Play Along

So much to think about. I put the phone back where it belongs and after carefully hiding my note, hop into the shower.

I let the hot water run over me as I try to devise a plan.

I’m going to do this, Momma. This is my chance and I’m taking it. I’m breaking free.

* * *

“Ready to go?” Angela asks from the corridor as I open the door. I smile, grateful she has been so nice to me and has come to get me to take me with her for the day.

“So where are we going again?” I ask.

“Top deck?”

I frown.

“Up on top of the control room we have a place that we call top deck. Sun lounges and the gym and stuff are up there.”

I raise my eyebrows in shock. “Sun lounges?”

She laughs. “Don’t get too excited, it’s a long way from Ibiza. You have a swimming suit, don’t you?”

“Um.” I frown. “Oh, I think I do in that bag of stuff. Let me check.” I shuffle around in the plastic bag and find the white bikini. “Here it is.” I cringe as I hold it up and inspect it.

“Put it on.” She smirks

“Okay.” I slip into the bathroom and put on the tiny bikini.

“Hurry up,” Angela calls.

“Oh God, it’s fucking obscene,” I shout back.

“Let me see.”

I tentatively open the door as I look down at myself in the white, Lycra, barely-there, string bikini.

Angela raises her eyebrows in approval. “Very nice. Mac’s going to love you in that.”

I frown as I try to stretch the top to cover more of my boobs. “Do you think so?”

She smiles warmly. “I know so.”

I glance over at her. I want to ask her so many things about him. Like why is he on this God forsaken boat? How long has it been since he slept with Chelsea? Does he have someone at home waiting for him? Is he really nice and insanely gorgeous, or am I becoming delusional and developing Stockholm Syndrome? I know I shouldn’t care about any of the answers to my questions, and to be honest, the less I know about him the better. He is a means to an end. He will keep me safe until I get off this boat and that is all I need to know. The rest doesn’t matter. I wish it really didn’t matter to me… but somehow it secretly does. I grab my towel. Ten minutes later I am being led to the top deck.

“Here it is.” Angela holds her arms up. “Our own special kind of paradise.”

I laugh out loud. “Yes, I can see.” The area is about ten meters square and there are ten white deck chairs in a semi circle, and the floor is covered in fake grass. It is the epitome of the eighties. To the left is a large glass room that houses the gym. I can see a guy in there working out. Angela spreads her towel out on a chair and lies down. “Take a seat.”

I spread my towel out, sit down beside her, lie back, and close my eyes. The sun is warm and welcoming.

We lie for a long time in silence. “How long did you say you have been on this boat for?” I ask.

Angela screws up her face as she thinks. “A couple of years.”

I glance over at her. “Explain this two men thing to me.”

She smiles with her eyes closed as she inhales the sun. “If you had asked me ten years ago if this is the life I imagined for myself.”

I watch her.