So while most of the crowd was transfixed by the merry spectacle, Marianna’s eyes scanned the sea.
And what she saw terrified her.
Chapter 15 – Of Storms and Heroes
To Marianna’s left, there were only blue skies, the same blue skies that broke with the dawn. But to her right, dark clouds whipped in, pushing forward a cresting sea. The water around her was already becoming choppy. Before the crowd was even aware of what was happening, a fifteen-foot wave slammed into the raft-up, shaking the boats and sending revelers to the deck.
Out of the corner of her eye, Marianna saw something moving. One of the boats on the far end of the raft had come loose and was now floating aimlessly in the heedless sea. There were still passengers on the boat, clearly visible in their bright Brooks Brothers plaids.
“Look out!” She tried to get the words out, but the wind swallowed her tiny voice. The passengers on the boat were staggering—perhaps the effect of too many gin and tonics, the rough sea or years of inbreeding. They behaved as if paralyzed and incapable of trying to steer the boat. Another wave rolled in. The rest of the boats in the raft held firm, but the next savage wave sent the wayward boat drifting swiftly back towards…
No! Not the Mayor’s boat!
Indeed, the lost boat was careening towards the Mayor’s boat—with only the Mayor’s adorable child on board. People on all of the other boats began to scream and gesture furiously, hoping to convince the Mayor’s sweet boy to put on a life vest.
But the boy thought the people were waving at him. At the time of impact, the boy was merely waving back, making perfect figure-eight motions with his tiny hand.
Marianna would remember the crunch of the boats for the rest of her life. She closed her eyes tight, but the sickening thud of boat-upon-boat could not be shut out.
When she looked again, she saw the passenger yacht with a massive hole in its stern—water was gushing into the hole and upending the boat, just like a mini-Titanic, but with less attractive passengers and no Celine Dion theme song. The boat stood like that for a second, but another wave hit and knocked it over, capsizing it. The passengers were now trapped underneath. The hull of the boat started to sway, before finally sinking, taking its well-dressed passengers into the deep.
Into the deep they went. Never again to see the sun, to love, or to play strip croquet while drunk on Pimm’s Cup.
The Mayor’s boat was listing, as well—a thin, but jagged stripe on its hull evidence that it too had been breached in the collision. It was only a matter of time. But somehow, the boy Chas still stood, still waving, but his other hand gripped the mast, comely white knuckles even whiter with tension.
Marianna found herself paralyzed with fear. Fear—for the fates of those poor souls, and for the fate of the Mayor’s good-looking little boy. If the boy had been ugly, perhaps it wouldn’t have felt so painful. But as it was, the child was cute enough to appear in commercials, and the loss was unimaginable.
Most of the crowd seemed similarly rooted to the decks of their boats. But a lone voice rose over the howls of wind, and the peals of thunder, robust and driven by determination: “Men, lower the sails and make for the Mayor’s boat!”
Larry’s men responded to the urgency of his voice, each taking his station and working furiously, some positioning the vessel’s archboard, others angling the bilge and binnacle. Larry’s boat, unanchored, quickly approached the Mayor’s ailing yacht. Marianna sensed the danger here. The yacht was unstable and even the slightest of bumps might flip it over. The sea rocked all of the boats viciously, the maneuver ever more precarious. Larry piloted his boat so that it was at a ninety degree angle to the yacht and then moved forward at high speed.
Without a doubt, Larry’s boat would crash into the Mayor’s yacht!
Miraculously, Larry’s boat turned at exactly the right moment, so that the vessels were now parallel—and Larry’s boat did not so much as graze the Mayor’s yacht. Larry stood at the edge of the boat and called to the Mayor’s winsome young child, even as waves pummeled both vessels.
“Boy! You must jump! We haven’t much time!”
The Mayor’s boy still clasped tightly to the troubled craft’s mast, frozen with fear. “I’m scared!”
“Boy! These seas will smash us both to pieces! You must jump!”
But the boy would not move.
Larry surveyed the scene frantically.
“Men! Get me some line!”
For a second, Marianna believed that Larry was going to do lines of cocaine, which is what many lawyers at her law firm did when times got tough. But then she saw one of Larry’s men rush over with some rope, which Larry looped over his shoulder.
Larry stepped to the edge of his boat and looked over the edge—now there was at least six feet between the two boats. But Larry leapt like a cat with a beer belly. Marianna looked in shock and fascination at how Larry’s stomach jiggled as he landed ungracefully on the Mayor’s yacht, each jiggle as rhythmic as the ocean itself.
The yacht was now listing dangerously to port. The tip of its mast tilted down at a twenty-degree angle to a hungry sea that had already swallowed its share of seamen that fateful day.
Larry hung onto the railing of the Mayor’s boat and scooped up the boy, but as Larry tried to pull away, he felt a tug. The boy’s foot was wrapped tightly in part of the jib. Larry’s hands worked furiously, a blur of motion like a thirteen-year old discovering the art of self-pleasure, trying to free the boy. But the precious child was truly trapped.
Larry’s blue eyes squinted. “It’s no use!” he shouted to himself and to the uncaring sea.
Marianna stood captivated by the spectacle. But then she felt her own boat turn.
“What are we doing?!”
One of the teenagers called out, “Lady, we have to head to shore! We have to get you back safely! Suzanne said that she would only have sex with us if we got you back safely!”
She saw their point and realized Suzanne had promised much more than French kisses to the youthful crew.
Suzanne interjected, “But what about Larry? Surely we can stay a little while longer!”
“Ma’am, we can’t do anything for them now.”
And everyone on the boat, mimicking the boat’s own motion, turned their backs to the wreckage, much as Hollywood did to Britney Spears in 2007.
All save one. For Marianna would not look away while so many lives were at risk.
The tip of the Mayor’s boat was now flat with the sea, like a man’s penis when he lies down on his back before you give him a blowjob. But one figure wearing a captain’s hat had climbed onto the fallen mast of the Mayor’s boat. Could it be Larry? Waves lapped at the figure, half-submerged in the ocean’s gaping maw, shimmying along the mast like it was a stripper’s pole and many dollar bills depended on it.
A larger wave rolled in, for a while pushing the mast back into the air. Marianna could see Larry clearly now—his clothes soaked to his back, muscles rippling from the effort. Marianna noted, too, his pleasant bottom, cheeks clenching and unclenching with each shimmy up the mast. For a moment, she visualized those same cheeks clenching and unclenching with a thrust, a thrust deep into her feminine core, and Marianna felt the earth move in ways that had nothing to do with the rocky seas.
Larry was somehow now at the tip of the fallen ship’s mast. What is he doing? Marianna thought for a moment, before once again slipping into a dreamlike state in which she fantasized about other games played with just the tip. Larry, unaware of the storm in Marianna’s mind, continued his manly, but mysterious, work. Larry still had the ropes draped over his shoulders—he tied one end to the top of the mast and then began inching backwards down the mast, waves crashing over him.
Oh, you could tie me down with those ropes, big boy…
Chas’s head bobbed above the water still. As Larry reached the bottom of the mast, he patted the boy on the head. But Larry then stood up, carrying the other end of the rope, and jumped back to the
other boat, like a pear-shaped lion.
Why is Larry leaving the boy? What is he doing?
Larry then tied the other end of the rope to his own yacht’s mast. The boats’ fates were now connected. When his men saw this, they began shouting, faces contorted with fear and anger. “Captain, you’ll kill us all!”
Again, Larry’s voice carried over the wind: “Men, on my command—RAISE THE SAILS!”
Marianna was aghast. In storms like this, boats needed to take their sails down, or risk being flipped by the wind and the waves. Larry’s men seemed similarly shocked—each with the look of having drawn the final spot at a gang bang. Would they mutiny?
“Men, am I not your captain?”
The men nodded solemnly.
“Men, have I ever led you astray?”
The men shook their heads, this time with more passion, although one man appeared to say something about a bar in Bangkok.
“Then men, you have my orders!”
“AYE AYE CAPTAIN!” The men both feared and respected their Captain. Marianna saw this and was aroused. She began rubbing her thighs together discreetly.
The men rushed to their stations, as Larry took the helm. Larry’s boat started to pull away from the Mayor’s sideways yacht, with the boy still on board. Larry began to rotate his boat so that its rear now formed a “T” with the fallen yacht. His men, hands twitching with nerves, tensed up.
“Wait for my command!” Larry’s voice was loud, clear and somehow calm.
Suddenly, a wave crashed against the vessels, pushing the two boats away from each other—the rope between the boats suddenly grew tauter. Larry’s boat started to tip. Would both boats be lost?
“NOW! Men! NOW! Raise the sails!”
The men, in a fluid motion akin to a circle jerk, moved in unison—the sails snapped up, and instantly, the gale-force winds cracked into them. Larry’s boat surged forward powerfully with a fury so great that the rope between the boats now stood as tight as a tightrope. The mast of the Mayor’s yacht catapulted out of the water, before falling to the opposite side. Had the plan failed? But the boat wobbled again in the other direction, waving back and forth in ever smaller drifts like a faulty metronome, before finally standing upright. The Mayor’s boy still stood, though the lad was now crying the precious tears that only beautiful people and unicorns are able to shed.
Marianna’s boat had almost pulled back into the docks, but she could see it all from a distance. She was the first to yell “The Mayor’s boat is saved!” Immediately everyone who had turned their backs on the scene now spun around in happiness and cheered. But Marianna began sobbing—she had come to know just how close she was to losing the most precious thing in her life. After seeing Larry’s heroism, she realized it was she who had been self-centered. She had been a fool—she would go to him. She would go to him, and she would never leave again.
A crowd had formed on the docks, lustily welcoming each boat as it arrived safely. In the enduring torment, husbands embraced their wives and children, friends hugged their friends with benefits, all as if they had just been released from jail. News crews, expecting tragedy, had already arrived on the scene and made do with the frantic, heart-warming scene.
The biggest reaction was yet to come. As Larry’s boat sailed in, with the Mayor’s yacht limping behind, a cheer erupted—a cheer that somehow seemed bigger, louder and deeper than the roar of the cruel watery waste. Children who witnessed Larry stepping off of his boat would say they remembered this moment long into their dotage. Though there was lightning still in the distance, it seemed to Marianna like the thousand flashbulbs from the thousand cameras were even brighter. A dozen microphones were thrust into Larry’s face, but his eyes suggested that he felt like a reluctant bukkakke star.
The Mayor and a pair of firefighters rushed onto the other boat to free Chas, cutting him loose from the jib. The media cameras quickly turned to the heart-warming scene of the attractive child’s rescue, with nary a dry eye in the crowd, for the child was indeed very cute, and also white. The Mayor simply held his boy tightly, rocking slowly back and forth. What a precious, valued, and dearly cherished white child he was.
Marianna glanced at Larry. He appeared relieved that the cameras had left him—he had no need of public accolades. Larry stood erect, the wind whipping through his hair. Every inch of his white sailor’s outfit clung to his masculine body, accentuating the bulge at his crotch, He appeared every bit a hero, especially at his crotch. Marianna’s heart skipped.
She felt her legs propel themselves in only one direction, her arms diving forward to part the crowd. Now she was running towards him, even shoving people away so that she could be near him. She ran to Larry. She ran to him like a freight train. Or like a semi-truck, or like some other large, fast-moving object. And when she reached him, her arms were flung around him, her small frame crashing against his. And somehow, in all this chaos, in all of this passion, her lips found his perfectly. It was not a delicate kiss, but Marianna felt nerves in every inch—even every millimeter—of her skin come alive. She probed his mouth, her tongue anxious and insistent. Larry returned her kiss with even greater intensity, pushing his tongue past her lips. Marianna felt how Larry’s skin was cold and wet, yet she still melted into him. Her knees gave out now, she was falling—falling as she had never before.
But Larry’s strong arms ensnared her—thick like two breakfast sausages, warm and comforting. His arms caught her and held her tightly. He kissed her again, delicately grazing against her, as lightning and flashbulbs pulsed and exploded around them. Marianna was pulsing, too, and on the verge of her own explosion.
She looked up into his deep blue eyes and purred, “Let’s get out of here.”
Larry returned her gaze fiercely, but then his eyes softened. “Marianna, I need you now.”
He grabbed her hand and pushed his way through the crowd. She had to take three steps for each one of his purposeful strides. When he found his car, he practically pushed her inside without a word and drove frantically, hitting several pedestrians because his need for her was so urgent, his manhood so engorged, it could have taken hold of the wheel itself.
Chapter 16 – The Calm After The Storm
Larry’s home was a modest Cape Cod bungalow, miles from the sea, with weathered gray siding. Inside, it was dark, with plaid furniture and a neon light advertising a beer that Marianna had never heard of, but which she supposed was not organic.
“Kiss me again.”
Larry’s eyes were calm and kind—but then they narrowed.
“What about that boy?”
“Screech? Oh, it’s not like that!”
“What exactly is it like then?”
“He’s not my boyfriend or anything! He just likes to go down on me sometimes! Well, sometimes he likes to pin me against a wall and we have sex, but usually he just likes to eat my pussy.”
Larry lowered his head and took two steps back from her.
“What did I say?” Marianna’s voice wavered with doubt and confusion.
Larry shrugged.
“Larry, that scrawny boy means nothing! I am feisty and intelligent. I need a real man! A man who can tame my unbridled passion!”
Larry stood there, unreadable.
“I don’t understand you men. If you could find someone to give you a blowjob whenever you wanted, you’d take it, right?”
Larry stared at her, unblinking, for what seemed like an eternity. Finally, Larry opened his mouth, “Well, only if I really loved her.”
“Bullshit!” Marianna hissed. “You would get your dick sucked by a pre-op tranny as long as you could make her leave after you were done.”
Now Larry stepped forward rigidly and grabbed Marianna’s shoulders, his eyes blazing. “There. Is. NOTHING wrong with trannies. You hear me?! Nothing.”
“I’m not judging. I’m just saying.”
“You’re not judging?”
“No, it’s ok.”
“Even if it happened seve
ral times, with several pre-op trannies?”
“Larry, if I never slept with anyone who dallied with pre-op trannies, I would have never had sex at Harvard.”
Larry seemed relieved. “Then maybe... maybe I can love again.”
Larry pushed her down to the couch and kissed her.
There was thunder outside. The storm had continued, ferocious as when it first blew in. Their bodies came together with almost as much intesity. Marianna lay beneath him and clasped her arms around Larry’s shoulders—they still felt dense with tension and power. His thighs, thick and rock hard with muscle, were wedged between hers. His manhood, no less hard, but rather less thick in circumference than his thighs, pressed against his trousers, like a sexily dislocated shoulder.
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