Read Online The St. Tropez Lonely Hearts Club by Joan Collins - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Joan Collins
Ads: Link
moviemakers, moguls and starlets, all waiting for a break. Sophie, at the height of her beauty and fame, could have any man she wanted, and one night at a party at the Grand Hotel what she wanted was young Maximus.
At dinner they flirted, chatted, and got along so well that Max was not at all surprised when she invited him back to her hotel for a nightcap. Soon they were in her bed, but in spite of Sophie’s expert ministrations, Max was unable to perform, much to her chagrin.
He managed to escape from her clutches with some semblance of dignity, for she took it as a personal rejection and made spiteful comments to him as he slunk out of the door. Soon Sophie let slip to the gossipmongers of the Via Veneto that not only was Maximus Gobbi impotent, but that his equipment was no bigger than a child’s. He had never forgotten that, so he had started a counter-rumour that Sophie was a lesbian who only pretended to like men and hated sex. They had been icy to each other ever since.
The magician finally retrieved the balloon from the depths of his throat and presented it to Mina with a tiny bow. With her fan she swatted it over to Harry with an offended squawk. The balloon burst in his face and the other guests giggled at his discomfort.
For his finale, the magician let off a series of tiny firecrackers behind several of the ladies’ ears, which caused them all to shriek and hold on to their hairpieces.
‘Enough!’ thundered Khris finally to Harry. ‘Isn’t it time to hear Mina’s new record?’
‘Of course. Let’s have dessert in the living room,’ Harry said smoothly.
They gathered in the huge open living room in which every surface was covered in glass and gold bric-a-brac and the soft furnishings were made from the skin of nearly extinct animals. Harry’s sound system was state of the art and soon the CD of Mina’s amazing voice echoed throughout the marble hall and carried down to the beaches. Her first ballad was a thinly disguised tale of her problems with an abusive husband, who got her hooked on coke. It brought tears to everyone’s eyes, except Sophie, whose eyes were boring jealous holes into Mina’s back.
Several classic standards performed in an innovative modern style were greeted with appreciative applause, and then an upbeat eighties disco-style song brought the normally blasé revellers to their feet; in classic Saint-Tropez style they started dancing and waving their arms in the air.
Maximus fancied himself as a cool mover and shaker, and in spite of his bulk, he shook his massive booty in front of a slightly embarrassed Carlotta.
Fabrizio reluctantly pranced with Lara, who always became a total exhibitionist on the dance floor, waving her disastrously bingo-winged arms above her head in a wild yet catastrophic facsimile of a teenybopper and flashing sun-damaged thighs in her sparkly red mini-dress. The seven vodkas she’d consumed added to her lunatic abandonment.
As the music became more frenzied, so did the dancing, and Mina’s golden voice and her strong backing singers even drowned out the relentless sounds of the cicadas.
Then, almost as one, several of the dancing guests bent over, clutching their stomachs in agony. Some of them ran into the garden to vomit into the azaleas, while the other guests watched in horrified amazement.
‘My God!’ shrieked Sophie.
‘It’s the plague,’ screamed Fabrizio, a total hypochondriac. Running to the onyx swimming pool, he threw up into it, then tumbled in.
Suddenly over half the guests were in paroxysms of pain; those who weren’t tried to assist each other with the help of the waiters who seemed unaffected.
‘Somebody call an ambulance,’ yelled Harry.
‘We need more than one!’ gasped Maximus, through a paroxysm of pain.
Lying on the ground, face up, Britain’s favourite comic, Charlie Chalk, his white face now matching his last name, lay completely still. His Australian lover Spencer cast himself, weeping, on to the vast
At dinner they flirted, chatted, and got along so well that Max was not at all surprised when she invited him back to her hotel for a nightcap. Soon they were in her bed, but in spite of Sophie’s expert ministrations, Max was unable to perform, much to her chagrin.
He managed to escape from her clutches with some semblance of dignity, for she took it as a personal rejection and made spiteful comments to him as he slunk out of the door. Soon Sophie let slip to the gossipmongers of the Via Veneto that not only was Maximus Gobbi impotent, but that his equipment was no bigger than a child’s. He had never forgotten that, so he had started a counter-rumour that Sophie was a lesbian who only pretended to like men and hated sex. They had been icy to each other ever since.
The magician finally retrieved the balloon from the depths of his throat and presented it to Mina with a tiny bow. With her fan she swatted it over to Harry with an offended squawk. The balloon burst in his face and the other guests giggled at his discomfort.
For his finale, the magician let off a series of tiny firecrackers behind several of the ladies’ ears, which caused them all to shriek and hold on to their hairpieces.
‘Enough!’ thundered Khris finally to Harry. ‘Isn’t it time to hear Mina’s new record?’
‘Of course. Let’s have dessert in the living room,’ Harry said smoothly.
They gathered in the huge open living room in which every surface was covered in glass and gold bric-a-brac and the soft furnishings were made from the skin of nearly extinct animals. Harry’s sound system was state of the art and soon the CD of Mina’s amazing voice echoed throughout the marble hall and carried down to the beaches. Her first ballad was a thinly disguised tale of her problems with an abusive husband, who got her hooked on coke. It brought tears to everyone’s eyes, except Sophie, whose eyes were boring jealous holes into Mina’s back.
Several classic standards performed in an innovative modern style were greeted with appreciative applause, and then an upbeat eighties disco-style song brought the normally blasé revellers to their feet; in classic Saint-Tropez style they started dancing and waving their arms in the air.
Maximus fancied himself as a cool mover and shaker, and in spite of his bulk, he shook his massive booty in front of a slightly embarrassed Carlotta.
Fabrizio reluctantly pranced with Lara, who always became a total exhibitionist on the dance floor, waving her disastrously bingo-winged arms above her head in a wild yet catastrophic facsimile of a teenybopper and flashing sun-damaged thighs in her sparkly red mini-dress. The seven vodkas she’d consumed added to her lunatic abandonment.
As the music became more frenzied, so did the dancing, and Mina’s golden voice and her strong backing singers even drowned out the relentless sounds of the cicadas.
Then, almost as one, several of the dancing guests bent over, clutching their stomachs in agony. Some of them ran into the garden to vomit into the azaleas, while the other guests watched in horrified amazement.
‘My God!’ shrieked Sophie.
‘It’s the plague,’ screamed Fabrizio, a total hypochondriac. Running to the onyx swimming pool, he threw up into it, then tumbled in.
Suddenly over half the guests were in paroxysms of pain; those who weren’t tried to assist each other with the help of the waiters who seemed unaffected.
‘Somebody call an ambulance,’ yelled Harry.
‘We need more than one!’ gasped Maximus, through a paroxysm of pain.
Lying on the ground, face up, Britain’s favourite comic, Charlie Chalk, his white face now matching his last name, lay completely still. His Australian lover Spencer cast himself, weeping, on to the vast
Similar Books
