by Lou Cameron
He started nailing the pads of the tripod to the deck as he asked her who the hell this ‘Kai’ was, adding they already had too many people aboard.
She laughed and said, “Oh, silly big cock, ‘Kai’ is what my people are calling the sea. These alleesame crazy Costa Ricans don’t savvy you gottem make friends with Kai and Raki—that’s the sky—before you sailem out of sight of Papa, she’s the land. Why you not put out with Kanaka crew, you big silly cock?”
“The Costa Rican crew comes with the Costa Rican fishing boat, of course. And do you have to keep calling me a silly, cock, you silly cunt?”
She laughed and said, “Oh goody, let’s put silly cock in silly cunt! We alleesame alone up here and no place else on board for makee nukinuki! My word, how you ’spose them others gonna makem nukinuki in such crowdee cabin? S’pose they puttem out lightee for nukinuki, somebody bound to wind up in wrong hole.”
She laughed again and added, “Maybe that more fun, my word. But they all stinkee from wear too much clothes in hot stinkee cabin. So me just wanna make nukinuki along you!”
He told her to behave as he mounted the Maxim on the tripod, drove a square of nailheads to brace an ammo box, and opened it to feed the canvas-web ammo belt into the action. He armed the gun and put it on safety, warning her, “Don’t you touch this, ever.”
She said, “Pooh, no wanna makee gun shoot. Wanna make you shoot, in me!”
It was just as well he didn’t take her up on the offer. For Beatriz came forward, carrying a pile of bedding. As she flopped down next to the Kanaka girl with it, she said, “Alberto’s at the helm now. He’ll be there for four hours. Do you really remember me from the old outfit, Captain Gringo?”
He assured her he did, even though he didn’t; and of course did so in Spanish. So Atanua pouted and asked in English, “Hey, wassamatter this Haole cunt? She wanna make nukinuki, too?”
Captain Gringo told her to shut up, opened the hatch, and added she should go below and line the nest with the bedding. So she laughed and proceeded to do so, making lewd suggestions about the possibilities of such a cozy love nest as he in turn explained to the ex-adelita that she was slightly nuts.
The mestiza sighed and said, “I don’t suppose there’d be room for five down in that chain locker, would there?” He frowned thoughtfully and kept his voice desperately devoid of anything that could be taken the wrong way as he replied, “I don’t see how the four of us are going to fit and, ah, you have your own hombre to, ah, keep company with, no?”
She shrugged and said, “If you say so. When a woman has no man, she must take what she can get. Will you tell me something, truthfully? I promise I will not get angry, Captain Gringo.”
“What is it you want to know, Beatriz?”
“Down south, that time, when the soldado who owned me got shot on the last day of the fighting—”
“We lost a lot of good men that time, before we won.”
“Si, and the adelita of one of the first we lost on that campaign wound up in your tent. But when I was left alone …”
He shook his head wearily and said, “A lot of you girls might have wound up feeling a little left out, Beatriz. But, hell, how many adelitas can fit in one sleeping bag? I led you all down there to fight, not to … you know.”
“I know. You led us well. And when it was over you saw we all got paid. You did not treat us with the ingratitude of some leaders. That is for why I am no longer interested in the military life. You are trying for to be gallant. I know you do not remember me. But I remember how kind you were when you told me my soldado had bought it. I remember you gave me his back pay before we disbanded, too. But, si, a woman can feel left out just the same. I still think I was prettier than some of the adelitas you took a more personal interest in.”
He patted her shoulder and said, “You were. I do remember you. But as you say, your soldado was killed at the end, and what kind of a man would trifle with a woman still in mourning? You probably remember I left suddenly, when I was recalled to headquarters. That’s why I may not have said adios as you may have wished.”
She smiled wistfully in the moonlight and murmured, “Ay que linda you lie! I remember all too well the fancy blanca you left with in that private coach. I wished for to scratch her eyes out! But you are right, the dead past is gone forever and tomorrow is so often too late. I shall not make a pest of myself, Captain Gringo. For one thing, Alberto hits when he is angry. I shall not even scratch any eyes out, if only you will do me one favor for old time’s sake.”
So he rose and helped her to her feet, staring aft over her to make sure the sails were blocking the view from the helm as he said softly, “I suppose an old army buddy deserves a favor, soldada. So name it.”
She reached up to draw his face down to hers as they kissed in the moonlight. Then she sobbed and said, “I thought that would do it. I should have known better. But do not worry, I know when I am not wanted.”
He wasn’t so sure about that as she made her way aft, leaving him with a tingle in his pants he hadn’t noticed before. She sure kissed good and, Jesus, to think he’d passed that up when it had been all his, if only he’d known at the time!
He grimaced and moved aft himself to gather in the rest of his flock. When he reached the stem, Beatriz was nowhere to be seen. At the helm, her new man, Alberto, said, “I think this redhead could be cured by an hour’s rest under a banana tree. But we don’t grow them this far out to sea. Did my mujer fix you up all right, Captain Gringo?”
“As well as she could under the circumstances. Thanks for the bedding.”
“Por nada. But could you get these two out of here? I am a formidable sailor, but the swells are getting rougher out here and there is a limit to how much puke even I wish for to inhale with the vessel rolling so.”
Captain Gringo took Alfrieda by her free arm and said, “We’d best bed her down, Hilda. Atanua should have her corner of the chain locker ready by now.”
“Mein Gott! In der bow you want her to try und rest when in der stern she is upgethrowing all she’s eaten since Bremerhaven we left?”
“The ground swells are actually lifting the stem worse than the bows on this tack, Hilda. By the way, Alberto, wouldn’t she ride steadier if you took the swells on the stem quarter?”
The skipper nodded, but said, “She’d ride even sweeter if we tacked across the trades north or south. But I assumed you wished for to sail to the Guardian Bank, dead ahead and directly downwind, no?”
“I hope so. Forget it. Sometimes us landlubbers ask stupid questions. You know where to find me if you need me.”
He led the two German girls forward, clinging to the cabin coaming rail with his free hand as La Paloma kept trying to slither out from under them. He called out to Atanua, who reached up to help them get the redhead below. The girl warned, “My word, if she throws up down here, me gonna shit in her face!”
Captain Gringo struck a match for light as Hilda tried, to make her seasick sister comfortable. It was impossible, of course, but once the mumu-clad redhead had her head down in the padded wedge of the bow, she at least stopped moaning so loudly. He told Hilda to tell her to draw her legs up, for Chrissake; but even with Alfrieda in a sick-baby ball, there still wasn’t room for the rest of them to lie down much, let alone stretch out. He told the girls to make themselves comfortable as he stood with his shoulders out the little hatchway, finding that, as planned, he could swing the Maxim nicely on its tripod from this position.
There wasn’t a thing to aim at, of course. Not even the cold green whitecaps one often saw at night in tropic waters. The little critters that lit the foam up at night down here had apparently dropped deeper into less roiled water. That was something to study on. The seagoing lightning bugs might know something he or even the skipper didn’t! He’d noticed how critters always seemed to sense a storm before humans. But, on the other hand, the prevailing trade winds tended to shift south or even reverse before the Carib god Hurikan showed up. So what the h
ell.
He’d just told himself how nice and reassuring the trades were blowing that night when they blew an unusual amount of sea under La Paloma’s stem and the bows went under.
Not far. Not even enough to matter, had not the hatch he was standing in been open. But enough green water slopped over the unrailed bows to make him sincerely happy the gun tripod and ammo box were secured by nails when the sheet of brine swept through them, smacked into the coaming of the hatch, and soaked him from the shirtfront up.
He growled, “Thanks. I needed that,” as below him in the darkness, Hilda wailed, “Zum Teufel! Are we sinking already?”
He called down, “Not yet. What are you bitching about? I caught most of it, and I think that was it for now.”
“Easy for you to say, Dick! I am to the skin soaked!”
Atanua laughed at her in the dark and said, “It’s what you pink people get for dressing silly. Me just gotta take off little tapa, wipe me off, and good as new. Takem off mumu before you get chilled, dumb Haole Hilda.”
Hilda was doing no such thing, judging from the way she was cursing in German. Captain Gringo couldn’t see what was going on down there in the dark, but apparently Hilda found it unsettling, because she switched back to English, sort of, to gasp, “Ach, crazy savage! Wass are you doing!”
Captain Gringo wondered too, as he felt familiar hands getting familiar indeed with him, down there. As Atanua began to unbuckle his belt, he called down, “Cut that out, you little nut! I don’t want my pants off, damn it!”
But she insisted, “Sure you do. You all wet. You wanna die of bloody-lung fever and never make nukinuki again, dumb prick?”
He started to drop below and make her behave. But just then he spotted a flicker of light off to their south and snapped, “Cut it out, no shit! I think I just saw another vessel in the distance, and this is no time to be caught with one’s pants down literally!”
But Atanua didn’t listen well as Captain Gringo called back, “Hey, Alberto, ten points off the port bow?”
The Costa Rican called back, “I saw it. If I see it again, I’m tacking to starboard. I don’t see it now, and it might have been moonlight on a whitecap.”
So La Paloma sailed steadily on through the night as, in the deeper darkness below, Atanua pulled Captain Gringo’s pants down and proceeded to suck him off while another lady swore in German and kept asking in English if they were both mad.
He sighed and called down, “I told you she was nuts. Don’t look if it bothers you. I’m starting to like it, I’m ashamed to say, and, well, we have been sort of friendly before.”
“Mein Gott! You are both savages, und also a crime against nature committing! I won’t have it!”
He closed his eyes and hissed as the less inhibited island girl who was actually having it started sucking harder, with considerable skill. He knew he shouldn’t; but what the hell, how shocked could anyone else get if a guy came right?
He was coming for sure, one way or the other. So he dropped down inside to lay Atanua old-fashioned while— braced in a semi-seated position against the hull—Hilda covered her face with her hands and gasped, “Please, one of you your foot in mein lap has; und if you don’t mind, I do not wish to be involved in your disgusting orgy!”
It wasn’t him. So Captain Gringo said, “Atanua, get your foot out of the lady’s crotch,” as he moved in hers with enthusiasm, despite his embarrassment. For Atanua screwed even better than she sucked.
She wrapped her brown legs around his naked butt, asking if that was better, while Hilda gasped, “I wish you two would behave!”
Wedged in the bow with her feet almost touching them, Alfrieda asked, sickly, what was going on. Hilda must have put it pungently, in German, because the redhead sat up with renewed interest in life to giggle. “Ach, das ist so!” she said.
Captain Gringo was now too hot to care much about public opinion, so he just pounded away until he’d ejaculated in the little Kanaka’s orgasmic flesh. As sanity began to return, of course, he felt sort of dumb with two pretty girls he’d never even kissed staring down at them accusingly.
He felt even dumber when La Paloma took more green water over the bow and gave them all another shower through the hatch. He dismounted from Atanua, stood up, and hauled in the Maxim and ammo, leaving the nailed-down tripod to take its chances on deck as he closed the hatch, plunging the chain locker into pitch darkness. As he found a corner to wedge the Maxim, Hilda said in a disgusted voice, “Ach, now you modest wish to act? Ist too late. We know all your secrets, you wicked jungen!”
He pulled off his wet shirt in the darkness, wadded it, and tucked it out of the way with his holstered .38 atop it as he sighed sheepishly and said, “You girls knew I was sort of wild when you tried to hire me. I’m not taking any money from either of you, by the way. So let’s be a little charitable about my uncouth manners, okay? I’m a guy. I enjoy sex. I’m not bothering either of you for any, so cut the maidenly bullshit.”
Then, as he heard Atanua giggling somewhere in the dark, he chuckled and added, “Speaking of maidenly bullshit, I left a maiden somewhere around here just now.”
He reached for Atanua’s naked flesh in the confusing darkness, and as the lugger rolled, wound up with someone’s silk-covered tit instead. He said, “Sorry, Hilda,” and she asked, “Sorry for what?” as her redheaded sister giggled and said something in German that sounded pretty naughty. So he left his hand where it was as the English-speaking blonde gasped and said, “You animal! Leave mein poor sister alone!”
But he moved closer, and Alfrieda didn’t seem to mind as he said, “Let the lady speak for herself, Hilda. It seems to be just what she needed for her seasickness.”
Hilda laughed in the dark despite herself, and as the redhead took him in her arms, coyly, translated and asked in German what the hell was going on. So Alfrieda told her, in the same lingo, while Captain Gringo helped her out of her wet mumu. The blonde gasped. “How dare you treat mein poor sister so?” she said as Atanua, who could only follow part of what was going on, bitched from another corner of the padded triangular darkness, “Hey, who he making nukinuki alongside now, damn crazy cock?”
Hilda sobbed, “Shut up, you cannibal!” as she rolled to her knees, groping in the dark in an attempt at rescue. She grabbed Captain Gringo’s bounding wet rump, still chilled by the bounding sea outside, and gasped in dismay. Atanua asked her conversationally, “Whassamatter, they making nukinuki?” and Hilda answered, “Worse! They seem to be fucking, und mein sister does not even English speak!”
Captain Gringo laughed as the redhead chewed his ear, and he said, “I’ve noticed I make out better, quicker, with dames I don’t get to bullshit with. I think sometimes us poor guys blow things worse by bullshitting a dame who’s already halfway sold!”
“Do you have to talk dirty while you my poor sister treat dirty, you monster?” Hilda asked with a sniff. But when she asked Alfrieda in German if he was hurting her, the redhead told her to shut up or, better yet, ask this nice young man to move a little faster.
Hilda did no such thing, of course. But the redheaded widow had her own methods of getting her message across as she bumped and ground under Captain Gringo. So he considered it his duty as a gentleman to respond in kind to a lady who obviously hadn’t been getting any lately. They were going at it hot and heavy when the lugger rolled unexpectedly and everyone wound up in a wriggling pile against the starboard slope. Nobody but the blonde had anything on by this time, and even Hilda felt pretty sexy in that wet silk mumu. So Atanua pulled the bigger girl’s mumu hem up around her chilled hips and said, “Me cold on outside. Still hot on inside. If him busy alongside other vahine, you and me make feely-feely, okay?”
“Ach, nein! Do I look like a lesbian?” protested Hilda, even as the free-thinking Atanua started fingering her, answering, “Me no can see. So me no know what you lookem like. But s’pose you feely me my word? You goddam poor sport? Whassamatter you no Wanna help a sistah out? Don’t y
ou likee my feely-feely, silly cunt?”
Hilda moaned, “Ach, hilfe! I think I am being by a finger raped!” So Alfrieda asked in German what was going on and when Hilda told her, laughed lewdly and made an even lewder suggestion. She and Captain Gringo had in the meantime climaxed together, so he was in shape to ask Hilda what they were talking about. She gasped, “You are all insane! This crazy cannibal ist making lesbian advance, und now mein crazy sister is suggesting we trade partners und… Ooooohr Gott im Himmel, I also seem to be crazy going, because if we don’t I am about to mitt another woman come!”
He said he was sure she didn’t want anything like that to happen. The lugger heeled the other way, and he grabbed her on the roll. They somehow wound up wedged in the angle of the bow with him on top, as elsewhere in the dark the other two girls were giggling dirty as hell about whatever they were up to, or down on. Hilda protested, “Wait! What do you think you are to me doing! I am nicht that kind of girl und … Ach du lieber, I see I am, und can’t we this wet silk get out of the way, mein Schatz?”
He thought it was a swell idea, and so, once they had her naked, too, Hilda forgot her own inhibitions, and while she might not have started with the saucy redhead’s libido, she made up for lost time once the ice of her reserve had been broken. He noticed that her bigger breasts cushioned his chest just right while her slimmer hips were novel, too. So despite the demands already made on him in recent memory, Captain Gringo was able to keep it up and then some in the blonde’s tighter and now inspired gates of paradise.
She naturally came ahead of him and, as he kept posting in the saddle at a comfortable lope, Hilda giggled and said, “This is nicht proper at alles! But at least it ist nicht perverse! What do you think those two bad girls are doing, Dick? Ist das what I think I hearing am? Ach, it sounds like two kitten licking cream, nicht wahr?”
He answered, “Don’t ask unless you want to try it. I’m game to trade partners again if you want to make a Roman night of it.”
