he'd be the centrepiece at just such a one. A gaggle of stacked women, all bent on plying, pleasing, and plundering him of his vital fluids.
The lights were low, the juke box played some old bluesy stuff, and the girls seemed more gorgeous with every taste of B.J.'s red wine. As for Bonnie Jean herself:
She disappeared momentarily; Jimmy scarcely noticed; he was having a hard time loosening the last button on one of the girls'
blouses, but finally succeeded and gawped as her ample breasts lolled free and available. He would have availed himself, too, except B.J. was back, and dressed in a flimsy see-through baby-doll nightie!
By now Big Jimmy was certain-sure what kind of party this was, and despite that the room spun a little when he moved too fast, and that the bar stool seemed to sway under his backside so that he must constantly maintain his balance, his blood was pounding as he dazedly wondered which of the girls would want him first.
As it happened, they all did.
'So,' B.J. said, standing a little apart from him along the bar, 'was it worth coming back to us, Jimmy?'
'Ah wouldn'ae missed it for the world!' he tried to answer, but all of his words came out sideways. He tried staring at B.J., tried to focus on her breasts, the dark V of her pubic region under the gauzy nightgown, but his gaze kept sliding off first to one side, then the other.
Behind the bar, Zahanine poured him the largest measure of whisky he'd ever seen, said: This will straighten you up, Big Jimmy. It's more what you're used to.'
'Right!' he said, and actually managed to grasp the glass, and tilt its contents down his throat. As Zahanine refilled it, two of the other girls wheeled a long trolley up behind Jimmy, positioning it precisely to his rear. Head lolling, he glanced around and took in the scene as B.J. and the girls stood chairs around the trolley, three to a side. Decked with a tablecloth, the trolley was quite empty. Obviously they'd be bringing food and a birthday cake out from the kitchen.
Obviously, yes.
'Whose f-f-fuckin' birthday is it anyway?' Big Jimmy slurred, tilting more whisky down his throat. But this time as he went to put the glass down he missed the bar and sent the glass crashing to the floor. It pulled him together momentarily, long enough to look from face to face, stupidly, as he waited for an answer. And eventually B.J. said:
'Birthday? Why, it's yours, Jimmy!'
'Aye!' Big Jimmy rocked on his stool and tilted it back a litle way, but just a little too far. Tha's a good'yin, that is!' he roared.
'Mine, by fuck!' And he teetered there.
'Except it's not exactly a birthday,' B.J. said, and her voice was quite different now, as she touched his shoulder to apply the very slightest pressure. Losing his balance and toppling over backwards, he scarcely knew he was falling. Several pairs of hands took his weight, lowering him on to the top of the trolley - or rather, to the hardwood draining board, for one of the girls had whipped away the cover.
There are two big days in a man's life, Jimmy,' B.J. said where she stood looking down into his quivering face. 'One's at the beginning, and the other's at the end. Well, you've had the one, and this is the other.'
'Wha'?' he said. 'Whazzat?' As the girls strapped him down, hands and feet. And: 'Eh? Eh?' he queried, as they used knives as sharp as scalpels to cut away his clothing. And however ridiculously, Big Jimmy was still grinning, for this could only be some kind of weird sex game, or an even weirder dream, as someone turned the lights down more yet and B.J. 's eyes - and the eyes of her girls - became yellow triangles in the gloom.
Then there was more yellow - the glitter of golden instruments - as B.J. passed around slender tubes with trumpetlike mouthpieces, similar to the funnels she'd used in Radu Lykan's redoubt. Except the feeders had been for the giving, and these smaller versions were for the taking.
Big Jimmy only noticed them in passing, however, because he wasn't able to take his eyes off B.J. herself. Bonnie Jean, who might just as well be naked for all her nightgown hid, standing there in the gloom, with her yellow eyes - no, her scarlet eyes now -burning into Jimmy's soul!
All feeling had fled him; Jimmy was as drunk, or as