The dancer shimmied her tail feathers on a truck float in Rio, oblivious to anything but the kaleidoscopic lights and pounding drums. Sweat flew off her glittering, shiny body, her hips shook and her breasts bounced and her head flicked her long blonde high ponytail in circles in time to the beating of the drums and the whistles.
Two muscular masked men coiled their limbs around her, their hands sliding over her breasts and flat stomach, pumping her buttocks as they thrusted against her in time with the music. They licked her neck and their tongues probed her ears and mouth as the crowd screamed encouragement, her head spinning as she panted for breath.
Working in rhythmic unison, the men’s thrusting became more urgent: they gripped her body between theirs as the crowd yelled for more. One moved his head down to bite her breast, his hands pulling her groin to his. Lost in the music, she pushed him down to his knees and screamed into the heat of the night. Wrapping one leg around his neck, she pulled him close with her heel, grinding her sex against his face in ecstasy, leaning back against the second dancer just as he lost interest and released her to show the crowd his favourite moves, and she fell backwards…off the float, onto the street and into oblivion.
The rhythm and the music stopped abruptly for the feathered femme. She didn’t hear the wail of the ambulance. She didn’t hear anything for four days as she was kept in an induced coma and she certainly didn’t hear the incredulous comments of the doctors when they checked her for internal injuries.
Her small satin wrist-bag contained breath mints, eye drops, two ecstasy tablets, the current recommended Mardi Gras dose of cocaine and a hotel key, which, when the police eventually checked against the hotel register, belonged to the holder of a Venezuela-issued credit card with a post office box billing address. They lost interest, deciding to wait until it was time to wake up the coma patient.
It was Mardi Gras in South America.