A night out with the Landlocked Commodore

You have exchanged notes and cards, deciding on a comical opera. Light entertainment offered by one of the smaller houses on Pheasant Drive, not far yet worlds apart from the Imperial Opera and Exhibition Theatre on Emanation Plaza.

The writer-composer aspires to mediocrity, but the orchestra is known to gamely play shanties and bawdy tunes in place of his worst attempts. Drinking is accepted, nay encouraged, and delightful rumours have the lead and dancers continue the entertainment after the music is done.

You enter with high hopes and take in the sights. The railings and rafters are made from oily and gilded wood and the curtains are of chintzy velvet. A smiling redhead takes your coat, and a moustachioed bartender recommends juniper distillate in the colonial style. The first sip is foul but cold, and the second is already pleasing to your numbed tongue. You finish one glass and order another, paying only a few scarps for a feeling of warmth and a way to waste away the time.

Then the Landlocked Commodore arrives, arm-in-arm with his date. You smile through the obligatory introductions that follow. She is the daughter of a cabinet minister and her elegant dress compliments his parade uniform as she conceals her obvious disdain for you with soft talk and exaggerated niceties. The three of you talk about the weather before the conversation shifts to acquaintances of the others whose names you have not heard before. Her blue eyes sparkle for him as she judges you, until dismissing your personage with a shake of the head and leaving you to admire the fall of her silver-blonde hair in decorous silence.

The bell summons inside before your slipping smile can betray your boredom. You are ushered up a flight of stairs, the worn wood rickety in the half-light of flickering Leviathan Oil Lanterns, and into his box. There are three seats, red upholstery covered with moth-eaten velvet. You take the one farthest from the door with the Landlocked Commodore beside you, he shielding her from you with his body. Their hushed talk, however, is soon interrupted by scattered applause and the first wailing bars from the brass section.

The book and tunes are as bad as expected, but the orchestra’s valiant efforts keep the ineptitude from turning tedious. You keep your attention on the stage and away from the Commodore whispering with his date. The lead is a better dancer than she is a singer, panting out nonsense words with her limber body snaking around her love interest’s midriff. His flimsy pirate dress does not hide the growing erection.

And the next song has her bouncing between her pirate lover and his Navy rival. She moves her hips in hypnotic circles, before falling to her knees in front of each in turn. Her singing stops and she instead bobs her head to the tune of the beating drums.

You shift in your seat, surprised to hear the sound of her wet sucks over the swelling music.

Then the beat of the drum rises her up again, hands planted on the boards and feet stretching into the air. Stagelights linger on the nakedness between her open legs as she moves a sole past her head and snaps upright. Her voice is uneven from strain, but the song is known and the audience’s bellowing helps her move past the impossible heights.

Lights flicker to life as the curtain falls, and the Thoroughbred Blonde removes her head from the Commodore’s lap. Your faithless friend makes a token effort to hide his naked cock as they turn on the lights but he, in standing up, shows off his tented pants with shameless pride. She does not even look at you but licks her lips, dabbing the corners of her mouth clean with slender fingers and a snow-white napkin.

"Another tonikum, First Officer? My treat." He smirks as he ignores your attempt to answer. "And for you, my lodestar? Some sweet and sparkling wine? A drop of syrup and a hint of cordial?" He kisses her hair, ignoring her answer as well.

"The service in this place continues to disappoint." She is alone with you inside the smallish box but still addresses her remarks to the inside of her purse. "A waiter would be tipped well. And it would have been polite to offer." She scoffs.

You, surmising she does not indeed demand her accessories walk towards the bar, give a terse response.

"He can be exuberant." The Thoroughbred Blonde, eyes shielded behind her make-up mirror, pauses as she reapplies dark-red paint to her full lips. "In any other man, it would vex me mightily, but he wears uniform and swagger well." She smacks her lips and breathes a kiss-print on a napkin. "Tell me, First Officer, what did you think about the play?"

Her mirror snaps shut before you can answer. She looks at you, for the first time since the music started, tittering as she notices the remnants of your own erection. "I thought it rather less impressive."