Ecuador Ch. 01: Masquerade

On any given day in Quito, Ecuador, the sun is apt to rise or fall quite quickly very near the halfway point between noon and midnight. Tuesday, February 9, 1937 was unexceptional in that regard. At 17:42, in the twilight of Ash Wednesday Eve, the city, indeed the whole country, was poised on the brink of solemn austerity as the population prepared for the Lenten Season. But, while their souls were anxious to repent, their hearts and minds remained passionately committed to indulgent hedonism.

Not far from Plaza Mayor, the gloaming darkened outside Cumandá Vásquez' open second floor bedroom's window shutters. In the room's center, she pulled a lightly starched white muslin underdress over her head and then smoothed it down. As the cool cloth slid on her just-bathed body, it clung to her medium-full, wasp-waist, 86-56-86 hourglass figure. She had needed a full hour to scrub away the flour-and-water that parading Carnival players had vigorously and liberally thrown at anyone within their celebratory range, but now she felt fresh again.

With her hands high above her head, the young woman pirouetted like a ballerina on bare feet. Her bodice shifted over her firm upright breasts. She smiled when a zing raced from their pronounced dark nipples straight to her clitoris. Dropping her arms, she pinched the puffed up halo over her heart with her right hand while she pressed her long left middle finger over her slip and hard onto the reactive button between her legs.

"Buenos tardes, El Hombre," Cumandá said softly to the sensitive stub she had first discovered, and then named, one sultry late September night more than seven years earlier after she had to bed following her eleventh birthday party. "Be patient! Maybe we can play much later, but right now I must get ready for the Masked Ball!" She glanced at the clock above the wall calendar hanging over the writing desk in her bedroom, then moved to her wardrobe and retrieved a pair of clean panties from a drawer.

While she stepped into the underwear and pulled them up beneath the cotton sheath, Cumandá continued aloud, "Now, don't pout, El Hombre... Mamá and Papito were very insistent that I be ready by sunset to go to the hotel, and I haven't even brushed my hair, yet!" Distracted by the popped corn sound from a string of exploding firecrackers, she looked outside, over the garden wall at a group of early revelers and three mischievous muchachos who were busily setting off another batch in the street. Grinning, she closed the window, walked to her wardrobe and mulled the dress selection there.

"Mamá likes the pink taffeta with its caped sleeves and discreet neckline," Cumandá thought, as she ran her hands over the candidates. "And Papito had the pastel saffron silk gown made especially for me in Barcelona, for my quinceañera fiesta. But, no one has yet seen this strapless gold lamé, which the dressmaker swears is an exact copy of one the American film star, Libby Holman wears." Decisively pulling the daring new dress from the rod, she declared aloud, "I can be innocent tomorrow!"

Crossing to her antique four-poster canopy bed, Cumandá bent forward at the waist and laid the chosen garment on the the coverlet. Still standing in an 'L' posture, she whisked her muslin back over her head as she muttered, "Of course, I can't also wear this old thing, too... its straps would show!" As she straightened up, she shook her long uncombed jet locks then clamped the muslin slip neatly on the hanger which had held the gown. She did not notice that the hall door behind her was open a crack, or that dark eyes behind the crack were ogling her behind and its dark crack, shadowed within her mother-of-pearl satin tap pants.

Virtually nude, Cumandá stepped casually back to her wardrobe, hung up the slip, then selected a pair of ten denier black silk stockings and a black-and-gold guipure lace garter belt from her dainties drawer. After stepping through the belt and pulling it up nearly to her tummy-button, she sat at her vanity. With her toes pointed to the ajar door, she carefully drew on, then smoothed, the delicate hosiery over her calves and up her thighs. Satisfied that her seams were straight and the silk was unwrinkled, she clipped the spider's web tops into her suspenders' retainers.

Perhaps, if she had been less engrossed in admiring her perfect legs' sheer iridescence, or if the muchachos had been less noisy outside with their fireworks, Cumandá might have heard her unobserved observer inhale a deep breath. Instead, she swiveled on her chair ninety degrees to her right toward the mirror. Thus unaware of the watcher's appreciation, she picked up her tortoiseshell comb and brush to work on arranging her glossy hair. Her bare breasts danced as her fingers flew.

When her coif was perfect, Cumandá rose from her dressing table. No sooner had she tucked herself securely into her evening dress' boned strapless bodice, and buckled her black high-heeled T-bar pumps, than she heard a quiet knock at her door. As she made final adjustments and snugly zipped herself up, she called from across the room, "Si? Quién es?"

Isabella Vásquez swung open the door then entered as she answered, "Tú madre, hija. Listo?" Tall, dark and beautiful, with her thirty-sixth birthday and twenty-first wedding anniversary only nine days away, she seem too young to have borne an eighteen-and-a-half-year-old daughter, let alone a twenty-year-old son as well. Her 91-68-94 figure and her exquisite unlined face were certainly not tattle-tales.

Like her forty-five-year-old husband, Germán, Isabella came from pureblood Castilian stock with family roots in Ecuador which traced back to the earliest conquistadors. Her quinceañera was also the occasion of her pre-arranged wedding. Alejandro was born to her at home that same year on November 30th, and twenty-two months later, in hospital, she delivered Cumandá, the Christmas gift Germán had given her in 1917. As a strong Catholic, who was equally committed to minimizing her maternity, she had afterward carefully abstained from all lovemaking except on the very safest days when she was sure that another conception was impossible.

Now, as she looked at Cumandá so fancily decked out in her risqué gold-and-black themed ball attire, Isabella was momentarily asea. She wondered, "How did my child suddenly grow to womanhood unnoticed?" Recovering quickly, she stepped forward and lightly held her daughter's bare biceps while saying, sincerely, "¡Que sensacional! You are stunning, my dear... but you were naughty to get this dress made in secret! You might have told me." She laughed gently, then added, "Maybe you were afraid I would say 'no', but I can tell you, I more likely would have gotten a similar dress made for myself!"

Cumandá breathed a sigh of relief. She had not realized quite how anxious she was that her mother would disapprove, or even prohibit her wearing such a revealing dress. She smiled into warmly affectionate eyes and assured, "You will, I think, always be more lovely than me, Mamá."

Isabella snorted dismissively, "You may well say that, hija, but be warned: You must take special care. Men, young and old, will be hungry to know more about you as they eat up all that they can see."

"Oh, Mamá," Cumandá said softly. "I'm sure none of the men at the dance will even notice me." She lifted her mother's sapphire-and-diamond pendant from its resting resting place and grinned, "They will be too fascinated by this sparkling enchantment... Y el escote profundo de tu vestido."

Isabella blushed at the compliment, but was secretly proud. Her bias-cut chiffon-and-satin sheath's deep V-neckline and ass-hugging backless drop was ultra-modern. She had hoped she would stir thing up among Quito's conservative high society clique. She looked again at her daughter's displayed femininity and thought, "And now, it seems, I have an ally. Everyone will remember the Vásquez women's impact at this Carnival Ball!"

Just then, Germán and Alejandro poked their heads through the bedroom door. Germán urged, "¡De prisa por favor! The taxi is waiting!" Happily anxious to show off his young wife's good looks and watch the fuddy-duddies at the dance fume with jealousy, he overlooked Cumandá's manifest nubility. Nor did Alejandro comment, but, behind his father's back, he licked his lips thoughtfully and gazed at two temptresses to whom he had never before paid any attention.

At the Hotel Plaza Grande, Germán gave the cabbie a gold condor for the twelve-and-a-half-centavo fare and said magnanimously, "Keep it all. Buy something nice for your wife!"

While Cumandá and Alejandro exited the car oblivious to their father's largesse, Isabella frowned. As the taxi drove off, she said to her husband, "That was a ridiculous overtip. What were you trying to prove by it?"

Germán replied blandly, "Only that I am a man who can afford to be generous to a poor soul who must work for a living on the last night of Carnival. Our first bottle of champagne will cost twice as much." He smiled then side-hugged his beautiful bride as he reminded her, "We are celebrating, tonight. Yes?" Her unfettered breast squashed deliciously soft through his tuxedo jacket and against his ribs.

Isabella cared deeply for Germán and thrilled inside whenever he squeezed her close. Tonight, however, she prayed he would not be too amorous, as her last period had concluded not quite two weeks ago, and she was nothing, if not regular in her cycle. She flushed at the thought that she could be ovulating at any moment over the next few days. "Be cautious, 'Bella," she said to herself. Smiling sweetly at Germán, she answered simply, "Yes. You are right. Tonight we are celebrating."

As the Vásquez family trooped to the hotel, live music from the terrace between the rooftop bars carried to them on the night air. When the Plaza Grande was built six years earlier, no building in the city had more than two stories and its five floors seemed an amazing accomplishment. Germán, of course, had traveled to the capitals of Europe and was less impressed than the more provincial citizenry. He famously once said to the bragging alcalde of Quito, "Of course it had to be at least that tall, else its baroque columns would just look silly."

All the same, the hotel was elegant, stately, and even opulent enough to architecturally hold its own with the many fine cathedrals erected in Quito since earliest colonial times. In the lobby, many costumed party-goers were already milling about and greeting one another. Most common were men in conquistador regalia and women dressed up like doñas from the 16th or 17th centuries, though quite a few patrons wore colorful native outfits. Cumandá was amused to see one unidentifiable person hiding in a complete animal fur which looked quite like an oversized brown-throated sloth right out of the jungle.

Near the elevators, the dowager fiesta chairperson stood at a table dispensing tie-on domino masks, and half-masks on sticks, to attendees needing or wanting them. When she saw Cumandá, she importuned, "Are you certain you wouldn't rather have a shawl than a mask, my dear? You are completely uncovered."

Before her daughter could answer, Isabella stepped forward and replied, "Gracias, Doña Escobar, pero eso es innecesario. We Vásquez women are proud to wear modern fashions. These are the latest styles throughout Europe as well as in America." Then, to take the sting out of her reproach, she smiled and pointed, "A black domino will do nicely for my daughter. I will have a white stick-mask. I think the men will choose for themselves, if they wish any masks at all."

Señora Escobar huffed, but had no retort. She handed over the eye-shades and pointedly turned her back to help the latest arrivals at her table. Germán laughed inwardly and thought, "Ha! Our first victim could not have been worthier!" Alejandro said nothing, but he grinned broadly and puffed up his chest with pride at the defense of the Vásquez honor.

On the ride up, the seated lift operator enjoyed his eye-level eye-full of the Vásquez women's profiled pulchritude. The liveried youth got a kick from stopping with a lurch at each floor, even though he knew no one else could possibly board and no one wanted to get off. Every jolting halt involuntarily jiggled the bra-less breasts. At the fourth floor his abrupt halt threw Isabella off-balance and, as she wobbled on her white perforated leather pumps' seven-centimetre heels, he got a clear bonus view of her naked dark left nipple.

Meanwhile, the men were trapped in the cramped space, too. With their backs to the cab wall and their fronts flush against the women, each jostling awkwardly rubbed crotches against bottoms and vests against bare backs. Neither tuxedos, nor ball gowns, prevented the friction from inspiring indelicate stirrings. In addition, despite their high heels, both Isabella and Cumandá unavoidably afforded Germán and Alejandro over-the-shoulder, top-down, views to their cleavage.

Germán stared straight ahead and ignored his wife's shaking bosom. He focused instead on holding her steady with his hands on her hips. Alejandro, however, was stuck in the corner with nothing else to look at except Cumandá's creamy breast tops riding up in her bodice's satin inserts while his restless cock prowled in his shorts like a hunting jaguar. He wanted to imitate his father and stabilize his tottering sister, but not as much as he wanted his hard-on to shrink.

The family was glad to pile out of the elevator on the Plaza Grande's top floor and then proceed to the main bar, which had been given over entirely to the fiesta. While Isabella led her children to a vacant table, Germán snagged a waiter and ordered champagne with four glasses. By the time the bubbly arrived, other servers had delivered appetizers, including pristiños, paltas rellenas, humitas and sea bass ceviche along with a clay jug of chicha de jora. Germán toasted the table with a lusty laugh, "¡Disfrútalo todo, mis seres queridos! For tomorrow we repent!"

A little while later, Alejandro looked across the table at his sister, then nodded his head toward the terrace as he said with a disarming smile, "Listen to that music... We haven't danced since I ruined your shoes at your quinceañera. Will you give me a chance to show you I'm less clumsy than I was three years ago?"

Cumandá knit her medium-thick natural eyebrows while she swallowed a bite of stuffed avocado. She was still trying to decide if he had been intentionally goosing her rear end in the elevator, or if it was just another consequence of the stupid muchacho's tricks with the lift controls. "'Jandro has never messed with me before," she thought finally, as she believed the innocent look on his handsome manly face. After dabbing a napkin to her lips, she laid it on the tablecloth and answered, "Sure, why not?"

As they walked to the outside dance floor, Cumandá asked, "Why aren't you here and dancing with Ana Diego, 'Jandro? Surely you would enjoy that more than waltzing around your baby sister?"

Alejandro snorted, "Her parents took her with them when they moved back to Lima." He made an exaggerated sad-face and added, "So, I am all alone in the world again... until I find another girlfriend! But, I could pry into your affairs, too. Why is my beautiful sister spending Carnival night with her parents and brother instead of in the arms of a dashing young man?" He paused, then swept her into a closed dance embrace and concluded, as he turned her lightly about, "Come to think of it, you are with 'a dashing young man,' aren't you?"

Cumandá struggled, but only a little, as Alejandro's proximity warmed her face and heart. She felt oddly flustered. He overcame her resistance with strong coiling arms and compressed her chest to his more tightly than the fox-trot required. She felt a familiar sensual queasiness in her tummy and reflexively clutched his back even as she replied, "Yes, but don't forget, you are my brother and I am not a girlfriend."

Alejandro grinned past Cumandá's ear. Remembering how it had been due to his brotherly station that he earlier had innocently and fortuitously found himself in the hall outside her bedroom's partly open door just as she was dressing, he lasciviously thought, "We live in the same house. That's better than a girlfriend." Aloud, he buzzed in her ear, "Oh absolutely, mijita! I am your big brother..."

The dance beat slowed, but Alejandro's momentum did not. Drawing Cumandá as close as possible, he bent their extended arms upward and cupped her right shoulder with her own sandwiched hand. His right hand firmly guided her in a revolving hug while he deliberately wedged his right knee as deep between her legs as her ball gown's front bow allowed. Her pulse quickened and she breathed only reluctantly as a unity she had never known consumed her consciousness.

Weakly, Cumandá protested, "'Jandro, I feel... light-headed. Don't let me fall in front of everyone... please. Perhaps we should stop."

Instead of stopping, however, Alejandro slowly maneuvered his sister toward a dark corner. "No hay de que, mijita," answered huskily. "I'll hold you up. Just hang on to me." The music was a virtual memory in her mind as she swayed gently in his grasp, hidden from the dance crowd by two large potted palm trees. Continuing forward into deeper shadow, he pinned her to the terrace wall as he brought his right hand from her bare back to her chin then squared her up-tilted cupid's-bow lips to his.

"The best cure that I know for light-headedness is mouth-to-mouth resuscitation," Alejandro said, sotto voce. Without waiting for agreement or permission, he kissed Cumandá and prised her teeth apart with his tongue. As he breathed gently into her open airway, she responded with more hunger than he was immediately prepared for. She pushed her own tongue past his gums, swabbed his palate and gnawed his lips.

Alejandro took full advantage of Cumandá's eagerness. He let go her jaw and used both hands to fold her strapless top to her waist-sash. As her coconuts burst from gold lamé husks, he supported their weight in his palms while he indented her stiffened nipples back onto their dark areolae with his thumbs. She inhaled deeply through her nose and feasted more voraciously in his mouth as shocking bolts fired from her chest to her coño.

Breaking their kiss, Alejandro raised up Cumandá's breasts as if on a salver and lowered his face to meet them. First left, then right, he popped the plumped blackberries into his mouth and drew hard upon the taut rubbery nubs alternately before settling to suckle the one closest to her heart. She collapsed her hands behind his head, laced her fingers into his hair and cradled him instinctively. As pressure built within her, she moaned, "Oh, 'Jandro! No! Oh! Yes! Ohhhh! Don't, no... I mean, No! Don't stop!"

Cumandá's mind may have been confused, but her body was bent on a single joyous purpose. Alejandro's palping hands and torturing tongue twisted her spigots to full on. Her thighs squished as her lubricating pussy abundantly watered them through her tap pants. She sucked on her upper lip and rolled her eyes behind closed lids while a wave she only ever felt when she played with El Hombre crashed inside her heaving torso.

Abruptly, Alejandro abandoned Cumandá's slobbered boob and growled, "Eso te gusta, ¿Eh? I'm glad for that mejita, but now it is your turn to suck me!" Pressing down on her bared shoulders, he forced his sister to kneel before his bulging crotch, then continued, while he unzipped his tuxedo trousers, "¡Mi carajo! Pull out my cock! Quick!"

Cumandá could not believe her ears. Agog, she wondered, "What does he mean? How can he say such a thing?" She could not deny her eyes, however, as Alejandro impatiently did the work for her and his fat bone's engorged knob bobbed in front of her nose. She was sure that she did not mean to open her mouth, but her dismay required it. Before she knew it he had her head pushed to his groin and his thick heavy penis throbbed on her tongue.