Ship for Brains (Cruise Confidential 2)
Page 23
The paintings and prints that Bill liked had been torn free of their packaging and piled haphazardly against one another. Those he did not care for, such as anything from Jean-Claude Picot, were left nestled in their boxes for me to dig out.
Bill’s excitement was understandable, however, as our art collection was already getting slim of the good stuff and new material would keep our glory days rolling. A glance through the bill of lading gave me a thrill when I saw not one, but two Picasso etchings from the 1970s. I disregarded everything else and exuberantly hunted for the treasures amid the detritus of Bill’s frenzy. With a cry of triumph I pulled from the mess a large, gorgeously framed original etching from the greatest artist of all time.
I flipped the work over and greedily ate up the description on the back. Le minotaure séduit la fille endormie, it read: ‘Minotaur Seduces the Sleeping Girl.’ How perfect! This was an iconic image for Picasso, and would fetch us many, many thousands in commission. Despite my burning curiosity, I couldn’t find the second Picasso, which the bill of lading listed as La femme avec le bracelet reçoit chouette et un chat. There was no translation on the bill, and after my dubious chi chi fiasco I was scared to guess what it meant. I recognized the words for ‘woman’ and ‘bracelet’, of course, and vaguely recalled that in French ‘chat’ meant ‘cat’. I surmised it was a portrait of a woman with her cat.
Now why would Bill only take one Picasso for display in the Rolls Royce, and why a portrait instead of the hugely iconic minotaur? True, Bill’s art history knowledge was pathetic and he may not even know the treasure he had overlooked. More likely the portrait showed some tits.
I grabbed the minotaur and happily rushed up to the Promenade. Beaming with excitement, I turned into the café with my treasure and nearly ran into a mother with her two children. They were as eager to leave as I was to enter.
“Oh!” I cried, “Excuse me, ma’am!”
She backed away and glared at me with tremendous contempt. I blinked under her furious, accusatory frown and leaned back. The woman gripped her little daughter’s hand so tightly as to make her cry, while her older brother smirked mischievously.
“You should be ashamed of yourself!” the woman roared. “My word, showing off smut like that! I’m going straight to the purser to report you, you... you pervert!”
After spewing her vitriolic volley at me, she roughly dragged her children away, leaving me stunned even more so than when I had hit the glass window at the suit shop.
“What the hell was that all about?” I asked Petra, the barista working the coffee counter.
Petra, a Slovakian so slender as to be a perfect runway model, crossed her arms beneath her breasts and leveled a potent stare my way.
“Can’t you control your dog?” she asked sarcastically.
“Oh, no,” I moaned. “What did he do now?”
Petra pointed to a new easel proudly standing front and center in the café. There, at eye level for children, was the most pornographic Picasso I could have possibly imagined. Stifling a cry, I leapt over to it and flipped it around before anyone else would see it. The label on the back read La femme avec le bracelet reçoit chouette et un chat. I had presumed that meant a portrait, but oh was I wrong.
“Woman with Bracelet Receives Gentleman,” I translated out loud.
Petra, who spoke French, nodded sarcastically at the savvy use of the word ‘receives’. Then she added mockingly, “With a Cat.”
“With a Cat,” I repeated, stunned.
Picasso had masterly used crisscrossing lines to depict in stunning detail a couple engaged in oral sex. With all her curling pubic hair etched using the cross-hatching technique, the fat, squatting woman’s vagina looked like a honey-baked ham. The ‘gentleman’ wore a dandy’s hat and a jacket, but was naked below the waist and his outrageously erect penis looked like a polish sausage with a head of garlic on top. Suddenly I understood why my ex-wife was a vegetarian. Above them a cat indifferently observed.
My shock led to a long, lingering moment of silence. I was jarred back to reality when the phone rang and Petra announced that the purser wanted to talk to me immediately.
4
Four days later and finally sporting a sharp new suit, I was a bit excited to hit the Promenade and hand out raffle tickets. Though not double-breasted, I loved my khaki jacket with a trim sport cut and its obvious Spanish overtones. I bought it from Romeo’s in Lakewood, California, after all, where I was the only white guy shopping. I folded the collar of my bold yellow shirt over the jacket collar, and strut over to the Rolls.
Bill and Petra stood beside each other, but were not speaking. This was not particularly unusual, as Petra’s breasts were decidedly of the A cup variety and therefore beneath Bill’s attention. When I arrived, Petra looked me up and down approvingly. Bill, too, immediately reacted.
“What’s with the collar, rico suave? Trying to make me look bad?”
“Like that’s hard to do,” I said. “After getting yelled at by the purser on your behalf, I would think you would grant me a reprieve from your grossly incompetent observations.”
Bill harrumphed and returned to his occupation. This was not the handing out of raffle tickets, of course, but leering at passing women. Despite Petra’s presence, he immediately smacked me on the arm to openly point at a young woman walking by.
“My God, will you look at that!”
A petite Asian continued on her merry way as if she had somehow not noticed Bill’s blatantly boorish behavior. She was extremely beautiful, barely five feet tall and surely less than one hundred pounds, with black hair streaked in blonde. Her large dark eyes were boldly outlined in purple, which matched her snug dress. Despite her extreme natural beauty, however, both Bill and I were unable to look away from her most overt feature... for entirely different reasons.
“Those are the biggest tits I have ever seen!” Bill exclaimed approvingly. “They’re perfect!”
Petra rolled her eyes, but had no need to elbow me in order to repudiate Bill’s sentiment.
“Are you serious?” I protested. “She’s made of more plastic than a Barbie doll. Those have to be at least, what, double D cup? They stick out like a shelf and look just as stiff. Why, I could put my drink on those! It’s ludicrous.”
“I’d put something more than a drink on those,” he chortled. Seeing that I did not share his train of thought, Bill regarded me with disdain. “What, you don’t like tits now?”
“I like real women,” I replied. “Anyone can buy tits like those.”
Petra interrupted, “What is it about you men? We really are just pretty toys to you, aren’t we?”
“Bill wishes,” I quipped.
Yet Petra continued with enough volume and scorn to capture our undivided attention. “Just the other day in Catalina I was on the pay phone in port. Some stranger took a photograph of my behind when I was not paying attention! Animals, I say!”
On cue, Bill and I both leaned over to regard her bottom. We were well aware of Petra’s penchant for wearing skin-tight mini skirts. Most European chicks did, for which I was eternally grateful. How she could be shocked that men wouldn’t respond, dignified or otherwise, was surprising.
Carefully I offered, “Well, it really is exquisite, after all. I’ve fought the urge to do the same myself.”
“It probably was you, wasn’t it Brian?” Bill asked. “You’ve been sucking up to Petra since she backed up your story that I put the Picasso up and not you. It makes sense though, because Petra has no tits. No wonder you like her.”
Petra fired back with an icy reply, “I’ll have you know that I was a lingerie model in Czech Republic.”
But Petra’s cold look washed off Bill like water off a duck’s back. Surprisingly, however, he retreated from this battle, sensing he would not win. Instead he ignored her and returned to bashing me, which he no doubt thought easier. He observed my shirt collar folded over my suit jacket and said, “I get it now. You’re gay. Just like goddamn
Antonio Banderas, who denied it, too. I don’t know which is worse: Doug and his fat, old Steiner or you and your ‘no fake tits’ crap. You really are gay, aren't you?”
Petra squeaked in alarm, then came to my defense. “I think he looks handsome.”
“Thank you, Petra.” Then I added with a sigh, “You know, Bill, being fashionable and heterosexual are not mutually exclusive. It merely means you want to look good.”
“You don't need to look good when your cock's the size of a Chevy.”
“It's just so much better if I pretend I didn't hear that,” Petra said, rolling her eyes.
I muttered quietly to myself, “Post hoc, ergo proptor hoc.”
“Gesundheit,” Bill said. “What the hell are you babbling now?”
“It's Latin,” I explained. “It means ‘after it, therefore because of it’. It’s a Roman-era attempt at logic, but it’s almost always wrong. Just because you first see me fashionable and then, later, not appreciating fake tits is not proof that I am gay.”
“Latin?” Bill roared. “Just like goddamn Antonio Banderas. What, are you studying to be a priest now, too?”
“The irony of that statement is more galling than you know.”
With a look of profound reflection scrunched onto his face, Bill said, “We need to have you bang that Steiner boss.”
Petra gave Bill a surprised look, then turned to gauge my reaction to the suggestion.
“What are you talking about?” I asked, not really wanting to know.
“The manager of the spa. The Bulgarian one. She’s kinda pretty, though she has small tits, too. She was in the auctioneer’s cabin during the handover. She wasn’t supposed to still be there, and had to endure the walk of shame on her way out. You were busy shitting, as I recall.”
Chapter 15. My Not-So-Private Dancer
1
Ensenada was what I expected from a small port town in Mexico close to the U.S. border. Happily it was not Americanized, but sadly the locals could have benefited from some of the entrepreneurial spirit that comes with it. This part of the Baja Peninsula was bereft of industry and completely unsuited to growing anything, and as such the city historically relied on its port. This meant either fishing or catering to cruisers. Most locals focused on the comparative ease of the latter. It was a dirty, poor town, but full of vibrant life.
On a hot afternoon in late July, Bill and I sat by the street at a tiny, battered metal table at a tiny, battered restaurant. Though it was stiflingly hot, we sipped a popular local-style coffee: flavored with natural cinnamon and loaded with sugar and cream. I was tired from a long morning of wandering the streets and soaking up whatever culture I could glean from the fish markets. Bill was tired from a long night of drinking. That did not stop him from suggesting another one.
“I don’t want a drink,” I replied.
“I’ll buy.”
“I’ll accept.”
And so we went to Papas & Beer. This was a typical resort town drinking establishment along the lines of Señor Frog’s, which featured a drunken frog, or Carlos & Charlie’s, which featured drunken monkeys. Papas & Beer featured drunken papas, I guess. We heard it long before we saw it: a multi-story wooden monstrosity bristling with filthy decks wherever they could fit one, safely or otherwise. While I understood the huge inflatable beer bottle on the roof, I was perplexed by the many fat inflatable tubes zigzagging across the façade. Pennants and banners fluttered madly in the hot wind, topped only by the chaos inside. I was reminded of the movie Gladiator and Maximus’s first arena in north Africa.
And chaos it was. It was packed with cruisers from Ecstasy and day-trippers from San Diego, all who had mere hours to expunge their stress in one wild, frenetic orgy. The beat thumped so loudly that bottles shivered sideways on the bar, and the screams, oh the screams! The revelry apparently required shrieks to carry above the music, which was punctuated by shrill whistles that signaled everyone to down shots.
Bill waded into the crowd, while I placidly smoked a cigar and observed a strange ritual common to port parties such as this. An ugly, round Mexican man who looked distressingly like Sancho Panza wandered until he found a suitable victim for his fun. He blew piercingly on his whistle to signal the action was to begin, and pulled a middle-aged, portly American woman from her friends. Standing behind her, Sancho pulled her head way back until she was bent nearly double, then poured a long, long shot of tequila directly into her mouth. Finally she spluttered to indicate that she could receive no more, so he clapped a sweaty hand over her mouth to shake her head. Without any warning, he flipped her into the air upside down and pushed her head between his legs. As she kicked frantically in the air, he gave her a few smacks on the ass before pretending to rub his face into her crotch. Dazed and confused, the woman was set down to stagger back to her friends. Sancho Panza would then nod to her in thanks and work his way through the crowd for another victim.
I was bored by it all. This was all trite port party action. I decided to find Bill and tell him I was leaving. He was on an upper deck working over an attractive young woman.
“Ah, Brian!” he called loudly from afar. “This is Tina! Dance captain on Ecstasy!”
Tina was very pretty with high cheekbones sprinkled with the fairest hint of freckles. Her hair was bleached platinum blonde, parted down the middle and just long enough to curve under her dimpled chin. She had a beautiful smile and the smoothly muscled physique one would expect from the dance captain. Indeed, her thighs were powerful enough to crush a man, but I’m sure Bill had only reacted her impressive breasts.
As I approached, the music changed. This wasn’t the water balloon fight music, but something I didn’t recognize. Numerous bartenders had been discretely clearing the bars, and now I saw why: employees everywhere were shoving women up onto the counters. Sancho Panza’s twin waddled over and, without ceremony, pushed Tina flat onto all sorts of unknown pools of sticky liquid. She squeaked, but acquiesced, as he yanked her shirt up to reveal her tight belly. Before our very eyes, Sancho Dos poured tequila so that it pooled in her navel. He paused a moment to regard his work dripping down Tina’s defined abs, then gestured to all that she was ready to receive.
Bill pounced like a lion on a gazelle, crushing his lips onto her and grossly slobbering up the alcohol. Tina was a good sport, that is until Bill’s hand slid up her body towards her breasts. She reared up and smacked him forcefully across the face. I could hear it from my distance. Sancho Dos guffawed and disappeared back into the crowd, his task accomplished. I finally neared as Tina sprung off the table and vaulted down the stairs.
“Well done, Bill!” I said, stepping up to him as he rubbed his jaw.
“That one packs a hell of a punch!” he replied. “She could kick my ass any day!”
“No doubt she will.”
2
Later that day found me in the Society Bar at the back of the Promenade deck. Ecstasy was in port until morning, so my only task for the day was merely to schlepp tickets with Bill at the occasional guest still on board. I was exhausted from a long run on the track in the heat, having foolishly thought I was used to it by now. Every day I was hitting the weights and running several miles. It was wonderful to get back into my workout routine, but sapped my strength of some evenings.
I stood wavering before the cigar selection, too tired to read. While I nodded, nearly napping, suddenly there came a tapping, a gentle rapping upon my rear door. Petra was to meet me for a drink, but I hadn’t expected to be greeted with a spank! I turned to accost her, but was even more surprised to see not Petra, but a small, mystery brunette. This man-handler grabbed my hand and drug me over to a love seat. Curious, I obligingly plopped down onto the leather beside her. Her brown eyes bored into mine as I waited to hear what she had to say.
“You should have a facial,” she said in sharp English with a thick Bulgarian accent.
Ah, a Steiner! I should have known. I grinned and said, “Now that was one hell of a sales pitch!”
Squeezing my hand, she said, “I think you are an ideal candidate to model some of the treatments. I sell a lot more when I have a male model. You’re perfect because you’re still a macho guy: tall and strong, tanned and tattooed, always smoking a cigar.”
The mere thought of Bill’s verbal attacks should I partake of a facial at the spa already had me jumpy. I glanced up to see Petra standing over us, eyes locked onto my hand held tightly by the other woman.
“Oh, uh, hi Petra!” I stammered. “I was just talking with... uh...?”
“Leonora,” the Steiner replied. I became very self conscious about how she wouldn’t release my hand.
“Talking,” Petra repeated blandly. “Yes, I see that.”
Had I been a lesser man, or a smarter one, I would have just blushed and gone with it. Instead I defended myself with perhaps the most moronic statement I could make. “Leonora wants to give me a work over.”
“It certainly appears that way.”
“A makeover,” I quickly amended.
“Freudian slip?” Petra inquired with a fine brow raised.
Leonora released my hand and rose. She casually smoothed her skirt and gave Petra a long look. As she sashayed out, she called over her shoulder, “Think about my offer.”
Petra immediately sat beside me and leveled a heavy gaze at me. An awkward moment commenced, but then she said, “You’ve been getting lots of offers, I see.”