He must not have had either because she got up and left after just a few minutes of listening to him babble. As she was walking out the door, a black-haired island girl walked in wearing clear heeled shoes. Just what I needed. I didn’t waste any time but walked right up to her, whispered a number in her ear, watched her eyes light up, and took her back to my cabin.
I wondered if she was even eighteen as she rode my cock half the night. Not that it mattered around here – sixteen was good enough, legally. Being a U.S. man, though, I had a thing against girls under eighteen. It just didn’t seem right. I guess for what I was paying her, she would agree to be whatever age I’d be comfortable screwing.
She had really nice tits, and I spent a lot of time sucking on her nipples. She tried to convince me I made her come just from licking them, but I knew the difference between a real orgasm and a fake one. I wasn’t doing it for her, anyway – I just liked sucking on tits. I didn’t need to make her come – she was getting money out of this, not orgasms. She was supposed to make sure I got off, and she didn’t disappoint. I did feel her come on me once, so she got her bonus, too.
Once I was done with her, I handed her the cash and told her to find her own way home. She smiled, fanned through the bills, and offered to meet up with me the next time I was in the area. Yeah, maybe. She was cute enough. Beats beating off.
She left an actual fucking business card on the dresser as she left. Who would have thought they had them?
I spent the next day at the same bar, getting way too fucked up to fuck anyone. I stumbled back to the ship about ten minutes after we were supposed to set sail, flipped John Paul off, puked over the bow, and finally dropped onto the floor of my cabin. I saw a couple of the passengers eyeing me before I slammed my door and sealed it.
Yep, the room was definitely spinning this time. Why the fuck did I do this? Again?
Because it keeps you from seeing all those faces all night long.
Oh yeah.
I lurched into the bathroom and puked again. I tried to get a washcloth wet so I could clean off my face, but I couldn’t seem to stand up long enough to reach the sink. I crawled back into the main room of the cabin and managed to get close to my bunk, if not actually on it. I closed my eyes and willed myself to sleep.
* * * * *
I woke up when I hit the ceiling of my cabin.
Yeah, the ceiling.
At first, I figured I was having a nightmare because it didn’t make any sense for me to be where I was. Besides, nightmares were a common enough experience in my life, but when I heard the siren going off, I knew whatever was going on, it was really going on. I crawled over the ceiling and reached up to get to the handle of my cabin door. Once I got it open, water started rushing in.
I grabbed my belt and wrapped it around my waist, securing it quickly. I could hear wind and rain, but it wasn’t heavy. It certainly wasn’t heavy enough to cause us to capsize; it was just heavy enough to make it hard to see what was actually going on. I headed aft, wading through water as it poured in, seemingly from all sides. It was almost pitch black, and I could hear screaming coming from the passenger cabins.
“Heads up! Lifeboats – port and starboard!” I yelled out. I couldn’t see anyone, but I could still hear them yelling. I thought I heard John Paul’s booming voice from behind me, yelling something about a second wave. I felt the whole ship jar and roll again before blinding pain hit the side of my head, followed by darkness.
I didn’t think I was out long, but I woke up with a mouthful of seawater, choking and coughing. I pulled myself back onto my feet, trying to figure out which way was up. I looked off to my left and saw nothing but water through the gigantic hole in the bulkhead.
I went the opposite way of the gaping hole, trying to get my bearings. The only thing I knew for sure was we were right-side up again. I slipped on the first step, banged the crap out of one knee, and tried to keep moving through the intense ache.
Suddenly, I was topside – staring straight into the broken chunk of the mainmast of The Oblation. There was one large, torn piece of canvas hanging from a three foot section of it. It was all the sail I could see. Whatever hit us, hit us hard.
I clambered over debris until I came to the port bow and looked over the side. Both lifeboats were gone, but so was half the hull. I made my way back to the other side, confirming the other lifeboat was also gone.
Shit.
The Oblation was starting to tip, and the foredeck was rising up in front of me. I slipped on the wet deck and nearly fell as I made my way back up to the pilothouse, where there was – I hoped – a life raft still stowed under the decking. It was there, and I yanked it out of the compartment and ran up to the bow. I looped the painter line around my wrist and threw the whole container into the water. It jerked on my arm and inflated in just a few seconds. I wrapped the line around the bolt near the bow and ran back to what remained of my ship’s mainsail.
I climbed up as far as I could and yelled out, but heard no one else. Had they all already abandoned ship? Were any of them still below deck? I had no idea how long I was unconscious, and the ship was sinking quickly. I yelled out once more and listened closely before deciding everyone else must have already gotten away, or maybe they had already drowned.
Images of Alejandro and John Paul jumped around in my head, but I had to push them away so I could think and react. If there was anything I knew it was how to deal with panic-inducing survival situations. I hadn’t had to do it out at sea before, but I had certainly had my fair share of urban encounters.
All right, quite a bit more than my fair share.
I took a deep breath, steadied myself, temporarily erased anything non-survival related from my brain, and mentally prepared myself to jump overboard.
I made my way towards the starboard bow as the rain began to pour out of the skies harder, and the wind tossed my hair into my eyes. I reached the end of the line holding the raft and yanked at the bolt. Somehow, I had managed to get the line stuck, and the damn thing just wouldn’t budge. Another wave crashed up and filled my eyes with salt water. I shook drops from my face and hair and pulled the jackknife out of my belt. I cut the cord, and the lifeboat released from the side of the ship into the rough water. I went tumbling in after it.
I hit the water chest and stomach first, which fucking stung and almost caused me to lose my grip on the line. I pulled – hard – arm over arm with my eyes closed tightly, trying to keep the salt water from burning them. I could feel my biceps starting to fatigue, and the muscle pain shot up into my shoulders. I kept pulling, kicking my bare feet in the wate
r to try to get a little more leverage.
The rain continued to pelt my back, and the wind drove waves up and over my head. I wrapped my hand around the loose rope and finally got to the life preserver connected to the side of the raft. I pulled the thing off the side and wrapped it around one shoulder before the next wave knocked me under again.