This Monday and Tuesday gone would have been Carnival Monday and Tuesday in Trinidad. Probably the two most glorious days of any year. I was supposed to be there playing ‘mas (as we Trinis refer to it) and, more importantly playing J’Ouvert. I thought I’d give everyone a taste of J’Ouvert. The words are French, a contraction of jour ouvert which translates into day open. I hope you enjoy this excerpt from D is for Desire. I am mourning my lost Carnival.
The pickup rolled to a halt, and the engine died. Early rising birds chirped a melody intermingled with cicada warbles. A white sign with black letters displayed the painted words, ‘Trinidad and Tobago Zoo,’ and the wood creaked as a gentle breeze blew across the asphalt road.
“We’re here.” Michael vaulted over the edge of the tray. “Damn, the music trucks are starting up. Did anyone tell our driver what time to pick us up?”
“He’s meeting us for eight in the morning.”
“Good. Come on. Make haste women. Let’s find the bathtubs.” Michael trotted away.
“Here, Alex, take a swig. You need to loosen up.” Jake passed a bottle of Black Label Scotch to him. “It’s not single malt, but it’ll do.”
Jake forced Alex into the tub.
He point-blank refused to take off his t-shirt.
“The less the stuff gets on my skin, the happier I’ll be,” Alex grumbled as he lowered himself into the mud bath. To his utmost surprise, the hot glaze prickled the surface of his skin and enhanced every sense, making him aware of the sweet, frangipani aroma dusting the small park, the sable sky dotted with twinkling diamonds, the low rhythmic pounding of African drums combining with his escalating pulse.
“For someone who didn’t want to get into the tub in the first place, you sure look as happy as a clam in there.” Michael prodded Alex’s shoulder blade. “It’s my turn. Get up. The trucks will leave soon, and the liquor cart. We can’t lose the liquor cart.”
The cold morning air hit the mud coating Alex’s skin, and it dried in slow, tight stings, curing into patches of chill, crisp flakes;. Sexuality thrummed through him like a living, breathing creature, and all his fantasies converged into one: Dee.
.
He jumped when Daphne curled her arm around his waist. “Come on, sweetie, you’re in my hands for wining and chipping instructions.” She handed him a wineskin. “Have a swig, and we’ll get started.”
Obeying, Alex chugged the liquid in the wineskin. Tequila. He refused to think about tomorrow’s hangover, or was it today’s?
“Here we go. Position yourself behind me.” Daphne guided his arms around her waist. “Now this is wining.” She ground a slow, sensual circle with her hips pressing her buttocks over his arousal. A tiny groan escaped his mouth.
“Are you sure Michael will be okay with this?” Alex whispered in Daphne’s ear, knowing they were a married couple.
“Course, sweetie, anything goes at Carnival time. It’s all good fun once we don’t take it too far. Think of it as harmless flirting loaded with sexual tension.”
Daphne changed direction and circled to the left. She leaned forward, bent almost double at the waist, and ground against his organ making smaller, rapid movements with her hips.
“Crap,” Alex said. “Does everyone walk around at the point of climax?”
“Hopefully, you do climax at some point in time.” Rosie inserted her arm around Alex’s waist from behind. “Shall we give him a Trini sandwich, Daph?”
“Why not? We’ll get him off to a good start.”
Rosie’s long copper-hued arms lifted his damp t-shirt and snuck around the heated skin of his stomach. She matched Daphne’s rhythm, circling her hips around his from the back as Daphne ground her bottom into his shaft from the front.
Sweat broke out on Alex’s temples. “Crap, no wonder you guys rave about Carnival. This is heaven. Christ, I’m a Trini sandwich. This may be my first Carnival, but it certainly won’t be my last.”
“Now chipping is basically shuffling your feet down the road in this position keeping my bumsey plastered over your pelvis.” Daphne arched a look back at Alex
.
“Bumsey?” he queried.
“Trini word for bum,” Rosie answered. Her fingers drifted to the tip of his arousal.
Alex captured her hand with his. He let it drop to his side. “How long do we do this for?” He wanted to ask Jake if none of the women objected to a stranger’s blatant erection.
“For J’ouvert, until around eight. Then we go home, shower, eat, sleep, wake up, and come out to play pretty Mas in the sunshine.” Rosie rubbed her palm across Alex’s bare belly. “He’s got a definite 6-pack, Daph. You need to show Michael, just to rile him.”
“Jake, pass me the Scotch, will you?” Alex asked.
The two women lifted his t-shirt and busied themselves examining his chest and stomach. Rosie tweaked one of his nipples. Horrified, Alex grabbed her hand and clasped it in his.
“Don’t manhandle the poor boy, ladies.” Jake smirked at Alex and slapped the bottle into his hand. “Drink up. You look like you need it.”
The DJ blasted into life, splintering the low conversational hum of eight hundred bodies dancing and twirling in the darkness of the early morning. Daphne and Rosie disappeared, immediately replaced by a couple of slick, skimpily-clad, voluptuous, coffee-colored women. They sandwiched Alex and ground into him, a mound on his rear end, a bottom rubbing his throbbing erection. He drifted with the flow, letting the women dictate his direction. Steel band music thundered along the cool morning breeze. Moisture hung heavy and thick, coating sweaty bodies with cool dew.
Michael passed him the Black Label bottle. “I can feel the rain coming. It always rains on J’ouvert morning. Take a shot. It’ll ward off the chill. This is the best part of J’ouvert coming up. The rain makes all those gorgeous nipples hard. Luscious bubbies with their pointy nipples. A man can’t ask for more.”
Alex noticed Dee a few yards away. Her platinum curls glowed in the faint lights from a nearby café. Across the wide path, their eyes met, tangled, promised. A five-deep circle of tipsy females all bent on sexual pleasure surrounded him. She turned her back on Alex. His fascination with Dee bewildered him. Alex wondered what her ‘special abilities’, Tee’s PC term for witchy talents, were, and whether they included inciting uncontrollable lust in unsuspecting men. Dee seemed made for Carnival, sexy, rumpled, abandoned, prancing to the blaring music.
Two bikini-clad women wearing burlap loincloths and scarlet halter-tops led the band into the street carrying a large banner proclaiming their theme, ‘Vikings’. Crude but effective, he decided, and searched the suffocating crowd for Dee. He caught a glimpse of her white-blonde curls in a random stream of moonlight.
Compelled like a gnat to a flame, Alex elbowed his way through the crowd and came up behind Dee.
To the right, Jake and Tee chipped to the music. Jake’s linked hands draping his wife’s bare waist, her hips plastered to his.
Bittersweet envy strung through Alex in response to the couple’s Kodak moment, the easy intimacy hard to stomach in the face of his recent, callous decision, which he already regretted. His gaze swept to Dee, and something tugged at his soul.
Carefree mother earth goddess, hands thrown up in the air, forefingers pointed, eyes closed, sensuality personified. She bent her knees and did a rapid stripper’s roll, circling her hip to the left. The burlap flap fell away as her bottom lifted, and Alex got a ten-second glimpse of a high, rounded, naked cheek. A slash of scarlet slashed its edge. Dizzying desire lanced lightning bolts, and primordial instincts wrestled away any remaining veneer of civilized man.
His hands snaked around Dee’s narrow waist, and he locked them together. Dee jerked to a halt becoming un-pliant in his embrace. Alex pulled her back to his chest. Her head popped around, and she didn’t seem surprised to discover it was he. Dee let him hug her, but Alex felt her doubt in the rigid tension of her spine. He loosened his hold letting a few inches separate them. Gradually, she began moving to the music, hips undulating. Alex drew her closer in small increments until they chipped forward together.
A large man bumped into Alex’s shoulder, warm liquid from the bottle in his hand sloshed over Alex’s arm. Sparks lit the dark morning to the right of them, and the pungent aroma of marijuana battled those of rum and perspiration for dominance.
“Here comes the rain.” Michael materialized at Alex’s side. The music halted for a moment, and his shout resonated over the shuffling of feet. “The bubbies, here comes the bubbies. I need some whiskey and a woman to wine on.”
A smattering of stinging, cold raindrops assaulted Alex’s skin.
Michael passed the bottle of Black Label to Dee. She twisted out of Alex’s arms to get it, took a swift swallow, and plopped the bottle into his hands. He took a sip of the fiery liquid and gave it to Jake.
Alex’s eyes were drawn inexorably to Dee’s breasts. Sure enough, her nipples had hardened under the chill torrent of raindrops, tightening into stiff, round points. His lips dried out, parched, thirsting. His mouth burned with the need to suckle, sip at those nubs. He grabbed the whiskey bottle and took another long swig, trying to eradicate the flood of lust threatening an embarrassing release. When he encircled her waist again, Dee relaxed, snuggling into his arms. His shaft grazed the small of her back, feeding on the slight friction. A fierce breeze whooshed down the six-lane road, puckering flesh.
Dee’s petite form shuddered, bursting into a series of little shivers. Alex touched his mouth to her ear. “Cold?”
Dainty hands came up to cup her shoulders, and she nodded.
Planting his feet wide apart, Alex shouted, “Stay there.” He braced against the crowds milling at his back, hooked his t-shirt over his head, and offered it to her.
The crowd jostled Alex along the length of a blaring music truck. A man wearing black spandex cycle shorts sang into a microphone under the fluorescent lights of a canopied music truck. He warbled a calypso, equal parts Rap and Soca, his bluesy voice climbing above the crowd’s sing-a-long and the rain’s drumming. The moment proved intoxicating in the extreme. The scent of musky coupling and sweet rum filled the air. The music wove into Alex’s brain. Pelvises gyrated friction, from the front, behind, and at the sides.
As individuals, they held no goals, no direction. As a united crowd, bent on sensory pleasure, music, elation, touching, grinding, the scent of heated arousal, a sugary, languid, soaring excitement with one end in sight: climax, the poignant fulfillment of a bacchanalian dawning. J’ouvert, the day opening, the literal translation of the term.
Drunkenness stole over Alex in time to the rising red ball of the sun on the horizon. They crossed the Savannah Stage at six o’clock. The band refused to leave the wide wooden podium, even after some self-important official pleaded with them over a megaphone to let other bands have their turn.
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