, for Christsake.”

Griffin said, “OK, boys and girls, by the Book, by the Book; talking to YOU over there, Timmy.”

The sexual monkey-tricks were put on hold.  Timmy Book banished his lap-warmer from his crotch.

The game began.

During the placement of the pieces, Timmy Book bent Reed’s ear about how he was getting his act together, about what a hot producer Reed was, and about how the perfect musical match would be Book’s playing and singing skills, and Reed’s track-tweaking genius behind-the-scenes. Reed was noncommittal.

Ms. Pink, Mr. Book, and Ms. Satellite weren’t even in the game.  Reed could see that much, just from how they placed their pieces.  They were armies to be eaten.  Giles was aggressive and dangerous with every subtle additional placement of an army.  The girl in jeans positioned her yellow pieces with imposing solidity.

One of the ladies not at Risk played the role of bartender, but only Book wanted booze.  The woman placed a fresh chilled can of Jolt in front of Griff, removing the slightly-sipped can.

Griff periodically tinkered with his remote: panning, focusing, going in for special close-ups of his own face.  Everywhere Reed looked, he saw reproductions of the Risk board and the people around it . . . and Griff.  Griff sure liked to watch himself on TV.  Griff seemed to pay as much attention to the monitors as he did to reality itself.

But not only was Giles Griffin a super-sharp player, he was also the luckiest son-of-a-bitch-of-a-bastard in the history of dice games.  His luck was monumental.  His play was reckless, as if he was depending on favorable winds.  And actually, he almost always managed to role at least one 6.

Giles eliminated pink from the board, taking two cards as booty.

Reed suspiciously watched for a dice switch.  Peach was blowing on Griff’s hand to give him luck, before his throws.

Peach was helping Griff switch dice!

Reed was sure of it, but he couldn’t see how Griff differentiated the dice from each other.  He was apparently switching dice on occasions when he felt he needed extra luck, and then removing the lucky die before the last throw of his turn, and replacing it with a normal one; but Reed couldn’t see any visual difference among the dice.  It might be a tactile difference, then.

It amused Byron Reed.  The two of them were successful multi-millionaires (although Giles Griffin was worth far more than Reed), and here this guy was, playing a silly kid’s boardgame ruthlessly, with total and full involvement, pulling out every stop, every trick in the bag to WIN.  Reed had heard that Griff often played Risk and other games for large amounts of money.  But here they didn’t even have a side bet on the outcome.  Something else was at stake.  The male ego.

Well, if that was the way the man wanted it.  Reed preferred a straight game.  He liked clean, honorable play, within the boundaries of the rules.  It was more satisfying; it was what boardgames were all about: an escape from LIFE.

They were using large professional Vegas dice, red for the attack, custom blue for the defense, rolled into a special rectangular felt basket.  This was an ideal situation for Reed, who had long ago perfected a tricky way of rolling two dice against a short-throw soft-bounce corner that almost completely eliminated snake eyes, and upped the odds of getting a six on the control die by about 17%.  (The basic technique worked also for three dice, although not nearly as well.)  He never used the trick, unless his opponent cheated first.  It was a small advantage that in the long-run often had decisive consequences.

It was technically cheating, but Reed had his own sense of justice in the universe.  Fairplay, after all, was a spectator’s value judgment, a virtue that only existed in the eyes of an audience.  Players were concerned with Winning.  If the other player cheats, then it became honorable for Reed to cheat; and the boardgame became a stadium for the bigger game of deception.

The game of Risk sprouted new guidelines of play, new etiquette, there in the Sportsman Mansion.  Uck-fay fairplay.  Bitch, bugger & bewilder any would-be upright opposition: Bend over, Bobby!  Frig any feeb faithful fool with the fickle finger of fate.  Rape the rules & jerk the judges & diddle your dutiful opponent with the dirty digit of destiny.  Just Don’t Get Caught.

Book was bored.  He silently played, biding his time by licking, alternately, two of his little five-army markers.

“I’m going to win this one,” Giles said.  “Care for a little side bet?” he asked Reed, scoping out his main competition.

“What do you have in mind?”

“Oh, how about ten thousand bucks.  Just you and me.  First one of us eliminated from the play, loses.”

Reed smiled slow.  Shark’s teeth.  He loved to see overconfidence in his adversaries.  “Ten measly little Gs?  Give me a break.  That’s a pussy bet.  Fifty thousand bucks, and we’ll use the doubling cube.  Everyone here is witness.”

Giles laughed; he clapped his hands, applauding Reed like a little kid at the puppet-show.  “Fifty thousand bucks!  Voluntary doubling!  You got balls made out of gold bullion, Byron.  I accept.  Of course, your brains may be barbecued, but . . .”  He burst into chuckles.

The doubling cube was a device stolen from Backgammon, allowing the option of doubling the amount of the bet.

“You’re dust, dude,” Giles Griffin said, throwing the doctored-die and two normal dice in a three dice attack.

Siberia attacks Urinal!”

COURTNEY, Chapter 61
 

Copyright 2005 Area 47