Page 58 of Gift Horse

The students dribble up the field, Lolly redirecting grips and helping with follow through. There’s another excellent teacher, though what I want from her is unlike anything I want from anyone else. From Lolly Benoit, I want only everything. I want to breathe her in as she breathes out, to catch her dreams and make them fly, to wrap myself in her fire and blaze until the sun himself isceloso,jealous. Lolly Benoit and I shall make the whole world burn.

A FEAST FOR THE EYES

Mariano Arias. Greenshoot Polo Ranch. Gloucestershire, England.

When we’re done with our first lesson and the students have all had at least fifteen minutes on a mount, the photographer insists Lolly and I gallop up the field so he has the “action shots” that will “make this piece explode” before we’re allowed to hand off our horses to the grooms and head to the evening’s festivities. Tonight’s party is duty rather than pleasure, but we do what we must, though it riots in our hearts. I want to steal my Lolly away and devour her whole, but she’s busy on her phone, then waving me off so she can “squeeze into something respectable for the bash.”

Now that the pilot program has begun in earnest,Thrills, Spills, & Killsexpects me to earn my keep by donning a costume of some kind and schmoozing the crowd in the evening. Honestly, I can’t see how a week of instruction with me—learning how to hold a mallet while on a horse, then a week with one of the other tutors doing something just as basic but outside their usual routine—can generate the kind of income Gwen offered, but if theGolden Horseshoeshave agreed to come to England for a vanity exhibition match, andSporting Heartiesis going to follow our progress, then perhaps there’s money out there that I haven’t considered.

Our accommodations aren’t lavish by American standards, butTS&Khave housed us in a mansion which lies beyond the Dower House where our tea party hostess resides. My suite has a four-poster bed, complete with heavy drapes, as well as a bathtub Lolly and I could drown in. Things to look forward to: soaping her up and rinsing her off. Many times. To order.

I run myself a bath and crack open the wine that has been left with the compliments of the house and soak the day away, dreaming of Lolly in the saddle, Lolly in the barn, Lolly by the wishing well, Lolly in the bathtub with me.

There’s a knock at my door. My cock leaps with my heart. I create a tidal wave dashing for my robe, but when I open my door with Lolly’s name in my mouth, I find it’s aTS&Kassistant and not my lover.

“Mr. Arias. I have your outfits. If I may?” She pushes into the room, her gaudy, brass suitcase trolley squeaking as she goes, and lays three costumes on the trunk at the end of my bed. “We’ve got Orpheus in the Underworld. Madame Butterfly. And the one with theNessun Dorma,or whatever. You know, the Pavarotti song that he done with the Three Tenors.” She strikes a pose and lets loose a non-musical impersonation of one of the world’s greatest tenors, singing a few bars from a song everyone knows.

“I don’t sing.” It’s an understatement. If my attendant is atonal, I have the ear of an alley cat on steroids. “Is there a non-singing role?”

“Don’t ask me, mister.” Her stare is blank. Of course! She has no say in the shape of the evening’s entertainment. I need only to pick an outfit and let her be on her way. My opera is not as good as it ought to be, but I pick the least ostentatious outfit, a leather jerkin and a centurion’s leather skirt.

“Off with it.” The woman pulls at the belt to my robe. “There’s nothing I ain’t seen, so you might as well drop your drawers and let me do my job.”

“I can dress myself.” I pull the belt tighter. “Though, thank you. I appreciate the offer.”

“Darlin’, it’s more than my job’s worth to let you go down there without me seein’ you’re done right.”

I stand naked in a medieval chamber with a woman whose name I don’t know and allow myself to be strapped into the most ludicrous outfit I’ve ever seen. The leather jerkin turns out to be a precursor to some apparatus I barely know how to describe. If I were to star in a leather fetish video, I could not be more pointedly dressed.

“I know what you’re thinking.” She tightens the straps over my back, then checks the leather binding the sandals to my feet and calves. “You’re thinking that we shouldn’t be able to see your hoosie-whatnot when you flip your skirt… But they was very particular. Everyone is dressed accurately. According to history, like.” And with that, she gathers up her clothes and bags and trolley and departs.

I allow myself another glass of wine before I head downstairs. I’m directed to the ballroom, which is packed. They’ve invited half the county, it seems, and all of them are in fancy dress. But I need not have been concerned about appearing without my boxers. If I am a sexy centurion, there’s at least one, if not two, Caligulas, a Don Juan, and several creatures from the underworld. Alan has on a codpiece which he waves in front of himself like an untethered, but rather stiff, anaconda. And the women are no less outrageously fitted. Georgia O’Keeffe has been paired with every feather, scale, and petal to drive home the message: we are creatures of the flesh and should embrace that fact withélanandéclat.Passion, it seems, is the word of the day.

There’s a string quartet playing, if I am not mistaken, Schubert’sDeath and the Maiden,which seems a trifle dramatic for the setting. A waiter hands me a flute of bubbly, and an assistant tries to press a mask into my free hand. I wave it away. I need no disguise. Not that a flimsy eye cover on a stick has ever truly been a disguise.

Alan is already primed for action, with an elaborate bow to Henrietta and an invitation to dance. Our shy royal turns to check with Pippa before she accepts his hand, but Pippa’s at the buffet table, squeaking with delight.

“Mariano! Do you believe that this is our life?” There’s a whole hog, stuffed and roasted, in the middle of the table, but the gastronomic delights don’t end there. She hunts and pecks, trying plates at will before settling on a quivering tower of what seems to be jellied meats, which send her into oohs and ahhs. She pulls me to one side. “This is all for show, you understand. Keeps those grubby little muckrakers off our backs.”

“Muckrakers?”

“The journos, darling. They’re going to be here in force tonight, clicking away, asking questions. We want them looking the other way, if we’re to have any fun.” She nods towards Henrietta, who certainly seems to be enjoying herself with Alan, penis extension notwithstanding. “We try to keep them away from her, but the slightestwhiffof a royal scandal has them salivating like hounds.”

“How can I help?” I leave my glass on the table and await my instructions. Pippa’s friendship with ourinvisibleroyal is to be commended. That she wants to protect Henrietta speaks to her character. I’ve only known her a short time but already she and I are fast friends.

“Oh, good. You’re on board with the diversion. So, this dish right here?” She flourishes her hand over a massive carp set in vibrant jelly. “It’s based on a recipe from the first known Arabic cookbook.”

My frown betrays my confusion.

“Oh, there’s some undercover business shenanigans going on tonight. There’s a high-ranking official fromabroad…”She grins and shakes her head as if I’m supposed to understand what she’s saying. “This official, whom our government assures us we donotdo business with, will be here pumping Alan and looking to ink a deal that will be worth quite a bit moreoilystuff, if you get my drift.” She pops a miniature stuffed tomato in her mouth and chews. “In any event, this particular business deal matters to the powers that be, and so we need to keep the press from getting wind of it.” She rolls her eyes in delight. “Good god, but these chefs know how to handle their food.” She wipes her hands down her outfit. “As I was saying, our job is to keep the flashbang cameras away from our foreign friends, and make sure there are neither flappy mouths nor ears. It’s all very hush-hush, and we want it to stay that way.” She’s already hunting the table for her next munchy.

Suddenly, I feel that I am swimming in deep, and possibly murky, waters. There’s a British royal dancing with a man with a prosthetic cock. He plays the fool but is here to clinch a business deal that might be…if not illegal, at least somewhat dodgy. And it seems I’m in league with a woman who wants me to create a diversion to occupy the attention of the press while said deal is going down. Governments have toppled over less. I should know.

“All you have to do is quote the poet and the paparazzi will gobble it up.”

“The poet?”

She rolls her eyes. “I know! Imagine writing about a fish, but there you go. The recipe is famous. Repeat after me, ‘like ruby on the platter, set in a pearl...steeped in saffron thus, like garnet it looks, vibrantly red, shimmering on silver…’ You got that?”

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