Sun on the Rocks - The Sugar Baby
Page 16
Chapter Fifteen
Clarity watched the mechanics of Cobbler´s yacht dismantle the bar shelf of the 'Lady Moura', taking the twin engines and the fuel as well. Bartleby was under arrest in the jail of Tortola and the coast guards were tracking the liquor distributed to more than seventy bars and resorts near the British Virgin Islands to recover all the variations of excise tax on it. The money of the transaction, ten million dollars, was not surfacing, and the authorities feared that Bartleby wasn´t talking because someone else would not let him talk, namely a mysterious figure known as the Shawab.
The executives of the various liquor companies who had attended the party thrown by Bartleby on the 'Lady Moura' were appalled that their liquor had been smuggled and sold illegally, but they renewed efforts to form a coalition establishing a simultaneous 'Tambrera clean nights' party once a week throughout the Caribbean, where abundant alcohol and responsible drinking and selling practices were presented to the bar and night club owners and to the public at large. Alcohol was a problem only when it was consumed excessively, but the point of responsible drinking was always difficult to explain, when a party was blasting music and people were dancing or sharing stories during that party.
The severance of Bartleby was cancelled when the scandal of operation-sort-of-flying seagull broke through local papers, helped by Thesmophoria declarations. Bartleby´s former company hired a private investigator to look into the affair to prevent something similar from happening again, and after interrogating Bartleby, they focused their investigation on the supertanker which had delivered the liquor. Chubby Caddy´s tanker had disappeared, taking refuge in Panama, where it was unloading the fuel it brought from Texas offshore oil platforms built in the Gulf of Mexico.
After some effort with her decryptor, Clarity found a way to access a bitcoin exchange which allowed Cobbler to receive the bitcoins in exchange for the liquor sold to the Shawab. Having found Optesia, Cobbler was deciding to learn other skills, in order to change jobs, and he had decided to adopt Ribalaigua as one of his employees. The coast guards had not arrested Cobbler because they had not found any evidence of him trading alcohol illegally. Of course, that was because he had lost all his business to the Shawab, and his girlfriend convinced him that it was better for him to lead an honest life.
"The British Virgin Islands are an offshore center, I´m going to learn accounting and then offer my services to a bank here," he said, "it´s less dangerous than smuggling alcohol."
Tortola police interrogated Optesia on the activities and whereabouts of the Shawab. Little was known about the smuggler, other than knowing that he cruised the Caribbean on his megayacht, giving out orders through a chain of retainers who did the dirty work for him. The Shawab had pressed Thesmophoria for secret knowledge on initiation, including the sexual aspects of the initiations involved in the Higher Mysteries.
Because the old lady received abundant food and gifts from the smuggler, she had shared some of those secrets with the Shawab, some of the ones involved in the lesser mysteries, but had kept the Higher Mysteries a mystery. As a result, fearing that the secret knowledge was not being properly transmitted, Thesmophoria had begun initiating Tiffany and had offered her the empty bottle of hendrick´s gin filled with coins depicting Lady Fortuna. Tiffany knew some aspects of the neophyte initiation, but she was not ready to take Thesmophoria's spot as torch bearer.
Clarity looked for Flower inside the 'Lady Moura' and found her friend leaving Clive´s cabin. Bartleby´s uncle had kept a low profile and was getting ready to return to Louisiana. He´d tried convincing his nephew to move his thinking towards marriage, but even from his cell in jail, Sam Bartleby kept insisting that his natural inclination was to be a Sugar Daddy. The coast guards interrogated Flower for hours, attempting to understand whether or not, deep down, she liked the idea of being a Sugar Baby, and whether the arrangement with Bartleby was consensual.
"So you agreed to become his Sugar Baby?"
"Yes, but not to smuggle liquor."
"Then why are the papers of Oleanne mentioning you as the owner of the boat and of the liquor distribution transaction?"
"Because I was the Sugar Baby of Bartleby at the time, but that doesn´t mean it was a good idea."
After several hours and seeing that Flower´s statements were indicting her more and more, Clarity acted as witness and told the coast guards that her friend had been duped, deceived, tricked by Bartleby, and that she was a sweet woman who was simply looking to go out with a man, making instead a deceptive Sugar Baby arrangement, not knowing its consequences. Some man you picked, said the coast guards. Flower was cleared of all liquor smuggling charges and told to pick her next Sugar Daddy with some degree of additional prudence.
Clarity said good bye to Cobbler, Optesia Ribalaigua and Tiffany, and made her way to the Martini Bianco café with her friend on the island of Tortola. Their wallet was in poor condition, and they needed a way to make some money. Flower shared with Clarity what she'd done after the party on the 'Lady Moura'.
"You didn´t," said Clarity.
"I did," said Flower, "I found my Sugar Daddy. The uncle is more mature and knowledgeable than the nephew. Clive is a nice man, and he's pretty good in bed."
"What did you do with him last night?"
"First I had to warm up by stripping for the man who boarded with Optesia. Then, I asked for a refreshment to Clive´s room and he said he had to finish Tiffany, which sort of tired him somewhat, but that he´d be ready for me afterward. Once Tiffany was done with him, he recovered after drinking a glass of water. Then, Tiffany left and he licked my tushy, I couldn´t believe it, he was pretty experienced from what I could tell."
"As an ethnographer, what kind of things did you observe as a Sugar Baby?"
"It´s important to find the right arrangement, in some cases it probably works. I want to keep investigating Oleanne, it´s an interesting outfit, and one which understands my shopping needs." She brushed her shoulder length hair with a comb left by Belina.
"Too bad Bartleby didn´t want to share his money with me," she said.
"The money? You barely got out of jail, thanks to me," said Clarity.
"Yeah, I´ll have to find a different Sugar Daddy, this one is no good."
Clarity shook her head in disbelief. She drank her piña colada slowly and turned on her decryptor, trying to reach her friend Cynthia.
"Where are you guys?" The voice of Cynthia was muffled by static, barely understandable.
"We´re in Mexico, we made our way to Cancun, we´re at the Tambrera park resort, it´s a lot of fun. This guy keeps inviting us to drinks, says he´s a real estate developer from Belize."
Clarity knew that her friends were getting into some type of trouble but didn´t know how exactly they were managing to do that. She looked at her wasapp messages. Evans had managed to connect wirelessly with the Air Fashion Jet and a short video coming from a camera hidden to passengers, showed twenty one year old Colorado heiress Montana Sterley trying out various bikinis with Owens & Owell board seat holders Shalia Owell and Jenny Owens, both slightly older than her. Montana was providing legal assistance to the two University of Arizona students of human sexuality, to keep their status as O&O seat holders intact. But she wasn't telling her father or letting him know that he was using money coming from his oil producing company.
Cubandor was sending her another message. He was spending a few days in the island of Grand Inagua in the Bahamas, trying to recover the jet pink go-go from U.S. backed authorities, because it held some information relevant to him or his work. His knowledge as commodities trader was intact, and he wanted Clarity as his assistant. His girlfriend Paige, who liked Clarity considerably, preferably naked, was not opposing the idea. Clarity looked towards the white sand beach in front of her. Clarity saw Bartleby´s uncle walk-by a few feet away, with a single piece of luggage, and got up from her seat. Could it be that he was such a good performer in bed? She waved at Clive, who waved back at him. Her body began
tingling in the right areas.
"Wait for me here, I´ll be back in a few hours," she said.