Unknown - Charity Ball

“Not necessarily. I simply think people’s rationales for their actions-as well as how they perceive those of others-are more informative than whether they lie per se. Lying is so much a given that in itself it tells you nothing. People sometimes don’t even know they are lying.”

“So where are you there?”

“You are primed to find the motive behind the deception-whether the deception is consciously calculated or is self-deception ingrained into their egos as a defense against past deeds.”

“Fuckingchrist.”

“Care to hazard a guess?”

“So, Mister So Clean He Won’t Come Up My Asshole. I see you’re a Sherlock Holmes and a Sigmund Freud rolled into one.”

“I try to be a bit of a psych-out artist. Part of the package.”

“Fuuuu-uck you say. Those pearls of hers are not anywhere near as valuable as some of the other jewelry-the stilt Constance keeps locked up. Likes the pearls a lot, though. She tell you they’re heirlooms? Maybe Constance likes to keep them near her person for sentimental reasons.”

Veronica drifted her gaze away. Played with her headhair as if annoyed with it.

Griffith continued. “Maybe she’s auctioning the pearls off for sentimental reasons, too.”

“You don’t understand how things can get when you’re rich,” Veronica sniffed.

“It’s almost as if your emotions don’t count.”

“Sorry for you.”

“Toodle-oo,” Veronica said, leaping to her feet. “Gotta get back to practice now-If I’m gonna be ready to compete on the synchronized swimming team at the next Olympics.”

“That’s like water ballet?”

“The shit you say,” she brayed. “It’s a brutally demanding sport. I’m a finely tuned athlete. I’m ordinarily not rude, but if! could fart on cue I’d do it in your face.”

“Didn’t mean to insult you. I’m just ignorant.”

“Your ignorance is an insult.”

“And top of the morning to you, too.”

Veronica turned toward the pool.

She jackknifed at the waist.

Brought her hands together behind her butt.

Her asscheeks flared open as she crouched slightly in a diving posture.

Her asshole juddered open.

“Toot,” she blew through her blowhole.

Her hinder flews shuddered. Anus stuttered.

“Craaa-ack!” Veronica hacked out breezily from her rump as she gave it a pump.

“Here’s another one, dude,” Veronica chewed.

“Boop!” her asshole chuckled.

“Talented girl,” Griffith wheezed.

He saluted Veronica with the still-sticky ‘tips of his fingers.

Touched his fingers to his lips. Wiped the inside of his mouth.

Stirred his spittle.

He slurped up a syrup of residue. Sensed the finny aftertaste of Veronica’s stew.

“Don’t forget to take your smelly clothes with you,” Veronica cackled as she sailed through the air. “Their presence distracts me.”

Baroquely curlicued cockgrin caged in his pants, Griffith Poindexter danced a few jigsreps in place on the crest of the hillock overlooking the greenhouse off to the side of the uninhabited sundeck. He had sensed the boiling cuntoils of passionate pussy-inspired plots upon his first entrance to the foyer of Charity House.

And right there from the start Griffith had a few surmises about the possible disposition of those black pearls. As well as why the lady might have preferred to keep them close at hand in the boudoir, nestling among her lingerie.

It was true that nothing Griffith had learned had actually confirmed any of a number of variations on his theory.

But nothing quite contradicted it, either.

“Supposing confidentially, milady,” Griffith practiced confidently, “that I do have an angle on where those pearls might be at present?-Naw. If it’s gonna wind up in one of her books, Constance will want it to come out more indirectly. Slow, tantalizing build-up. That’s how I’ll go.”

With this change of heart, Griffith kisses the wind. Griffith next takes a turn over the field where, on other days, polo ponies graze.

No recent tracks. No dropped gloves, hankies, jewelry, or pens to identify the escaping thief like in the old-lady mystery stories. In fact, there are no material clues thus far anywhere at all as to the whereabouts of the missing baubles. Except in the literary sense that the piles of horseshit surrounding him in the field seem to be a figurative expression- mute commentary as though to confirm Griffith’s ultimate suspicions.

Alone on the polo playground, Griffith hefts his well-worn twanger in his hand.

He examines the head.

Swollen and red.

Anything but underfed.

The facelike expression of the sculptured pricktip exudes satiety.

The helmetlike hoghead a rounded, tapering wedge with convoluted edges.

Curled crown slanting along the sides of the dong in a smirk.

Blue veins running throughout the ivory length like swirls of specially selected marble.

He gives the penis a jerk.

Ballocks bounce like a sack of baubles.

Griffith gives his testicles a tap to see how they react.

He jumps at the sudden movement of the sac. The self-transformation of his yarbies gripped within their shrinking skein of scrotum that draws up tight underneath his belly.

Nougats protected within the wrinkles of a ballsack crinkled like a nutshell.

Perhaps Griffith’s balls are telling him something. Speaking in the only language they know. Saying to him, “Do you really like the flavor of the brand of witch’s cuntbrew you and the rich-bitch are getting into? The word is this:

When in doubt, brother dude, get out. And if you can’t do that-at’ least curl up your cock and balls beneath your belly and protect yourself.”

Well, well.

Was Griffith going nuts?

Or were his nuts going-? Anyway, one thing was for sure. If Constance Charity Eastwick-Westbrook, the Lady Farnsworth (husband rarely around), former princess to the reputed Spanish prince (after the divorce-she hasn’t seen him since-at least not too often), and the lady responsible for some of the more salacious novels of upper-class sexual predation in print-if this frail mistress has indeed lost her marbles, Griffith means to return the favor. He owes her one.

Griffith strolls across the gray washed wooden planking of the sundeck. Checks for indications of Constance’s whereabouts.

He slips his hands into the pockets of his still- moist trousers.

Jogs his balls.

Scans the surrounding greenery.

He grins thinly as he kicks a dried curd of horse manure with his heel. With a final glance across the greensward, he turns and walks across the edge of the end strip of the polo field.

Trains his ears toward the ululations of unseen feathered species.

Squeaks a walk toward the swinging screen vestibule door set into the side of the dome of transparent emerald-colored slats faceting the nearby greenhouse.

Peeks inside.

Spies Constance, stripped to her hide, watering plants and uttering birdcalls.

“Oh, Griffith,” she cried, squinting her eyes over the spray of insecticide.

“Come on in. Be sure to shut the door, wilt you? Spring must be broken on it again-have to remember that and get it fixed. Don’t want the birdies to fly out.”

“This an aviary too?”

He had a jaunt to his march.

An arch to one eyebrow.

“Nice cockatiel,” he said as a greenish-white crested parakeet tweeted in flight. “They’re frail, aren’t they?”

“Maybe if you’re a big bad predator-and quick enough. But if so, please remove yourself from this habitat,” Constance tittered as the bird alighted on her extended finger. “This one’s a robust little chick anyway. Capable of putting up a good fight.”