The only other way on and off the island was a little rust bucket of a ferry that made irregular runs from Woods Hole, but never in choppy seas. It could carry a single car in a pinch, but mostly it ferried supplies and a guy from one of the Cape banks to stuff the ATM at the dock every so often.
I spent my first two weeks being wined and dined by the swells, who enjoyed my company the way they would an exotic animal. It was all very casual, of course: khaki pants and skirts, polo shirts and shorts. A sweater, sleeves tied around the neck when out of doors, was standard uniform. For the most part they were a boring but amiable bunch who had no intention of selling a single clod to Wang. They just liked being asked – it amused them.
Then everything changed. The cell phone stopped working, and so did my ATM card. It didn’t take long to find out what happened; it was all over CNN. Wang had split for parts unknown. The SEC and a dozen other alphabet soup federal agencies were two steps behind him but hot on his trail.
It seems Wang had been running one of the biggest, multinational ponzi schemes in history. He’d taken all the big names for millions, maybe billions. And those big names were pissed for being made to look like chumps.
I had to admire the crazy bastard. Yeah, crazy like a fox. But he left me stranded in suddenly hostile territory. Invitations to dinner ceased, just when I needed to look out for my next meal. Walks through that collection of fish shanties that passed for a village drew cold stares.
I had to go there to use the public phone, even though I had run out of the kind of goodwill that accepts a collect call. I ran in to Walker there. The little prick sneered contemptuously, but didn’t say a word. This was the same guy who just days before asked me to fuck his cute little air-headed wife while he recorded us with a camcorder.
Dodie was a screamer who liked to be called dirty names while she was fucked. I was doing her doggie style and brought her right to the edge when I called her “cocksucker.” Damn, she came so hard I thought she was having a seizure. She squirted too, even left a puddle on the floor.
Dodie walked a couple of steps behind Walker. Our eyes met and she smiled a little before ducking into Bones Tavern with him.
I made my calls and came up empty. I was shut off. I couldn’t expect any money, and had no way to get off the island. None of these sons of bitches would sail me off, even though I must have offended their sensibilities by sticking around, like a big smelly turd under their stuck-up noses.
All the cash I had was in my wallet, a couple of hundred bucks. I figured it would last until the ferry pulled in, or until the feds bothered to come out there to get me. Meanwhile, I had a roof over my head, and the power was still on.
I decided to have a drink.
Bones’ place was all raw, unfinished wood, even the bar. Bones was too – raw, that is. He looked even more out-of-place on that hunk of rock than I did. The swells used to whisper about him, about how he’d once been an enforcer for some racketeer – one of the “big ones.”
He was compactly built, and gave the appearance of a bullet, amplified by his hairless pate. His eyes were cold, liquid blue. He looked like a man who kept secrets well, especially his own. But he was one more friendly face on the rock.
He smiled and nodded when I sat at the bar.
“Jack D, straight,” I said.
He poured a shot and followed it with a glass of water. He leaned toward me as if he were about to communicate some secret intelligence, but glanced to my left and retreated.
Dodie sat on the stool next to mine. I scanned the room but didn’t see Walker. I figured he was in the head – that’s what they called the john around there.
“Hi, Rick.”
“Mrs Walker,” I nodded. She frowned.
“I – I’m sorry about – well, I mean, it’s not your fault that.”
“What?”
“I know people are being horrid to you. I just wanted you to know that – I still like you.” She placed her hand on my thigh – my dick twitched.
She was pretty, not exactly a raving beauty, but petite and curvy. Her short brown hair and brown doe eyes gave the appearance of a shy, sheltered girl that contradicted the writhing harlot I’d fucked on Laurence Endicott Walker’s high-polished living room floor.
I glanced toward the men’s room, then closed my hand over her knee.
“Thanks,” I said, and let it slide up her bare thigh and under her shorts until my finger tips touched the edge of her panties. She slowly sucked in air and closed her eyes. Her cheeks reddened.
I leaned to whisper in her ear. “I have a soft spot for bad girls like you. Do you have a soft, wet spot for me?”
She gasped and bit her lip.
“Do you?”
She nodded furiously, but didn’t open her eyes.
“Is your pussy dripping for me?”
“Please!” she hissed.
“My cock misses your tight little cunt.” I slid a finger inside her panties and twirled the downy hairs it encountered.
“Rick, oh my God.”
“Can you sneak out?”
“Please, Rick – I mustn’t.”
“Tonight, after he’s drunk himself to sleep. Come by – I want you to be my slut again.”
“Oh, but . . .”
“You want to be my slut, don’t you?”
“Yes.”
“Say it.”
“I want to be your – slut. Oh, please, Rick. Make me do dirty things.”
“Tonight.”
“Yes.”
“Dodie!” It was Walker.
She jumped off the stool and hurried to join him at a table. If looks could kill, she would have dissolved under his glare, but he said nothing to her, or to me.
Bones refilled my glass and grinned. “Must not have much of a dick – if he can’t satisfy a little slip of a girl like that.”
I chuckled. “It’s all about money in the bank. Bones. It makes up for other shortcomings.”
Bones grinned and swiped a wet spot on the bar with a rag.
“Bones, what the hell are you doing out on this rock?”
“Like everyone else here, I own a piece of it.”
“But – you don’t seem – I mean, how did you happen to come by it? These pricks don’t sell . . .”
He gave me a look that said I was edging too close to matters best left alone. But, then he smiled. “It was a gift.”
It was enough. Bones had done someone a unique favor, and a sliver of island property was his reward.
“Hey, Bones, you’ve got a boat. How about you give me a lift off this rock? I can pay for the gas.”
“Can’t – the wife has the boat. She took the in-laws down to Block Island, won’t be back for five days.”
“Shit. What the hell do you want to go from one freaking island to another for?”
Bones laughed, then as quick as my next breath he resumed his poker face and said, “Watch yourself.”
It felt like someone poked a gun barrel into my shoulder. I spun around. It wasn’t a gun, just a finger, wielded by Bradley Procter Sloane Whitman. I had to wonder how many family names they could tack on to one handle before it shattered under its own weight of syllables.
Every tribe has its leader, and on this island it was Brad Whitman. He loomed over me, all six feet five inches of him. He was a solid guy, a true sailor. He’d crewed a few America’s Cup races and kept himself in excellent shape – a poster boy for good genes. His square jaw was set tight. Just enough gray in the temples to affect that badge of Brahmin nobility. He had feted me at a clambake he’d organized just so the island swells could waste my time discussing real estate they had no intention of selling.
“Hello, Brad. You want to be careful with that thing – it has a nail in it.”
He continued to glower. “You’re still here – why?”
“You know, I ask myself that same question and I keep coming back to the same answer: I have no way to get off this rock.”
“You could t
ry swimming.”
“No, thanks. I’ll put in here until the ferry arrives.”
“You’ve taken advantage of the goodwill of the fine people of this island. Now that you’ve been exposed as the agent of a flim-flam artist . . .”
“Whoa, there, Brad. I’ve been left high and dry by my recent employer. I didn’t crash anyone’s clambake. And – be honest – I was a momentary diversion in your monotonous routines.”
He poked me again in the shoulder. Damn, it hurt. I knew he was trying to goad me into swinging at him, but I wasn’t taking the bait. Just one look at him and I knew he could wipe the place up with my ass. He was also an ex-Ivy League boxing champ, a Yalie, Skull & Bones and all that other manly man circle-jerk nonsense.
“Look, Brad, I’m getting off this rock as soon as I can. Let’s just agree to stay out of each other’s way.”
“I don’t think so. You take advantage of our hospitality – that’s one thing. You interfere with a man’s family, that’s quite another.”
So, that was his beef. I glanced over toward Walker, who sat sneering and safe at his table. Dodie fidgeted beside him with both sets of fingertips pressed to her mouth. I’m not sure what the family connection was, whether Brad was his uncle or a super-cousin. But, Bradley was the one he obviously went running to when he couldn’t fix his own mess.
“Brad, I never intrude anywhere I’m not invited.”
I could see the blood bubble up into his face and a thick vein bulge at his temple. He wasn’t going to wait for me to swing first. Then I sensed something just as solid and dangerous rise up behind me.
“Not in my place, Brad,” Bones intoned evenly.
Bradley expelled air through his nostrils like a radiator venting steam. He looked down at me again.
“Trash like you will never understand family values,” he fumed.
“Do it for the children,” I replied. He looked confused.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I thought we were about to engage in duel of clichés.”
“Splendid! What a droll exercise.” The voice was unfamiliar to me.
A shiver rattled Bradley. We turned together toward the rail-thin man in the black cape. Long gray hair fell freely over his shoulders. His face was angled toward a sharp chin, and he grinned with small pointy barracuda teeth. If I were to guess his age – maybe sixty, but I suspected he was much younger.
The blonde beside him hadn’t said goodbye to her twenties yet. She was tall and Nordic-looking. Her hair was held in a pony tail that fell over one shoulder. She wore short-shorts that enhanced the length of legs that needed no enhancement, and a vest that exposed a flat, tight stomach. The vest hung open, barely covering her breasts that were each just as large as a handful.
Bradley turned his back to me. “Ashton, I thought you were gone from the island for good.”
The man answered with a reedy laugh. “Oh, never say never, Yale Brother. Boola-Boola, eh? I’ve had a yen for fun and games – especially games. We’ve played such delightful games on this island.”
I detected a collective shudder run through the place. Bradley turned toward a table where three other swells stirred uneasily in their seats. They got up and the whole lot walked out of the place without another word, leaving the stranger grinning.
He turned to me and bowed. I lifted my glass to him and let my eyes climb the woman from her toes to her bee-stung lips.
“Come, Gretchen,” he said, and they moved to a table in a corner. Everyone else stood and walked out.
I left Bones to the stranger and his Valkyrie and made my way to the desolate crop of weathered granite where Wang’s house stood. It was a cinder block ranch that looked something like a bomb shelter. It was amazing Wang had acquired it. Someone had broken the trust and sold to an outsider. It had once belonged to an old couple – the kind of folks the swells called “the help”.
Domestics and other service types lived through the summer in the shanties of the village. But this pair had been favored with a place of their own, probably after a lifetime of waiting hand-and-foot on their employer. But the island isn’t someplace you live year round. I figure the old folks saw their chance, sold to Wang and high-tailed it to Florida or Arizona. They were never spoken of.
It was cozy despite its austere look, with a bed and a bar. Sea breezes kept it cool.
I spotted Dodie a mile away in the bright full moon light. It must have been around 1:30 in the morning. She rode her bike up the furrowed road like a schoolgirl. I greeted her and put her bike behind a wall.
“I’m not wearing any underwear,” she said as I hustled her inside. She let her shorts fall to her ankles, and then kicked off her boat shoes. She stood and grinned in a cropped T-shirt.
“Not wasting any time, eh?”
“Oh, Rick. It’s so boring here. I hate it when Bink brings me here each summer.”
It took me a second to realize “Bink” was her husband.
“Why don’t you ask him to take a real vacation? Travel.”
“Oh, we do. But, it’s more to get away so he can . . .”
I let her silence hang for a moment. “Where he can indulge in his kinks out of sight of the family?”
She shrugged. “You know he likes to – share me.”
“Oh, sweetie, and I’m so glad he does,” I winked. She grinned, and looked as sweet and disarming as a little girl. Even her pussy was bare.
“Just where has he shared you, my sweet?”
“Oh, can we talk about that later? I’ve been having such dirty thoughts.”
“Plenty of time to play, Cupcake. I’m just curious why a man would lend a sweet little morsel like you out to – who?”
She sat on a lounger and lifted one leg over an armrest. Her pussy was a slick, gleaming slit that she teased with the little finger of her left hand.
“Really, just a few men. He likes to get away, even though we’ve played games on the island.”
“Really? Do you mean the proper wives of Chaukunamaug have swap meets? Why, aren’t you all related? That’s downright incestuous.”
She giggled. “No, nothing like that – except . . .”
“What?”
“You saw the man at the bar this afternoon?”
“The creepy caped dude?”
“Ashton. He used to be a friend of Brad’s.”
“Used to?”
“Ashton is a writer and an artist. He has some pretty funny ideas – not that I ever read anything of his. But, I guess he met Brad when they went to Yale. That big house at the western end of the island, that belongs to Ashton.”
“That ark? It looks like a hotel.”
“It used to be. It’s huge; it has a lot of rooms. It’s been closed up for years, but now that Ashton’s back . . .”
“What?”
“Well, Ashton used to have a lot of parties there – kinky parties. He used to hire people from off island, performers, sort of.”
“What do you mean, sort of?”
“They used to perform – well – sex.”
“Really.”
“Yeah, like, one time Ashton staged a little playlet, ‘Innocence Betrayed’. A girl played this really sweet, wholesome student. But a bunch of guys kidnap her and take her to an old house. Then they rape her and make her do really wicked and disgusting things.”
I could tell by the speed that Dodie’s finger flicked her folds that she enjoyed recounting the drama.
“They made her suck all their cocks, and then they took turns, you know, doing her. Then three or four of them did her at once, like, every hole in her body was filled. At the end she begged them to fuck her some more, and do even worse things because she had turned into a total slut.”
I thought I detected a wistful sigh escape Dodie’s lips.
“Uh-huh. So, what other kind of entertainment did this Ashton provide?”
“Huh? Oh, well, he was famous for his games.”
“Games?”
“Yeah, but, that’s what
got him into trouble too. At least, people stopped going there and after a while he left. He’s been gone for years.”
“What game in particular?”
“Rick, please, can’t you fuck me now? I don’t want to talk about . . .”
“C’mon, Sweets, tell me, and then I promise you we’ll play games all our own.”
“Oh, OK,” she pouted. “Well, one night, Ashton had some of us, men and women, go upstairs to the rooms and get naked in bed. The rooms were pitch dark so we couldn’t see, and nobody could see us. The idea was that those left downstairs would draw a number and go to that room. Then the woman in bed was supposed to blow the visitor, or if the visitor was a woman, she was to blow the guy in bed. Then later, we were all supposed to write down whose cock we thought we’d sucked. Ashton would never say who, unless we were right.”
“Hmm, not too complicated.”
“Yeah, but you don’t know how cruel Ashton is. After it was all over, he revealed that he had sent a man to a man’s room. So, one of the guys ended up getting blown by another guy, but they could never know for sure who. Well, you have to understand the men on this island. For them to think even maybe they’d been sucked off by some gay actor that Ashton snuck over . . . Well, can you imagine? It was such a dirty trick.”
The gleam in her eye told me that Dodie got a kick out of the dirty trick despite the effort she put into keeping a straight face. I did imagine the panic that set in among the bluebloods, who invested such stock in their masculinity – all in the service of siring the next generations, of course.
“Sometimes I ask Bink,” she grinned. “He gets all flustered.”
“He gets off on watching his wife fuck other men, but an accidental blowjob from a guy gets him crazy, huh?”
“Know what? When he shares me, and a strange man is filling my pussy and making me come, I like to think about Bink sucking the dick of the next man to take me, just to get him ready.”
The Mammoth Book of Best New Erotica 5 Page 49