by Melinda Minx
“No,” Mason says. “Not without some serious equipment, at least.”
We both look outside, holding hands. One hundred and eighty degrees of the platform are encircled by a dozen or so windows. The panes are made of wood and painted white, with much of the white paint splattered onto the glass. Miraculously, none of the glass is cracked, though the chill seeping in tells me that the old glass isn’t much for insulation.
The windows form a half circle, through which we can see the shore and the black sea beyond.
Mason pulls a blanket out of the bag and throws it down onto the dusty wooden platform. He gestures for me to sit, and I obey.
“You sobered up yet?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says, working the corkscrew into the wine. “Let’s fix that.”
He gets the cork open, then looks down into the empty bag. “Shit, I didn’t bring any glasses.”
I pull the bottle out of his hand and take a swig directly from the bottle. I hand it back to him. “It’s fine.”
He takes a drink, then sets the bottle down on the wood just outside the edge of the blanket.
We take the bread and cheese out next. We pull big crusty chunks of bread off with our fingers and eat it with the creamy, salty brie.
We look through the windows and watch the waves breaking on the shore. The white from the foam looks like diamonds on the onyx sea.
“Can you imagine being the guy who had to do this job?” I ask. “Just sitting up here, night after night, alone?”
I take another sip of wine from the bottle, then lay my head against Mason’s shoulder.
“It’s a lot like standing guard,” Mason says. “It’s not fun, but it’s far from the worst thing a man can be asked to do.”
I run my hands across his chest. I can feel one of the knife wound scars even through his shirt. He must have had to do so many terrible things, and so many terrible things were done to him.
“Eric and I always said being a fisher in Tuckett Bay was the worst thing that could happen to us. Now it seems almost like a dream.”
I bite my lip. I didn’t think Mason really wanted to stay here, but now I’m not as sure. Even after applying for jobs in Boston, I still haven’t given what I want to do much more thought. Not nearly as much thought as my dad has given it, at least.
We kiss again, and the next thing I know Mason is on top of me. He peels my coat off, and I feel the cold hit me, sapping the warmth out of me. But only for a moment. Mason’s warm body soon presses against me. The cold becomes a distant memory as his hands work their way up my body beneath my shirt.
I start to fight to get my shirt off. Mason helps me, and soon I’m tearing off my bra. My breasts spill out, and Mason presses his warm lips to my skin. I watch as he licks my nipples and squeezes my thick breasts in the candlelight. A new kind of warmth surges through me, coming from right between my legs.
I tear at Mason’s shirt, pulling it up and over his head, throwing it down next to my own clothes.
I run my hands up his hard, muscular body. I run a hand from his back to his sides, then to his abs. My hand slides down and down, until it slides below his belt. I feel the impossibly warm, steel-hard rod of his cock. I grab hold of it and squeeze.
Mason tears at his belt, gets it off, and undoes his jeans. He pulls his pants and underwear down while I grip his cock. It’s free now, and I begin to stroke it.
“Fuck, Sophie,” he says.
“This counts as a date, right?” I ask.
“Yeah,” he says. “Candlelight, wine, a romantic vi—”
His body jerks and his eyes roll back into his head. When his eyes focus again, I see him staring at my breasts.
“My tits are a romantic view?” I ask.
He locks eyes with me. “Every part of you is,” he says, “but I was actually talking about the sea…”
“I know you were, idiot.”
The candlelight shows a gleaming drip of silvery precum on the head of his cock, and I run a finger across it, spreading it all over his swollen head. He shudders again, and then I surprise attack him. I dive down toward him with my lips open, and I take him as deep as I can into my mouth, all in one smooth motion.
My lips lock against his shaft and I start sucking. My cheeks pull in, hollowing against his veiny girth, and I slide down and down, many inches, until I feel myself starting to gag.
I stop taking him in, but I don’t stop sucking.
“Fuck!” he grunts. I feel his body arching up against me, and I bob my head in response. Up and down his length. I make no effort to swallow, just letting all of my saliva drip down past my lips and down his shaft. My saliva mixes with his essence as more and more precum releases, and it all drips down his beautiful rod as I blow as if it was our last blowjob on Earth.
I suck harder than I ever have, and Mason explodes into my mouth without warning. I drink up all of his seed, swallowing it down in thick gulps, even as he pumps more deep down my throat.
I finally pull away, and a wet smack of saliva sounds out. His cock is still rock hard.
He locks eyes with me. “Get your pants off.”
“But—”
“Now.”
He lunges for me, and pulls my belt off as I laugh wildly. He undoes the buttons on my jeans and pulls. My jeans are tight enough that it just pulls my body along with me. I grab hold of one of the support struts for the light, and he pulls harder, peeling my pants away. I start to pull my panties down, but he grabs and rips them off.
“Jesus, Mason, you—”
He shoves me down onto the blanket so that I’m flat on my stomach, and the next thing I know, I feel his thick cock pressing between my legs.
His dick slides in between my soaking wet lips, and I spread my legs wide for him. I’m still completely flat on the ground, with Mason completely dominating me.
He’s still hard after cumming so hard in my mouth?
He slides a few inches into me, and I shudder in ecstasy. His hard abs slide against my back as his cock presses into me. My inner walls squeeze him tight, welcoming him in with warm wetness.
He thrusts hard and fast into me, and I pull my knees up under me. Mason grabs my hips and helps me up, until my ass is up in the air. My face is still pressed on the floor, but now he can fuck me even faster. Rougher.
I hear his body slapping hard against me as he drills deep into me. His cock stretches and fills me. My breasts sway back and forth beneath me, and I moan so loud and with such abandon that drool drips from the corner of my mouth.
When I come, I worry that my screams will shatter the old glass and let all the cold seep in—not that I’d feel it with all the warmth wrapping around me.
We collapse together onto the blanket, the candle lights casting pale orange flickering shadows across our bodies. My body looks smooth, and Mason’s looks like all angular planes, cut with dark shadows.
“John was right,” Mason says, grinning.
21
Mason
Sophie said things would be awkward on the boat. Fuck that. I’ve forgiven a guy from accidentally shooting me, and then had him save my life later. Punching out Samuel is nothing.
When Samuel gets to work, his usual scraggly stubble is absent.
“Clean shave,” I say.
He shrugs.
It must have hurt to shave over all that black and blue.
“No hard feelings, man,” I say, reaching out a hand.
He tilts his head at me.
“You said some dumb shit,” I say. “You were out of line. And so was I.”
He reaches his hand out and shakes. He’s got a good grip.
“Yeah,” Samuel says. “We’re cool, I guess.”
“Good,” I say. “It’s too easy to let someone die on a boat like this. We’d better be cool.”
The day goes on like normal. Not quite like normal, exactly, as Samuel is definitely stone-cold sober. Ever since I’d started, he’d drank some on the job and at lunch, but not enough to be a huge problem. It�
��d gotten worse and worse lately, and seeing him totally sober—which makes him seem almost like a new man I’ve never met before—shows me just how bad it had really gotten. It all snuck up on me.
After lunch, some of the nets start getting stuck, and Marv is already occupied at the helm.
I step up. I order everyone around as if I was the fucking captain. It’s not that I want to be, it’s just that someone needed to be. The guys all take my orders, and working together, we save the nets from getting torn apart or tangled so bad we have to cut them off.
When we’re finally out of the shit, I look up and see Marv watching me. He looks like he’s just seen something for the first time.
Then I look over and see Samuel glaring at me, his jaw tight.
I guess we’re not cool after all.
As I head to my car, Marv stops me.
“Mason.”
“Yeah?”
“You really stepped up back there.”
I shrug.
“Remember when I first hired you?” he asks. “How I said I could cut you in? How these other guys are fuckups? You wanna be my first mate?”
“First mate? On a crew this small?”
“Whatever you want to call it,” Marv says. “Instead of just paying you per hour, you get part of the cut.”
I start to do the math. It’s a lot more money, even if the cut is small.
“Of course,” Marv says, “if profits are down, you’ll make less. It’s incentive, that’s what it is. If you make sure we do well, then you do well yourself. Better than being some chump who gets paid the same crap salary even if we’re raking in the dough, yeah?”
“So what do I gotta do?” I ask.
“The same thing you did today, that’s all. Just step up. My crew is good at fishing despite being fuck-ups, but they need oversight to shine. I can’t be everywhere at once, and I realized today that I trust you.”
“I’ll think it over,” I say.
“What’s there to think about? It’s a raise.”
“I always have got a lot to think about, Marv. Nothing’s ever simple.”
“Alright,” he says, furrowing his eyebrows. “This isn’t an open offer. You tell me yes or no tomorrow, all right?”
“All right.”
22
Mason
When I reach the dock the next morning, Hank is there. The snow from a few nights ago is long gone, and he’s standing like a shadow in the fog.
“Hank?” I say. “Everything okay?”
“You tell me,” he says.
Is he suddenly going to get protective of me sleeping with his daughter? Is that what this is about?
“Everything’s good,” I say.
I stand across from him, waiting for him to get to whatever it is he is here for.
“You know she wants this job in Boston,” Hank says, as if accusing me.
“I know,” I say.
“And what about you? You want to keep fishing on Marv’s boat? You think being co-captain or whatever the hell this is will give Sophie a good life? It will trap her here. Is that what you want? You want a piece of that rusty boat?” He tilts his head toward Marv’s boat, barely visible in the fog.
I shrug. “Not particularly, no.”
I guess word travels fast when a man in Tuckett Bay is promoted on a rusted-ass boat.
“Guys that have been in wars most of their lives have a tendency to go back to whatever dead-end shit they did before...when they can’t cut it in the real world.”
I laugh dryly, and I’m starting to feel pissed off. “You saying the wars I fought aren’t real, Mr. Sinclaire? Ask my brother—or anyone else who died in those wars—if they weren’t the real world.”
Hank’s shoulders sag, and he puts one hand on mine. “I didn’t mean it like that, son, I’m just saying that it must be hard. You learned to do one thing, and now you have to start over.”
“You’re worried I can’t provide for Sophie?”
Hank laughs. “No, she can provide for herself, Mason. This isn’t about money. I’m worried she’s with you again, and she’s not going to keep her head in the game. I’m worried you will somehow keep her from going to Boston.”
“I’m not anchored down to Tuckett Bay,” I say.
“Make sure Sophie knows that,” he says. “For her, you and Tuckett Bay are connected. She might think she has to choose between her career and you. I want her to be happy, and if being with you makes her happy...then fine. But make sure she knows you don’t have to stay here, Mason.”
“In that unreal world,” I say, glaring at him; I’m still a bit pissed off that he said it, “we learned to adapt. To handle anything that is thrown at us. If I can handle ISIS-occupied Syria, I’m pretty sure I can handle Boston.”
Marv’s truck pulls up right then, and he gets out and nods to Hank and me as he passes by.
“I gotta get to work,” I say.
“Alright,” Hanks says. “See you around, Mason.”
Marv stops me before I get on board. “So? You decided?”
I hadn’t decided, but talking to Hank decided things for me. “Yeah, I’m not taking your offer, Marv. Thanks, but I don’t think I plan to stick around here.”
“You sure?” he asks.
“Yeah,” I say. “Positive.”
“Alright,” he says, glaring. “Sorry that this isn’t good enough for you. I hope wherever you end up is better than this shithole, huh?”
“It’s not like that…”
“Just get to work,” he says, waving a hand at me and walking away, not looking back at me.
Ashton and Samuel arrive a few minutes later.
Samuel glares at me. He doesn’t look nearly as sober as he did yesterday.
“Samuel,” I say. “I turned Marv down.”
“You would. I work on this boat for over two years, busting my ass day in and day out, and you come on here for a few weeks and get offered a raise. And you turn it down.”
“Well,” I say, “I turned it down, so if you step up, it’s wide open for you.”
“You saying I don’t step up?” Samuel asks. “That I don’t do a good job?”
Ashton pulls on his arm and hisses, “Drop it, man. John’s not here today, we gotta get along. Just get through the day, yeah?”
Samuel shoves him off. “You trying to get the raise now?”
“What do you mean, John’s not here?” I ask.
“Oh,” Ashton says. “Sorry, I forgot to say he’s sick. He called me.”
I frown. “He’s sick, or is he sick?”
“He’s really sick,” Ashton says. “You don’t want what he’s got, trust me.”
“You can only catch that if you fuck him!” Samuel says, erupting in laughter, as if he’s already forgotten that he was angry.
Fishermen faking being sick isn’t too big of a problem. The crews are small enough that they hold each other accountable. It creates a hell of a lot more work for everyone with one man down, so no one will let John get away with calling in sick for something like a hangover or pure laziness.
“I’m not trying to be some fucking leader,” I say, looking at both of them. “I just don’t want to fuck anything up while we’re down a man. Is everyone cool? If you’re not, just fucking say it.”
“I’ll be cool,” Samuel says. “After I get another drink.”
Ashton and I give each other a look.
“One drink,” Samuel says, holding up one finger. “Just to calm my fucking nerves. Then we’re cool. All right?”
“One drink,” Ashton says.
I shake my head, not saying anything. Maybe I need to tell Marv that Samuel is a possible liability. Though I doubt Marv wants to hear a thing from me right now.
Despite the bad start, we get everything prepped and ready. Marv does a check through, and he takes the ship out to the deeper waters. The visibility is still piss poor, and the damp cold starts to seep into my bones, even as it chokes out the sun.
I head int
o the equipment room to grab the gill nets, and I spot Samuel drinking out of a flask.
I stare him down, but he takes another swig. I step right up in his face and sniff. “One drink, huh?”
“Come on, man! It’s cold. This is only my second drink. What’s one more?”
“We’re a man down,” I say. “And there’s a lot of fog.”
“All the more reason to drink,” Samuel says.
Samuel caps his flask, shoves it into his jacket, and grabs the nets from my hands. “I got those. Mind your own business, man. We’re cool, but just get off my back.”
Once Marv anchors the boat, he heads onto deck with the rest of us. He steps up beside me and says, “Everyone is in a shit mood. I’m blaming you, Mason.”
I roll my eyes.
“You hurt morale,” Marv says. “These two have been hoping I’d offer them the job, How you think it feels for them to see you turn it down?”
“Look, Marv,” I say. “I know you’re pissed at me, but I gotta tell you that Samuel is—”
“Worry about yourself,” Marv says, shoving a finger into my chest. “You’re just regular crew, remember, you don’t gotta get your panties all in a bunch about others. You didn’t want that responsibility, so don’t try to take it on now. You turned down my offer, now stay in your place.”
I glare at him. He’s being a fucking baby. Even if I tell him that Samuel seems unstable, he’s not gonna’ fucking listen to me. Not today.
Marv heads back to the helm, and we continue our usual routine.
We pull in a few of the nets we set up the day before, and we all work together to get the fish out of the nets and onto ice.
I clean and roll up the net to use for later, while Samuel, Marv, and Ashton set up a new net.
When I get back outside, the fog has been blown entirely away. Unfortunately, the wind that blew it away is carrying fierce rain, which I can see on the horizon coming straight for us.
“Shit, Marv,” I say.
“We get this net down,” he says, “and turn back. This is not a day to go fishing, but I want to get at least one fucking net down!”