Savage boarded theJade Dragon,entered his cabin, and sat down in his captain’s chair with his feet propped up on the map table. He threw the letter containing the offer on top of the meticulously drawn charts he’d labored over when he sailed this ship himself on the Canton run. Why wasn’t he elated that the East India Company had offered a substantial fortune for Leopard’s Leap? His mind traveled back to the early years. He had shed blood, sweat, and tears to make the plantation thrive. He’d sacrificed his youth to the backbreaking labor, to endless hours that had left him bone weary and brain numbed. He’d risked his health and, for the rest of his life, knew he’d suffer from recurring bouts of malaria. He’d risked his sanity, enduring the soul-searing loneliness, until he’d learned to become one with nature, and he had risked his life innumerable times hunting down rogue elephants that trampled his plants, stalking panthers that ate his livestock, putting down insurgence from natives determined to burn him out and rid the land of the white man.
By any reasonable reckoning he should be glad to be free of it all. But Savage was not reasonable, he was unreasonable. Ceylon had insinuated itself into his blood and Leopard’s Leap was a part of him. He had built it from nothing with his bare hands. He looked at those hands now. They were brown and strong and scarred. The little finger on his left hand was burned black from when he had been struck by lightning getting in a crop before the monsoon struck.
When he had arrived, he had owned nothing but the clothes on his back. Now he owned this land and it had become precious to him. This was the reason he’d lingered here in indecision long after he’d become a millionaire. He could not bring himself to part with Leopard’s Leap.
He took up the letter from the Company and began to write his reply in earnest. He offered to lease his plantation for a two-year period. This would give the East India Company the opportunity to reap the high profits he’d hinted at. If at the end of this time the Company was interested in purchasing the plantation outright, he would renegotiate.
Savage mulled over the proposition he’d just put in writing and knew he couldn’t lose. If at the end of the proposed two years he decided he still could not part with Leopard’s Leap, he would simply ask a price the Company was unwilling to meet.
He sent back his offer by the return mail boat, knowing they would jump at it. He instructed them to send their plantation manager without delay as he was returning to England in three weeks’ time.
Savage sent the wagons back to Leopard’s Leap. He would easily catch up to them on horseback the next day. As the light faded from the afternoon the languid indolence was replaced by an air of excitement that always descended upon the city with darkness. High-caste women in veils and shapeless robes disappeared and were replaced by lower-caste women with their silky black hair uncovered.
Music and laughter could be heard as the pace of life picked up. The food vendors’ business became brisk and the streets started to fill up with men and women intent on enjoying all the pleasures of the tropical night.
Adam told the crew of theJade Dragonthey need not take on cargo until morning. He wanted to supervise the loading of Evelyn’s exports for the China run so that he could give her a favorable report when he returned, and morning would be soon enough.
Perhaps this would be his last chance to enjoy Colombo’s exotic delights. He had been working eighteen-hour days and felt as tightly coiled as a serpent. A smile touched his lips as it occurred to him where he would go to unwind. He departed the ship and headed into the city of domed mosques. He walked east, away from the port, and at the very end of Kelani Street he stopped before a house known as the Jewel of the East. As Savage stepped through the front portal he removed his wide-brimmed planter’s hat and narrowed his eyes until they adjusted to the brilliance within.
The reception room was a myriad of mirrored tile with glittering amethysts set between. He recalled how his mouth had fallen open at such opulence when he had first seen it six years past. Here he had learned of Ratnapura, the City of Gems, where violet amethysts were so plentiful they had no value at all—except when he shipped them to England, of course.
Two darkly beautiful women greeted him warmly. “The Leopard honors the Jewel of the East.” The women wore exquisitely embroidered saris in an identical shade of lavender. They looked like sisters, but Adam knew otherwise. They were Pearl and Mother of Pearl, a combination so exciting they could take a man to the edge of madness.
He kissed their hands and exchanged familiar pleasantries with the dusky females before he was graciously asked to make his first choice. The Jewel of the East offered a twofold path, stimulation or relaxation. Previously he had always chosen the former and had never regretted that choice. Tonight, however, he chose relaxation and was ushered through the beaded curtain concealing the archway to the left.
He was seated upon a cushioned divan and given a menu from which he was to make his selections. The menu was not for food alone. He was led to the bathing room, where six dusky handmaidens removed his gun and his garments. Two came into the pool with him while the other four poured in flagons of boiling water until the temperature of the bath was raised to almost scalding and steam filled the small room.
Next they cleansed his body thoroughly with an amazingly efficient tool designed for the purpose, then he was wrapped in a large thirsty towel and led from the steamy room. The dusky handmaidens lined up before him so he could make his choice. Their filmy garments revealed more than they concealed, so Adam had no difficulty selecting his partner for the night. Her name was Delight and long before dawn he would learn that it was most apt.
When they were alone she removed her diaphanous garments and head-veil to display her body, which had been completely denuded of hair. As she stood naked before him her lustrous black hair fell in a waterfall down her back to sweep the floor about her heels. Delight was well curved, her breasts and thighs swelling out from her tiny waist. Her face was sensually attractive with full, pouting lips and enormous black liquid eyes.
She pressed him down upon a hard divan with his head well cushioned, then massaged his naked limbs with oil of almonds. Her hands felt like heaven as she swirled them in long, smooth ovals over every muscle in his body. Adam began to relax and by the time she had finished he felt his very bones were melting.
The food he had ordered was now ready. Delight took the heavy-laden tray from the servant, walked past a table, and set it upon the floor. They reclined naked upon cushions while she lifted the lids from tureens of gold to allow the tantalizing aromas to whet the Leopard’s appetite. First she offered him a demitasse containing a sweet blue liquid. Adam let it roll about his tongue, savoring its unusual taste. Everything seemed to slow after that, every movement, every sound, every breath and heartbeat. Then, at a deliciously languorous pace, she fed him with her fingers.
He recalled past visits where each successive dish was spicier and hotter than the last until he had been stimulated to an insatiable lust. This time nothing was spicy. The foods were comforting, soothing, dipped in smooth syrups that made him lick and suck Delight’s delicious fingers.
When he was replete he sighed heavily and allowed her to bathe his hands and face with rosewater. From a shelf Delight took a filigreed casket and sat cross-legged before him upon the table. She opened the casket with its mirrored lid and began to paint herself with henna.
She decorated her palms and the soles of her feet, then she moved on to her breasts, where she painted an intricate pattern of dots and tiny flowers forming circles, spiraling from her nipples. Then she mixed a brighter red pigment into the henna, spread her legs wide, and began to paint her labia with the blood-red maquillage.
Adam had thought himself so relaxed, he could not lift a finger; he was mistaken. His male center stirred, lifted, and hardened as his eyes became mesmerized by what her delicate fingers were doing to her sex. As a female decorates her mouth with red lip salve to attract the male, so Delight decorated the lips between her legs to emphasize the alluring mouth with the erotic pigment.
From the casket she took two bracelets decorated with tiny bells and fastened them around her ankles. Then slowly, sinuously, she raised one foot and lifted it behind her head. She needed the help of her hennaed hands to place her other foot behind her head, then she posed absolutely motionless, knowing the Leopard would arise from the floor, drawn to her almost against his very strong will.
When he stood, his rigid phallus reached to his navel. He moved slowly toward the object of his desire upon the table. Then he allowed his marble-hard lingam to enter the blood-red gates to Paradise. As he thudded into her with strong, slow thrusts, the bells upon her anklets tinkled prettily. When Delight transferred her feet from behind her own head to his, he impaled her deeply enough to tinkle the bell she had placed high within her sheath and Savage smiled with pleasure that he had accomplished such a feat. The rhythmic sound of the bells increased in volume as his strokes quickened violently, then dissolved in a tinkling crescendo as he cried out from his release.
Delight once more invited the Leopard to recline upon the cushions while she rolled him a special cheroot made from Jaffna tobacco leaves mixed with a small amount of ganja from the hemp plant. Adam shook his head at his own folly, knowing he would have a hangover in the morning.
By the time he was finished his relaxing, intoxicating smoke, the languor stole up his limbs and he felt as if he had drifted off into another world where blissful sleep and heavenly dreams would be his reward. Delight came down to the cushions and began to lick his bronzed skin as a test to see if he was yet in the final stage of relaxation. She licked all the way down to his navel, noting with satisfaction how heavy lidded his eyes had become.
She was most surprised when his strong arms came about her and he pulled her beneath his body. He mounted her with powerful thighs, then tortured her with exquisitely slow thrusts that told her in no uncertain terms he was not yet slaked. Delight was awed by the Leopard, for she had let down her love juices twice before he found release. His manhood lay limp along his thigh as she pushed him back down into the cushions. She lay against him and offered the hard bud of her nipple for his mouth’s pleasure as he drifted off to sleep.
His tongue toyed with the pretty bauble, his teeth gently bit her, then when he began to suck hard, his shaft started to fill and throb once again. The Leopard was to be commended upon his virility. Quickly she moved down his body and took him into her mouth. It took a full thirty minutes of tender, loving anointing before his seed spurted forth and she drained him of every last drop he possessed. Delight swallowed the copious, pearly fluid, knowing it was the best potion in the world for her complexion. The Leopard slept.
To be more accurate, he overslept. This did nothing to improve Savage’s disposition. He graciously paid twice the amount he was asked before he departed the Jewel of the East, but he was annoyed with his own lack of control. The ganja he had smoked last night was an immature indulgence that had left him with throbbing temples.
When he arrived at the wharf where theJade Dragonlay at anchor, her crew was already loading the cargo from his warehouses. He boarded the small merchant vessel and went down into the hold. He stopped speaking in mid-sentence and stiffened. His dark head went up and his icy blue eyes stared at the seamen in disbelief. His nose told him what to expect when he took a crate from a sailor’s hands and tore off its lid.