Chapter 15: Carnival Dancer

Trish spent the next two weeks uneventfully. She worked in the two yards picking fruit and doing housework during the days and pleasing her Mistress at night. She learned that, in spite of her domineering personality, Eve was fairly pleasant most of the time. All Trish had to do was obey whatever order she was given, and she was able to avoid "unpleasantness". Not once during the second month did Eve feel that she needed to punish her servant.

Two weekends after the hiking trip to Thunder Mountain, Officer Eve Bousquet took her servant to the last major town of the Island that she had not yet seen. The place was called Safe Harbor and it was the oldest settlement on Santa Eduviges, founded in 1573 by the Spanish and re-named in 1799 by the British. Among other tourist attractions, Safe Harbor boasted a restored 19th Century schooner and a French fort.

As soon as Trish saw Safe Harbor, she knew that she would need to pose for another series of photos. However, Eve did not have her camera and did not plan to take any pictures herself. Instead she would lend her servant to a local commercial photographer who wanted to do a two-day photo shoot. Trish knelt as her Mistress introduced her, and commanded that she address the photographer as "Master Luis".

Luis first took Trish into the French fort and put wrist and leg irons on her. The servant posed in a series of dungeon settings and had to endure being chained in several prison cells. Still wearing her cuffs, Trish had to pose on the fortress wall, with her hands cuffed behind her back and then with her hands un-cuffed, but the irons still on. She sat on cannons and looked out guard towers. Then she was locked in a pillory and later chained to a whipping post. Throughout the photo-shoot in the fort, tourists and museum workers followed the model and took numerous pictures of their own.

Trish left the cuffs behind at the fort when Luis took her to the schooner. Trish posed all over the ship. The photographer even got permission for her to climb the ropes and pose in the crow's nest.

When it was time for Trish to pose in the town's main plaza, Trish and the photographer came across a group of teenagers sitting near the church and listening to salsa. Trish liked salsa music and was a good dancer. It had been two months since she had the chance to dance, so her body involuntarily began moving with the music.

Eve had an idea for the photo shoot. Why not have Trish dance with the teenagers? Obviously, they were happy to oblige and enjoy the chance to dance with an attractive naked American. Trish was in a good mood, was enjoying the music, and was enjoying the chance to show off. So, for nearly an hour, she danced tirelessly as the teenagers took turns as dance partners. A crowd gathered and started clapping with the music. Trish danced with some of the spectators as well. Yes, it turned out that Eve's "little sex-pot" had become quite the exhibitionist and dance star.

The photographer took pictures of Trish throughout the day, finishing with a series during sunset on a beach near Safe Harbor. She and Eve spent the night at the photographer's house and were up before dawn for a photo-shoot during sunrise. Shortly before lunch, the photographer finished with additional pictures around Safe Harbor.

During lunch, Eve and Luis talked about the photos and where he wanted to post them. He assured Trish's owner that he would put the entire collection of pictures on a thumb-drive, even the images he considered rejects and out-takes. The two Islanders discussed various photo-sharing websites and the photographer alerted Eve to a popular site she didn't know about.

While Trish knelt and ate her usual plate of leftovers, the conversation drifted to the shoot at the plaza and the servant's excellent dancing skills.

"I have a question, Eve. I'm really impressed by how well your servant dances, and also by how long she can go without getting tired. I think she'd make a great dancer for Carnival. I was wondering if you had any thoughts about registering her."

"No, not really. I don't want her wearing any outfits, not even for Carnival. One of the things I plan to do with her is keep her naked for the rest of her life."

"That's not a problem, keeping her naked. You don't know about the changes the Carnival directors approved last month?"

"No, like what?"

"They're getting rid of the clothing requirement. Carnival dancers can either go in costume, or they can be nude."

Eve's attention perked up. She'd love to have Trish dance in the Carnival if she could remain nude. Luis continued:

"I'm bringing this up because Safe Harbor tasked me with designing a float for this year's parade. I have an idea in mind, but to make it the way I want, I'd like to have a naked dancer."

"So, what's your idea?"

"The float is going to represent the Night Spirits. It will have three levels. The bottom level will have dancers dressed like the dead, you know, funeral clothes and skeleton masks. The next level will be animals, like bats and owls. The top section would be the moon, riding above everything else, pure and unadorned. I'd been thinking about trying to recruit a Danubian tourist to represent the moon. Those women don't mind running around naked in public, but the problem is they're terrible dancers. A Danubian couldn't dance to Latin music to save her life."

"So my servant would be the only naked person on the float?"

"Yes, because I want her to stand out. The float will be all dark colors, except the moon section, which will be much brighter."

Eve smiled and caressed her servant's shoulder. "Well, you've just recruited your moon dancer."

For the next two weeks, Servant Trish was relieved of her normal duties in Flora's yard. Instead, she traveled with her Mistress to the airport, where one of Luis's assistants was on-hand to take her to Safe Harbor. She reported to a warehouse that Luis had rented for float construction and dance rehearsals. For seven hours each day she practiced with 19 Islanders and one girl from Panama, evenly divided between men and women. There would be a total of 21 dancers on the float: 12 on the lower level, eight on the second level, and one on the top.

On the first day Trish knelt while Luis introduced her to the other dancers. They stared at her with blatant curiosity. She was extremely nervous, but when Luis ordered the DJ of the project to play a salsa tune, Trish started dancing to prove herself. After just two songs she had impressed the others: for an American she danced extremely well.

Trish wondered if any of her companions would resent her being the featured dancer at the top of the float. Under ordinary circumstances the answer would have been "yes", but none of the others had any desire to spend an entire evening dancing naked on top of a well-lit moving platform. The Carnival would be broadcast on live television and the parade route would be crowded with tens of thousands of spectators. So ... the answer was no. No one had any desire to change places with the American servant.

The music consisted mostly of Spanish salsa, with some Samba tunes mixed in. Reggatone, which had become the favored genre of music elsewhere in the Caribbean, was not yet popular in Santa Eduviges. Trish's talent for dancing to salsa allowed her to quickly pick up Samba. She was able to detach herself from her surroundings and move with the music. There were times she was able to totally forget where she was and what had become of her life.