Abracadabra!

Chapter 12:  Dinner Under The Dinosaur

 

Maxine had proved herself an ingenious and athletic sexual partner. Gregg, with his very limited experience of sexual congress found her techniques simultaneously stimulating and satisfying. After satisfying orgasms for both of them – his as a result of her skill, experience and research; hers as a result of his youthful vigour and abandon – the two sank back in sweat soaked exhaustion.

 

Maxine leant across him. "There’s only one thing," she said with a conspiratorial air. "I’d like you to help me with something."

 

Gregg at first looked suspicious of Maxine’s proposal but as she outlined her determination to get her revenge on of her boss, Gregg found himself more engaged. Revenge was a desire he could understand and the actions she proposed appealed to his newly acquired enthusiasm for anarchy.

 

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In the control room for the CCTV network that Aaron Rodwell had installed after the theft of the emerald, the guard was sitting with his feet on the console. He was feeling that there was little to be done tonight while Rodwell and the Trustees were dining in the Museum’s hall. It was an opportunity for a quiet shift watching something more diverting on his PC. He didn’t notice the way in which the CCTV cameras were swinging around without his involvement and he certainly didn’t see how it was being done as the cables that ran from them responded to some unseen hand and snaked around the camera’s, pulling them out of line until they were no longer pointing into the hall.

 

Gregg and Maxine were standing in the shadows at one end of the great hall of the museum. At the other end of hall, Aaron Rodwell was holding forth to a group of the trustees and their wives as they sat at dining tables clustered around the feet of the museum’s reconstructed Tyrannosaurus Rex fossil. "Welcome," he said in a booming voice, that echoed through the cast iron girders of the museum’s ornate, early twentieth century roof. "Welcome to this year’s Dinosaur Dinner," he continued. "I hope that you have all enjoyed the meal and now I hope you will excuse me if I say a few words of thanks to you all."

 

It was all Maxine could do to keep herself silent as Rodwell went on. "Your wealth endows the museum," he said, patronisingly. "And I must say the presence of your wives here tonight graces the museum too – bringing with them as splendid an exhibition of jewellery as the museum has ever exhibited." His audience laughed politely. "I trust that we have now overcome your concerns about the security here in the museum.  I can assure you that they were the result of the irresponsible actions of one of our staff who is no longer in her post. This is the start of a new era for the museum."

 

Gregg looked at Maxine who was scowling at Rodwell’s ingratiating tone and the fact that it was her that was being blamed. "It certainly is," Gregg said. "Let’s crash the party," he went on as Aaron Rodwell began moving between the tables offering brandy and port to the assembled group.

 

Aaron Rodwell’s first sight of Gregg and Maxine was as they emerged from the shadow of the great dinosaur skeleton. Gregg commanded immediate attention in his swami’s turban with the great red jewel and the magnificent gold kurta he wore over his pajama trousers. Beside him stood Maxine in her lehenga choli, a shawl drawn over her head and across her face and wearing the Heron emerald in her navel.

 

"What do you want?" Rodwell said. "Who are you and what are you," he pointed at Maxine, "doing with that emerald?"

 

"Please do not trouble yourselves," Gregg responded in his most placatory tone. "Perhaps I should explain myself to you all."

 

The assembled diners turned towards him. As each caught sight of the Swami’s great ruby in Gregg’s turban they felt a curious calm fall over them and a sense that time itself had slowed to a snail’s pace. The group, including Rodwell, fell silent, gazing at Gregg blankly.     

 

"Oh, now that is a good trick," Maxine exclaimed realising that the group was completely under Gregg’s influence.  "Can you really do anything with them that you want?"

 

"I think so," Gregg smiled, "but first I think you want to relieve these ladies of their jewellery."

 

"Of course. Since Mr Rodwell believes he has solved the problems of the museum’s security, I think we should show that he is wrong. Purely in the interests of a scientific demonstration, of course."

Maxine giggled as she moved to the tables, going to each woman in turn, stripping them of necklaces, bracelets, rings, watches and jewelled hair grips.       

 

The women sat quite still, staring at where they had first seen Gregg’s ruby, silent and passive as Maxine went from one to another. She followed that with a pillaging of their handbags, removing credit cards, cash, some highly expensive mobile phones the occasional jewelled lipstick case or the small gold, enamel or engraved boxes that no doubt held a recreational line or two of coke.  The pile of her spoils grew in the middle of the table as she turned to the men, removing their wallets, cash, Rolexes, gold money clips and the other trappings of wealth. She finished with Aaaron Rodwell who was standing motionless beside the dinosaur skeleton.

 

"A tidy pile," Gregg remarked. "Do you think you have embarrassed Rodwell enough?"

 

"Well," Maxine began, pleased with the results of their escapade, "not quite. Could you convince him to stand on the table and drop his trousers before his guests wake up? He was always keen for me to see what was inside his pants – perhaps he feels the same way about the wives of the trustees?"

 

"Oh, I think so," said Gregg as he waved at Rodwell who responded by following his gesture towards the diner’s table, climbing on, lowering his trousers and then, with a wave of Gregg’s hand standing with his arse pushed out and one finger put coquettishly to his lips.

 

Maxine giggled. This was even better than the haul of jewellery, she thought, gathering up her spoils in a tablecloth. "I think the trustees should join in too, don’t you?"

 

Gregg looked at her. She was evidently determined to get every last drop of revenge that she could from the situation. "Why not?" he said and clicked his fingers bringing the gaze of the diners upon him. He thought for a moment of what would most amuse Maxine and without a word being spoken the assembled group began undressing until all were naked and the men and women were embracing in various carnal positions. Heads were pushed between legs, hands groped breasts, mouths swallowed cocks, tongues found themselves at feet. Gregg was particularly fascinated by the way in which his power had worked. He was becoming used to the idea that the thought drove the actions of his victims but in this case he had simply thought that each should get together with their lover. What was obvious was that for some of them the term "lover" did not cover the partner that they had arrived with. Whatever the fall out of this particular event, Gregg felt, Maxine’s desire for the humiliation of the trustees and Rodwell in particular was being well satisfied.

 

His sense of smug satisfaction and Maxine’s feelings of triumph didn’t last long however.

 

               

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"This is the Police!" The shout, from outside the building, distorted by the amplification of a loud hailer shattered the silence of the museum. They stared at one another in panic, stunned that they had somehow been discovered.

 

"Come out with your hands up!"

 

They looked up to see searchlights playing on every window of the hall. As Gregg looked out he caught sight of an officer in a SWAT vest, running along a roof opposite, carrying what looked worryingly like a high powered rifle. "How can they have found out? How are they here? What are we going to do?" Gregg’s bravado and suave self confidence had dissolved in a fit of panic. Drips of sweat were forming on his forehead beneath his turban.

 

"Don’t worry. Be calm," Maxine urged. "Come on, you’re the magician, all you have to do is to make us disappear."

 

Gregg looked at her for a moment as if she was mad but then calmed himself. "Of course!" he exclaimed. Remembering what he had read in Hiram Heron’s memoirs, he took the pipe and coil of rope from the basket he was carrying. Laying the rope in the middle of the hall, he played a few notes on the pipe and the rope began to climb towards the roof, acquiring a length that it had seemed not possess. It became rigid. "Come on," he said sticking the basket and pipe under his arm and taking Maxine by the hand, "Cling on to me." She grabbed her knotted cloth of spoils and did as he asked.

 

He started to climb the rope. Soon the two of them were twenty feet from the floor of the museum, level with the head of the dinosaur. Gregg following Heron’s account of the trick, began to pull up the rope from beneath them. Maxine watched in astonishment as the two of them hung in the air supported by nothing.

 

Gregg shook the last few feet of rope and called in a loud voice, "Abracadabra!"

At the far end of the room a group of police offers burst in. All they saw was a blinding flash by the dinosaur’s head and a cloud of purple smoke, slowly dispersing into the rafters of the hall. Of their quarry there was no sign.

 

There was no explanation for the naked group of trustees, although that made an amusing story for the papers the following day when the police reported what they had found. They had arrived after a concerned citizen had reported lights on in the museum and of course after the recent robbery no one was taking any chances. It wasn’t clear what had happened. There was property missing and the trustees had evidently been involved in some sort of orgy but none of them seemed to be able to give a clear account of what had happened or why they were where they were. After a thorough search of the building Rodwell was led away for further questioning.

 © Freddie Clegg 2010

Not to be reproduced or reposted without permission. All characters and events fictitious.

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