Nick Larkin and I were tripping our nuts off on some really good blotter when we saw her sauntering through the crowd of revelers, most of whom were just as buzzed as we were.

No doubt about it; she got some stares, even for a Mardi party.

It was the Saturday before Mardi Gras in 2001. I was still single at the time, sharing a house in Mid-City with Nick, an old friend from college (UNO, not Tulane). I remember that it was warm that night, very warm and extremely sultry, even by the standards of the deepest South.

The reason I remember what the weather was like that night was because it brought out the exhibitionist in everyone. Like Nick and me, a lot of people were tripping, either on LSD or ecstasy, and the less clothes you had on, the easier it was to cool off.

This was Mardi Gras when there were absolutely no inhibitions, before 9-11, before Iraq, before Katrina, the last real blowout before the world started turning to shit.

We were at the annual Krewe of Cooze Ball, held on the Saturday before Mardi Gras. The Krewe of Cooze was a group that had formed around 1990, and had gotten a word-of-mouth reputation for throwing the best pre-Mardi party in town.

They hired a banquet hall -- a lodge of some kind down in the Irish Channel -- a really good band, and a lot of really eclectic folks showed up. You paid 20 bucks and had to be in costume to get in, and that cover charge allowed you to drink all night.

There were no invitations, no flyer announcements, no advertising of any sort, but every year a thong of people showed up, some who parked outside with their coolers so they didn't have to fight the crowds at the bar.

Whoever it was that put it on didn't care. The hall they hired was set up so that if you wanted to slip outside and bust up a doobie or two, you could do so without too much exposure. As long as you stayed out of the main entryway, the cops who watched for trouble let it slide.

I never knew who made up the Krewe of Cooze, but allegedly they were some rich bastards from Tulane who had made a killing in the dot.com business and gotten out before the bottom dropped out.

Other rumors had the krewe being made up of some high-level drug dealers who used the party to off-load some disposable cash, and there were certainly a lot of very spacy folks at this party every year, so that may well have been the case.

Nick and I weren't really drinking a lot that night. We'd scored some good trips and were really grooving to the band, which was a jam-type band reminiscent of the Radiators or maybe the Neville Brothers of old.

It was loose and funky, and we were having a high old time when Nick elbowed me and pointed her out.

She was something else again. She was tallish, probably 5-foot-9, with dark shoulder-length hair cut in kind of a peek-a-boo style so that it curled around one of her eyes. She was slender, with some very nice legs and a pair of breasts that sat up high and proud on her chest.

We knew this because all she was wearing was an elaborate masque, purple high heels and body paint, very strategically placed. She appeared to have a slightly dusky complexion, although my eyesight was admittedly altered.

Still, she looked to be covered in a light gold base paint with purple paint covering her breasts, her stomach and her crotch area, with little purple swirls all over her arms and legs.

In any other situation, she may well have been arrested, but this was three days before Mardi Gras in New Orleans at a semi-private party on a hot, muggy night, and she wasn't the only naked or semi-naked woman -- or man -- in attendance. She was just the best-looking one.

If I live to be a hundred, I'll never know why she picked us as her party mates for the night. She never said and neither one of us ever asked. Maybe it was because we weren't trying to impress her like some of the other romeos out there.

Our costumes weren't terribly exotic or original. I was dressed as a Roman gladiator (a glad-he-ate-her, har-har) and Nick was a Greek god of some sort.

I had found some old sandals I'd had and rigged them up with leather straps to look like Roman shoes. I had on a pair of tight gym shorts from my high school days, from back before baggy shorts were the norm, and had found a leather skirt that I'd cut into strips to look like a gladiator's uniform. I even had a plastic sword and scabbard.

Like I said; not very exotic and not terribly original, but it did leave my chest bare, and I am a fairly well-put together fellow. I played baseball in high school and I've stayed in shape. Nick wasn't an athlete, but he was fairly big like me, plus he had a way with women.

His costume was even simpler than mine. He'd just cut up an old sheet to look like a tunic, found a plastic garland for his head, sprinkled glitter all over his body and just like that, he was a god.

Hey, it was Mardi Gras. Shit like that flies during Carnival when it would get laughed at any other time of the year.

Anyway, this naked woman walked into the crowd, ignoring the usual blandishments from the hot-shots who were hot to trot for her, and stood near us swaying to the music.

Nick sidled over and casually engaged the woman in conversation, talking about the band, I think. I don't really know, because she turned to look in my direction and I was captured by two searing green eyes that peeked out of from her masque.

She had the most penetrating gaze of any woman I've ever met, before or since. Indeed, they've haunted me since that night.

She said her name was Mirabel, and that she was from Canada, without elaborating. I wasn't sure if she was telling the truth or not, but her accent definitely wasn't that of a Yat.

Nick introduced us (I'm Paul, by the way), and he offered to fetch her a drink, which left me with a chance to find out a little about her and those mysterious eyes. She said she was visiting a cousin who lived in the city and was enjoying her first Mardi Gras.

As we chatted, she looked me up and down with a cool detachment that didn't quite mask a feral hunger that made me shiver. I was horny anyway, and the trips just added a ragged edge to my arousal. I returned the gaze, and I wasn't the least bit shy about it.

I think even before anything overt was said, the body language that we were speaking told us what was going to happen. And what was about to happen was the most mind-blowing sex of my life.

I was a pretty savvy guy when it came to women. I was 25 and still single, and I'd bedded some pretty fine ladies. But this was going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience, something that I'll always remember, simply because it was so outrageous, and so erotic, that I could never forget it.

Nick returned with our drinks -- vodka and tonic for Mirabel, beer for us -- and we drifted onto the dance floor with all the other crazies.

Watching Mirabel dance was making us hard, and I could tell that she noticed, because her eyes would wander to our cocks, and a sly little half-smile would crease her mouth. She had such a sensuous way of moving to the music that was utterly spellbinding.

When the band took a break, Nick suggested we walk out to where his car was parked to smoke a joint, and Mirabel agreed to join us.

As we were passing the joint around, Nick broached the question of how and why she had hit upon her unique costume.

"I've wanted to do something like this for a long time, and Canada's really not a good place for that," she said. "Besides, it make picking up a guy or two to fuck a lot easier."

Well, I thought, that was direct. Leave it to Nick to cut right to the chase.

"So, are you going to fuck us, or are you just talking?" he said

Her answer was to pull Nick to her and kiss him, deep and hard.

"I think I'm going to fuck you," she said when she let him up for air.

Then she gave me a disconcerting stare just before pulling me to her. Unlike Nick, I let my hands roam over her tart body as I lost myself in her ruby lips and darting tongue.

"And you, too," she said softly when she released me from her lip lock.

"OK, your place or mine?" I said.

"Neither," she answered, and as she did she lifted her left foot onto the bumper of Nick's car, exposing her clean-shaved sex. It was a hot pink gash that stood out in stark contrast to the purple paint that was supposed to cover it.

I was on autopilot now, and I slid over and ran one hand softly over her back while the other delved into that hot, juicy pussy.

"Mmmmmm," she purred as I deftly stroked her clit, which poked out from its hood in anticipation. Her nipples had already come to attention, and I reached up and softly caressed one of the hard tips.

On impulse, I suddenly squatted down and placed my mouth squarely on her pink pussy, while Nick reached around from behind to squeeze and fondle her breasts. I slashed my tongue along her flowing slit, worked my mouth on her clit, then bored into her hole with my tongue.

I knew I was getting somewhere when I felt her hands holding me in place while she subtly rolled her hips in time to my oral ministrations.

"So, if we're not going to your place or ours, then where do we go?" I asked when I came up again for air. "I don't think you can get a decent motel room at this time of the night three days before Mardi Gras."

"There's a room in the backstage area," she said. "My cousin is friends with one of the roadies who's watching the door. He'll let us in. Come on."

And with that she wrapped her arms around both of our shoulders and led us back into the hall. I have to confess, it was hard walking because my cock was hard as an iron bar. As we walked, I placed my hand on her firm butt, and she chuckled, a low and throaty sound that sent chills up and down my spine.

The band was back out and getting tuned up for its next set when we came to the backstage door. I guess for wedding receptions it would have been used for the bride's changing room, but on this night it was the refuge for the obligatory hippie orgy.

Mirabel whispered something to the large fellow who was manning the door, and he opened the door to allow us in. He gave Nick and me a huge grin as we passed through the door.

Now I've been around a little bit. I grew up in a fairly large town, went to college in a big city and ran with a fairly fast crowd. But I had never seen anything like what we encountered when we entered that room.

There were three other couples in there, but they were way too preoccupied to notice us.

In one corner, a man and a woman were sharing hits off a tank of nitrous oxide, kind of like in the movie "9½ Weeks." They were naked, sitting cross-legged, and slowly masturbating each other while they passed the hose for the gas.

In another corner, a lesbian couple were engaged in a very hot 69. I never knew if they were good-looking or not, because the whole time we were there, she stayed glued to each other's pussy.

On the sofa, another naked couple, a woman with long blonde hair and a Latin-looking guy, were fucking up a storm, with her on top riding him. She looked over at us, and sort of nodded at Mirabel, and she told us that was her cousin, Desiree.

"OK, let's see what we've got to work with here," Mirabel said, jerking our attention back to the matter at hand.

My cock practically exploded out of the confines of my shorts as I pulled them off my hips. Nick wasn't far behind as he dropped his toga and slid his boxers to the floor.

"Hmmmmm, nice, very nice," Mirabel purred.

She softly stroked us to rampant hardness, then squatted down, turned her face toward my cock and began to saw my length between her lush, ruby lips. I could feel the pre-cum boiling out the tip end of my cock, and it didn't take Mirabel long to get a taste, as she curled her tongue around the little pee hole and slurped up the clear fluid.

Then she turned and gave Nick the same treatment, keeping a soft but firm grip on my dick, lightly stroking as she worked Nick's cock between her lips.

After a couple of minutes, she turned back toward me, and this time she didn't mess around. She opened her mouth and drew the head of my cock past her lips, sucking me in expertly, until she had a little over half of me in her hot depths.

As she worked my cock back and forth in her mouth, I stared down at her and she looked up at me through the eyehole of her masque.

I could see her left hand, with the blood-red nail polish, as she softly stroked Nick's cock. It was surreal, the fact that I was standing there in this orgy room, naked next to my equally naked roomie. I'd seen Nick naked a couple of times, but not in a sexual situation.

But that was only at the periphery of my consciousness, because I was getting seriously wicked sensations from the way Mirabel was sucking my cock. It was a pro-caliber blow job, and made me wonder just what it was this woman did for a living in Toronto, or wherever she was from.