candles for santa barbara

        The air at dawn was verdantly cool, sifting through a riot of hibiscus, oleander and orchid. A sea breeze gently nudged through the bedroom lattice and fanned the two people supine in the marbled light. Their bodies smelled of perspired Bombay gin and Meyer's rum. Bedsheets were pungent with roiled sex. Sounds of early morning did not disturb their moist slumber. (A milk truck jounced down their serpentine lane of stucco walls and Spanish tiles, its cages of ice and bottles jangling and clinking. Half a mile distant, gulls cavorted in a cumulus din, hungry and mean, over Indigo Bay.) Finally McEwan woke. He studied the frowzy features of his wife for a moment and then slid from the wide brass bed. Bernice stirred and let go a dainty fart. Tumultuous red frizzy hair masked her bloodless porcelain face. All he could see of it was a dreamy Mona Lisa smile.
        McEwan crept through the windy old Queen Anne house and collected martini and highball glasses. Amazingly a few wooden bowls had mixed nuts and cubes of dried fruit remaining in them: dregs of his Carnival artists & models blowout. The Key West crowd flew in on the seaplane shuttle, got laid, and departed in an orgone frenzy. An orgy worthy of Petronius: it paled in comparison to those incredible parties hosted by that Creole libertine up the lane. A craftsman who made his fortune in the States, selling amulets and talismans to New Age shops, Maurice lived like there was no tomorrow. He would cart in a troupe of voodoo jumping jacks, The Dancing Dead. And hold court during calypso mating rights that surely riled the Underworld. Gamblers bet on cockfights and even the occasional duel, with Maurice providing black-powder pistols. Rancor and lust blazed amid tropical flambeaux. He boasted that his role model was the Roman tyrant Caligula.
        "Where did you hear of Caligula?"
        Maurice shrugged. "Camus."
        "Ah, you've been sharing a bong with old Pico."


                                                                                        *


        Maurice had skin the color of  cafe con leche. Determined to look younger than his years, he shaved his head daily with a straight razor. No tell-tale gray moustache or beard. He kept fit and trim and would parade about shirtless. His nipples, including a small third one, were the color of jungle mahogany. Women wagered Maurice was the most romantically desired man on the island of St. James.
        Profoundly bored with McEwan, he looked about the room. "Isn't that your wife idling by the bar?"
        Bernice was wearing a "tropical heatwave" gown that held her melons like a grocery sack.
        "That's her."
        "Excuse me, Guv. You are such a mandarin."
        Maurice rubbed his golden earring and walked away, feeling lucky.