Lights on the Far Horizon Trilogy

by Stone, Sailor

  Sammy, his elbows on the table, cocked his head to the side, “Girl, it’s hopeless but I’d love to get off my chest what happened. Let’s do dinner tonight and I’ll tell you all about it.”

  “You mean like a date?” Kinsey asked.

  “Yep. Just us girls, honey. You and me!”

  Kinsey began to laugh and soon she couldn’t stop. Sammy had completely disarmed her with his forthrightness and self-honesty and she loved it. She loved him and how he was making her feel. She felt life and happiness coming back into her heart, not a lot of either, but enough to light the darkness within her to where everything wasn’t hidden in shadows.

  Sammy stepped away to go to the bathroom and Kinsey said a quick and silent prayer of thanks.

  They asked their waitress where a good beach would be for them to go and spend the afternoon and the waitress suggested the small beaches of St. George’s. She explained that there were no cruise ships in the city’s port so the beaches wouldn’t be crowded with tourists who could, at times, overrun the beaches. It’s a great day to go there the waitress said, and on her suggestion, Kinsey and Sammy went off on their scooters searching for St. George’s beaches.

  It took some time and a few wrong turns but they found the beaches and picked a small intimate beach on a small lagoon that was nestled behind some high rocks, almost like a cliff, that had a bar and restaurant built into the side of the rock that overlooked the sand and water.

  They spread out their towels and got to the task of getting some serious sun. Kinsey pulled off her dark green, partially see-through tunic to reveal a two piece bathing suit that was also colored a dark green with gold accents on both the top and bottom. She laid on her stomach and made herself comfortable on her towel. She turned her head to see what Sammy was up to and found herself lying next to a man wearing nothing but a red see-through thong.

  Sammy, Kinsey realized, was wearing less swimming suit than she was and she wasn’t wearing much. She closed her eyes. Spending a week with Sammy could get interesting she thought as she opened herself to the warm sensation of the sun’s rays on her back. She heard the quiet lap of the small waves as they rolled to shore and then she felt the coolness of the breeze as it caressed her skin. The pleasant heat of the sun and the cool air of the wind kept her skin temperature balanced and perfect. Soon, her eyes became heavy and she let the moments elongate into warm liquid dreams.

  Tanner was watching her from the bar above the beach in the rocks of the small cliff. She knew he’d come to her on his Hobie sailboat, which she could see, its sails hanging loose to the wind, on the shore of their lagoon, just as he had done on the evening in South Beach when they’d first met. He had a drink in each of his hands and he made his way down to her on the beach. They were alone. Sammy had somehow disappeared but that was okay. Tanner asked if she’d liked Mojitos and she said yes as she took the drink from his hand. He was wearing board-shorts. She loved him in board-shorts and she told him to sit with her.

  He sat in the sand next her and began to rub her back. She cooed softly under her breath.

  “You like that?” he asked, “I can do even better.” He leaned down and began to kiss her from her neckline down to the small of her back. It felt wonderful and Kinsey made a louder coo sound to let him know she approved.

  She felt her bikini bottoms being pulled down and then his hands touched the small of her back; they began to move south.

  He wanted her. She could tell by the way he was breathing and she wanted him. She felt her anatomy ready itself for him and she arched her back into a better angle to receive him. He came up to where his head was above hers and he ran his fingers through her hair and turned her and kissed her on the lips. He tasted of fresh fruit and alcohol. She loved it and when his tongue came into her mouth she wrapped her lips around it. She heard a guttural moan coming from the back of her throat. She needed him inside of her and she made it even clearer with her posture she was ready to receive him.

  He rolled her back to her stomach and pushed her head down into the towel and put his hands around her hips and pulled her toward him. This was it. She’d waited so long for him to come back to her and love her in only the way that he could. He knew all about her and he was going to lift her love for him to a good place and return it back to her. She closed her eyes and surrendered herself to him.

  “I see that snake has come back,” he said, “It’s coming around the rock right over there. It’s huge.”

  Kinsey had forgot about the snake. And her sin. She had struck her husband and there was no way he’d ever love her again. She felt tears pouring from her eyes and she went to try and apologize to Tanner but he put his finger to her lips.

  “I can get rid of the snake. Can I do that for you, Kinsey? Let me crush it.”

  Kinsey was amazed. “Why would you do that?” she asked, “It’s only after me. It wants to destroy me, not you.”

  “I’ve got this,” Tanner said. He stood from behind Kinsey, and naked, his sharply angled and muscular physique shining in the afternoon sun, he stepped out into the sand and walked toward the snake.

  The snake was long, black and massively thick, its head angled back like a weapon – pure and evil in its ancient symmetry. It raised its diamond-eyed head to where it was now taller than Tanner and awaited him in a striking position. It coiled back more with each step from Tanner in its direction and then it opened its mouth to reveal two long, sharp fangs.

  Kinsey began to scream at Tanner to come back and then Sammy came running to their help.

  Kinsey opened her eyes to the tugs of Sammy’s hand on her arm and his voice telling her to wake up.

  “You’re having a nightmare Kinsey. Right here on this beautiful beach you’re having a nightmare. I can’t believe it. We need to get you better. I thought I was bad but you need my help. What were you dreaming, Kinsey? Tell me about it.”

  20

  The Broken-Hearts Club

  As Kinsey and Sam left the beach and scootered over a small hill that overlooked the town of St. George’s they saw a magnificent yacht berthed along the wharf on the bay on the far side of the town. They came to a stop sign and Sammy called out to Kinsey over the sound of their scooters that he’d like to go into town and get a drink. Kinsey agreed and within a few minutes they had parked their scooters near the wharf and were being seated at an outdoor table at the White Horse Tavern. It was late afternoon and they were only one of two tables with customers.

  Kinsey sipped her mojito and looked to the yacht. Its sleek lines and the brilliant white and blue colors of its angled hull, contrasted against the greens of the island trees and the pastel colored homes on the far side of the bay made her want to take up her brush and paint. The terrible dreams she was having notwithstanding, Kinsey felt like she was making progress in her efforts to get better and she wanted to go home to her babies and her husband sooner rather than later. And this after only one day on the island. She looked across the table to where Sammy was looking out to the bay and nodding his head in approval at the beautiful seascape and she said, “Sammy.”

  Sammy looked across the table back at her with his kind eyes. “Yes, Kinsey?”

  Kinsey put her hand across the table and when he put his hand to hers she squeezed it and said, “I don’t know why you came to me and made me your friend. I haven’t been feeling well for quite a while but you are helping me to get better and I want to thank you. For the first time in many months I feel like I’m stepping out of a very dark place and it’s wonderful to experience the sunshine again and what makes it so much better is experiencing it with you.”

  As she spoke she noticed Sammy’s eyes getting moist, then he placed his drink on the table and took her hand in both of his, “I don’t know what made me speak to you in that elevator. I think you had the saddest eyes on a person I’d ever seen and they didn’t fit your natural beauty. You are so pretty and yet you had the biggest and loneliest looking puppy dog eyes. I felt safe speaking to you. I’ve be
en through a tough time too and I trusted my instincts and reached out to you. I’m so glad I did. I feel like I’ve known you all my life and it hasn’t even been twenty-four hours since we met.”

  Kinsey nodded and said, “Let’s get better together. Let’s leave this island next week, both of us, healed and happy and let’s always be friends. I can get better with your help but only if you let me help you as well.”

  Sammy leaned back in his chair with a move that Kinsey could only describe as completely effeminate, he put two fingers to his face and wiped away a tear as it fell down his cheek, and with it, Kinsey realized, she had just made, what amounted to – in essence – a new girlfriend. She smiled and waited for Sammy to compose himself and when he did, she said, “So tell me about Carlton. What happened?”

  “I’ll tell you about the entire horrid affair but then you have to tell me why you’re having those nightmares. I had to shake you so hard on the beach to wake you and you were almost screaming in your sleep. It scared me.”

  “That bad? I believe it. I’m dreaming about a snake every time I close my eyes, a really big snake, but you go first.”

  Sammy’s eyes grew big, “A snake? That’s horrible – but okay, here goes my story,” he said as he turned his eyes away from Kinsey and looked toward the yacht, “I was born in San Francisco which is a great place to be if you’re of my… persuasion…”

  “You’re gay, Sammy, and I don’t care,” Kinsey smiled as big as she knew how and then added, “Now get going with it – what happened?”

  “Yes, I’m nothing if not obvious, that’s for sure,” Sammy took in a breath, “So I’ve known Carlton since I was in elementary school. We became friends and we each had a secret but it helped both of us as we grew up because we could support one another. It isn’t easy being gay in elementary school, even in San Francisco, but Carlton and I got through it as well as can be expected. It’s hard trying to figure out why you’re not attracted to the opposite sex like all your classmates are and then it gets even tougher when you find yourself attracted to your own sex as you enter your teenage years.

  There are many shades of gay and I lean hard to the most feminine of shades. For Carlton it was a bit different. He grew to be very masculine and his interests were different from mine. I was attracted to the beauty that is a woman, but it was like you with your painting, I saw the female body as an art form and I wanted to be like that – feminine that is. I embraced my femininity as I grew older and I fell in love with hair. I know that sounds funny, cliché even, but it’s the truth.”

  “How about Carlton? How did he embrace being gay, or did he?” Kinsey asked.

  Sammy looked at Kinsey, “That is a great question. He didn’t embrace it all, at least not for many years. He played sports, he is amazing on a surfboard and skateboard, and he played golf well enough to go to college on a scholarship for it.

  He kept his being gay a secret from the world. I knew about it and I think his mother suspected it as well but that was it, no one else even had an inkling of an idea. With time, our friendship had to go underground so to speak because there was no denying my gayness and that wouldn’t sit well with his athletic friends. We lived in the same neighborhood and he would come see me only when it was safe for him to do so.”

  “Did you love him? Were you intimate then?”

  “More good questions, sister. I think we loved each other but we didn’t know what to do with it. Expressing ourselves physically was too big of a step for us. Too much risk involved and so our friendship went to the back burner for a few years.

  When he went to college I began to learn about the female body; the business side of making it beautiful. I became obsessed with being the best. I became a masseuse first and then I learned about nails and make-up and skin and then finally I learned about hair. I became even more obsessed with women’s hair.

  I love to get the color of hair to either match or contrast a woman’s skin and then there are so many ways to use hair to frame a beautiful face. I was attracted to beauty and I found myself trusting my instincts and moving to where I knew the prettiest women in the world all lived.”

  “Let me guess, Hollywood?”

  Sammy nodded. “They are everywhere. A lot of cute guys too I figured out soon enough. I was in heaven. I went to work as an assistant to a famous hairstylist and got my foot into the front door of the Hollywood beauty industry…”

  Kinsey found herself able to listen to Sammy with one ear and take in her surroundings at the same time. She couldn’t keep her eyes from looking to the huge yacht that filled the length of the dock. It was the size of a small cruise ship and when they first arrived at the tavern it looked to be deserted of crew and passengers. Then, as Sammy continued with his story, Kinsey saw people appearing on the many decks of the ship as they came from inside the ship.

  She saw a tall, muscular looking man with a strongly angled jaw and close cut blond hair come to the rail of the deck and look toward the town of St. George. Even from her vantage point, far from the ship, she could tell he was an alpha-male and a most handsome one at that. He had a natural command about him and when one of the crew came to him and saluted him she knew he was the owner of the yacht.

  She watched him as he scanned the city and when his eyes came to her they locked in on her and began to take her in. She felt him scanning her and it both bothered her and intrigued her. She sensed he was used to people looking away from his piercing gaze and so she made sure to return it. He continued to stare and Kinsey realized that he was most likely undressing her in his mind. That was enough; she turned her eyes back to Sammy and ignored the man’s stare even though she could still feel his eyes locked in on her body. She felt like she was being violated from long distance. Finally, out of the corner of her eye, Kinsey saw the man step away from the rail and go inside the ship.

  Their waiter came to the table, interrupting Sammy in his story, and asked if they’d like anything else to drink.

  Sammy came out of his words and answered, “I’d like a white wine. A Pinot Grigio would be nice.”

  Kinsey thought about it and then answered, “I keep wanting Mojitos. I’ll have another. Light on the sugar.”

  As the waiter left them to put in the order Kinsey called him back. “What can you tell us about that beautiful yacht?”

  The waiter looked to the great boat and with a look of disappointment in his eyes, he said, “I know all about it, and its owner. Where do you want me to start?”

  Sammy, as sensitive as ever, responded to the young man’s disappointment, “Tell us all you know. It sounds like something happened to you.”

  Kinsey pushed out one of two unused chairs at their table and said, “Here, take a seat. It’s not like you’re busy here.”

  The waiter looked around and agreed. “First though, let me get your drinks.”

  “Okay, get yourself something as well. It’s on us.” Sammy called to him as he left the table.

  The waiter returned a few minutes later with Sam and Kinsey’s drinks and a beer for himself. He sat and shook Sammy’s hand as Sammy extended it to him. Everyone exchanged names, he said his name was Justin, and then he asked, “So where do you want me to start?”

  “Tell us about the yacht.” Sammy said.

  Justin looked out to the ship as he began to speak, “Well its name should say it all. Did you happen to see it before you came here?”

  Both Sam and Kinsey shook their heads no and he continued, “It a world famous yacht. One of the biggest and fastest ever built. It’s owned by a Russian business tycoon and he named it the Great Seducer. Pisses me off completely.” He took a drink from his beer, a healthy draft that left his bottle almost empty, to drive home to Sammy and Kinsey how it made him feel.

  Kinsey, after having the owner of the great yacht stare her clothes off her body some minutes before, and now, learning the name of the ship, intuited where Justin was going with his story and she wanted to make him trust both her and Sammy and so she
said, “A man, he had short blond hair and was well built, I’m guessing he’s the owner, just visually all but raped me while I was sitting here listening to Sammy talk. He made me feel dirty. I have never been stared at like that before, at least not in such an obvious fashion and for that long a period of time.”

  Justin shook his head and looked from Kinsey to Sammy and then back to the ship, “I can see him doing that to you. I’d expect it even. You’re definitely his type – you have the look – the drop-dead gorgeous look.”

  Sammy was surprised at both Kinsey’s revelation about what just happened to her and what Justin was saying and he asked, “Where is all of this coming from? Someone was staring at you and I didn’t even notice it? I notice everything. It’s what I do.”

  “I’m sorry, Sammy. You were into your story and I was listening but I couldn’t help but notice the way that man was eyeing me,” Kinsey answered.

  They all looked to the ship, and Justin said, “That ship comes into port here in St. George’s this time every year. Last year my fiancée and I had just moved here to St. George’s from Warwick, on the other side of the island, because we found new jobs here. It was the middle of winter and the weather wasn’t too nice but that was okay because we were planning our wedding and totally falling in love with each other. It was the best time of my life, ever.

  Then, when spring came along, that yacht pulled into port and the owner, his name is Dmitri, Dmitri Rublev, started throwing parties on it. Big, spare no expense, parties. He invited all the bigwigs that live on the island and almost every night that boat was rocking to loud music, the booze was flowing and everyone was having a great time and the fun didn’t stop until the sun was rising from the sea. And you could tell the guy had an eye for the girls. He kept that boat loaded with beautiful girls. I don’t know where they all came from but all the guys here in town, us working guys, enjoyed watching them come and go from the ship.