by Deva Long
“Have a drink and get into your suit, Grace.” Pablo waved his hand at the sparse crowd shuffling up the beach. “If you get out there, these macho guys will go out too, and their girlfriends. Then they’ll buy.”
He smacked his lips when he said the word, “buy”.
I rolled my eyes at him. I could hear the comments already.
“Look, Billy, even a fat girl can ride those boards.” I didn’t really think of myself as huge, but when the gorgeous star of The Hunger Games could be called chubby, only the truly skeletal were immune to self-doubt.
I needed some more liquid courage. In the pint-sized northern town where I spent my childhood, we didn’t even roll our sleeves up until August, and then only on a good day.
When I applied to colleges, they were all in Florida and Southern California. USC and Miami U said my SAT scores weren’t good enough, but Tampa’s University of Southern Florida accepted me, so that is where I went.
After another cup of Pablo’s wine, I meandered to the pavilion to change.
Having consumed two more cups while changing and putting on sun block, I felt better. I still had some issues with my underarm skin folds and my thighs, and my belly bulged more than I’d prefer, but the suit gave me decent cleavage and being black, it was slimming.
Pablo set me up with a nice looking board, soft foam top and wood grained accents.
With care, I pushed off from the sand, my thigh muscles tightening as I got my balance. Cool water ran over my toes and bright drops caught the sun and sparkled as my paddle rose and fell.
With my arms glistening in the sun, and the long paddle beside me, I felt tall and even somewhat athletic.
“Hey, she’s dang good,” I heard a beer gutted stud say to the crowd of other hairy bellies he was walking with.
After half an hour or so, some of the studs decided to show they could paddle faster than me, and then some of their girlfriends tried the boards too, giggling.
Ahead of me, a group of forty-something’s splashed around like they were kids. I expected several of them would be pulling out their credit cards when they got back to shore.
Paddleboarding is a fine sport for exercise. Plus, you can cruise around and check out the opposite sex without being obvious.
On that day, all the men on the beach were fat and hirsute, not my style. I may be on chubby’s sexy side, but I like my men lean, with muscles.
Soon, Pablo was selling boards and leaving me alone to cruise the beach with occasional forays back to get more wine, which was fine with me.
six
A hairy guy from New Jersey bought the board I’d been riding on. The day was finally getting hot, so I grabbed my beach float and decided to get away from the crowd.
As I headed back for the water, Pablo yelled to me that he was leaving and Maria was in charge. Maria is one of the several college age blondes who work for him. He walked away with two men he’d told me earlier were buyers from a warehouse store that wanted him to supply boards in bulk. So, mamas and papas could waddle for home with their boxes packed with milk and cheese, and a ten-foot long foam board for only another nine hundred ninety-nine. Zero-down and no payments until after Christmas.
Yeah, I did the brochure.
My ‘pillow top’ air mattress inflatable is very stable and comfortable to lie on. It’s no thousand dollar foam cored surfboard, but my float has one huge advantage: cup-holders.
I nursed my fourth wine and enjoyed floating off the sandbar, tied to a light folding anchor from Pablo’s store.
When I went out, everyone on the sand was having fun and no one looked my way. The sky arched above me and if angels existed they were there spreading their feathered wings.
Gentle rollers from some unnamed storm miles away rocked me as I drifted and the late afternoon sun shone brightly down on me.
I had let myself get blown away from shore before dropping the miniature anchor. Out this far, the sound from the party at the pavilions died to a distant hum of shouts and laughs over the regular sigh of the waves on the sand.
As the sun started to set, rays penetrated my thin suit and I day-dreamed that Apollo caressed me there, between my legs. I helped him by spreading my knees.
I leaned on my elbow and looked around. I could see no boats beyond me, just smooth water all the way to Mexico on the other side of the Gulf. Since the sun was setting before my feet, anyone looking my way would be blinded by the glare.
The silent sun touched me like a lover’s hand and I pulled my suit aside. I slipped into a wine infused fantasy about a divine caress from a man with much more of everything than any boy I’d known. In my dream, I rubbed my slit with long, slow strokes. I added a circular motion at the top and my button stood erect as I touched it.
I put my fingertips on warp drive, working myself faster as I pictured a smooth and well-muscled body lying next to me. We were on a nude beach, well away from the crowd.
Then, he moved down and put his lips on my pussy, giving me slow, sweet kisses.
Imagining Apollo’s tanned fingers touching me, I rubbed faster. I used my special twist, sliding my middle fingertip around my pussy’s edge, and then drawing my thumb over my clit in an upward motion.
At this point, I was well past caring if anyone saw my show. It was a god touching me, and he wasn’t going to stop just because someone might be offended. With my left hand, I squeezed my nipple through my suit top, imagining soft lips kissing me and strong white teeth nibbling.
Being outside, the wine, the sun, the thrill that I might get caught, all pushed me close to the edge much faster than usual. My breath was rapid and I moaned.
My fingers thrashed on my sex, adding a light tapping motion to my up and down rub.
As if he were slapping me there, just hard enough to feel good.
“Yes…” I cried. I shut my eyes hard. My leg muscles tightened and I arched my back, rocking my float as pleasure waves exploded through my body.
After the explosion, I smoothed my suit into place and put my hands above my head. My board rocked on the sea surface. The noises from the shore hadn’t changed.
No one seemed to notice my display of personal affection.
Savoring the moment, I let the aftershocks of the orgasm rock through me like ripples rolling a pond after throwing a stone.
“The hour is getting late and you should be paddling back to shore.” That was the angel who sometimes appears on my shoulder to give me advice. Since I lay on my back, she sat on my right breast now, giving me a disapproving look.
I made a shooing motion with my hand.
“Just let me rest here for a second, dear. I’ll be right with you.”
“Humph!” She poofed away. I should have listened to her, but the Gulf can be so very peaceful in the late afternoon. I rested in perfect balance between the sun’s heat and the cooler water and I wanted to stay with Apollo a little longer.
I may have been a technical virgin, but I knew what a man should do to me — make me feel like I felt right then.
I wondered if I would ever find one worthy.
Dreaming of a golden man who touched me as well as I touched myself, I drifted off.
seven
Back to reality. In misery, exhausted, woozy from whatever my kidnappers had injected me with, I passed between unconsciousness to barely awake and then back to darkness. Again and again.
Then, the engine’s wheezy hum went silent and the cursing got louder. I heard a whining chug-a-chug sound, like the noise my car made one time when I ran out of gas. I kept cranking the key, hoping somehow a drop would fall from somewhere and get me to the pump. The sound was like that, only much louder. The boat’s motion got wilder as it stopped forward moving and turned sideways to the waves. The voices were arguing now, with more words that sounded like curses.
Then, I heard the soft rumbling from a different engine, and a spotlight appeared above my head. The arguing stopped.
Someone hissed, “No mames!” I understoo
d that. Shut up.
Someone else hissed back, “Chingar, Ramon.”
“Hey, are you all OK over there?”
The new voice spoke English, ringing out above the sound of the storm and the engines.
The one ordering silence must have been Ramon. He had a faint lisp that made it easy to recognize his speech after I heard his name.
He said something fast to the others. I heard, “bonito barco.” Nice boat.
“Si,” they said. Ramon shouted, “Our engine, she’s broken. Please help us.”
Raman whispered from the side of his mouth. All I heard was, “Huber.”
On Ramon’s order, a man walked to my cage. He flashed a small light and showed me he had a knife. My leg muscles tensed beneath my knees and my head pressed against the cage’s plastic top.
Huber slashed his blade at me and I closed my eyes tightly.
I heard something ripping and opened one eye to see that he had cut the rope holding the cage shut. The door banged open and he motioned for me to come toward him.
Pin pricks shot through my legs as I lurched forward.
He grabbed my arm, and held the steel to my throat. “Silencio!” He whispered as he covered my mouth with his left hand.
I nodded my head.
The light came closer. “Should we call you a tow?”
“We got a girl here. She’s sick, she needs help.” Huber pushed me forward into the dim light from the deckhouse.
“Stay away…they are —”
I managed to get those words out before Ramon punched my gut. The other boat’s spotlight shone on me as I doubled over. Huber pulled a pistol out of his shorts and aimed it at my head.
“Come here nice and slow or we cap her,” he yelled.
“I think we’ll just call the police.”
“Alfredo,” Ramon yelled.
Another bright light came on, this time from Ramon’s boat. A man who I assumed was Alfredo stepped from behind the deckhouse with a wicked looking rifle in his hands, like the ones you see terrorists waving on T.V.
“I will shoot you and take your boat,” Alfredo yelled.
“Hang on,” the voice from the boat said. “Let’s talk about this like civilized men.”
Glaring at him from my knees, I saw Ramon nod. “Yes, come here and we’ll talk,” he said, speaking through his teeth.
“Like civilized men.”
My stomach hurt, my insides were solid knots. I gasped and I shivered. Fear warred with anger inside me. I looked at Ramon, his face lit by the other boat’s lights.
I tried to yell another warning, but all I could make was a dry, hacking sound.
Ramon looked at me with narrowed eyes and shook his head back and forth. His cheeks had pock marks. He showed me the gun’s barrel and pointed it at my head.
I couldn’t catch enough breath to scream.
The boat coming toward us was bright blue on the bottom with a white top. Wind Walker was printed in hand-tall letters on the front.
Ramon whistled like a construction worker at an attractive woman.
He said something to Huber.
I only understood one word, “restate.” Ransom.
eight
If the Norse god Thor had a living equal, the man who stepped into view next would be him. Blonde hair, bold cheekbones and sculpted arms. Facing three guns held by characters clearly intent on no good, he smiled.
Bright white teeth shone with iridescent highlights.
Behind him, the spotlight on the Wind Walker snapped off, leaving him lit by Alfredo’s light, like an actor on stage all alone.
He held his hands up. “Guys, I’m Karl Norman.”
Defying possibility, he smiled even wider. Even brighter.
“Just give us the girl and we’ll call you a tow. No hard feelings.” He waved his hands at the guns as if waving off a fly. “I won’t say anything about those.”
Most of the time, late afternoon Gulf Coast storms don’t last long. The wind that had been strong as soup was already weakening and the moon shone through the clouds. As the air calmed, I smelled dead fish and the sweat from the men around me.
I peeked back at Alfredo and saw him wave his rifle. “You mean this little thing?” He pointed the gun at Karl. “You won’t say anything, pollo, because you’re scared by my friend here.”
There was a thud, and as if by magic, a black square appeared between the shadows where Alfredo’s eyes were. I recognized the handle of a dive knife, like the ones Pablo sold in his store.
After selling board, he loved to tell the customer that there were sharks off the beach and he wouldn’t go on the Gulf without a good knife strapped to his calf.
Now, a good knife to have, like the type Pablo sold, jutted from Alfredo’s head. His gun went off with a boom-boom-boom and holes appeared on the Wind Walker’s sky blue side. I flattened myself against the deck, remembering a war movie I saw with a pock-faced teenager once. The film was set in some obscure African city, and there were shots firing all around. They sounded like Alfredo’s gun.
All I could think about was a scene where a soldier dove to the ground and covered his head while bullets flew above him. I did that, my face meeting the slimy wood. If I could have dug into the deck with my fingernails, I would have.
The shots stopped and there was a splash. I heard Ramon yelling and then a sharper crack from above my head, I guess from his gun going off. I tried to get lower and flatter, tightening my shoulders. I expected to feel a bullet between them at any second.
My chest hurt with each ragged pant.
I heard thuds and the sound flesh makes slapping flesh. I rolled over just as Ramon fell backwards with Karl on flailing away on top.
Huber yelled and fired his pistol above Karl's head. “Stop eet! Stop eet!” Another blond hero leapt from the Wind Walker carrying an aluminum pole with a hook on the end.
“Boat hook,” I whispered.
Grace you awesome nautical trivia goddess, get the fuck moving.
Like a crab, I tried to walk backwards with my elbows and knees, keeping my eyes on Huber and his waving gun and the other on what seemed to be a pile of churning arms and legs where Karl and Ramon rolled around.
The pole connected and bent around Huber’s head. Then the other hero reversed his grip and knocked Huber’s black pistol flying. I heard a splash. I looked at the man-pile Karl and Ramon were making and then Karl's head rose above the fray, and his massive fist fell again and again.
nine
“Can I help you stand, miss?”
I looked up at the world’s second most beautiful man gazing down at me. The spotlight sparkled off the mist in the air, giving the whole scene a fuzzy shine like an old movie. My crazed brain replayed a scene of Cary Grant whistling Singing in the Rain. I opened my mouth, but I could not speak.
Water ran between my lips from the fading storm and I swallowed, trying to sooth my aching throat.
“Get back, Jack, I saw her first.”
I looked at Karl Norman. Yep, he’s still the world’s first most beautiful man.
He reached for me and lifted me like I weighed nothing. As if I hadn’t drained half a wine-bottle and consumed half a pound of free chocolates for lunch. As if my bikini was a size two and not a size fifteen.
Jack looked angry. Oh my god, are these two really going to fight over me? “Hey,” I yelled and held out my hands so they could see my wrists were bound with zip ties. “A little help?”
Karl glared at his brother again. “You see?”
“She was being kidnapped.”
“Of course she was.” He set my feet under me, and produced a blade like the one that had split Alfredo’s face. The metal shone brightly in the moonlight, more specular than normal steel. “I can fix her problem, because I didn’t lose my knife in the ocean.”
“You’re a real asshole.” Jack laughed. “OK, she’s all yours, brother.”
He leapt back onto the Wind Walker. “Besides, while you play white knight,
I have to crank up the extra pumps before our ride home sinks.”
I was miffed he’d given up, having these two fighting over me felt pretty nice after the night I’d had. I looked at Karl and showed him my wrists, wiggling them.
With his golden hair, I’d expected his eyes to be blue, instead they were a bright coal color like a late fall Moon.
What’s he waiting for?
“Before I untie a girl, I like to know her name.”
“Really? You want to do this now?”
“There’s no time like the present, Miss…?”
Men! “Grace. Grace Dawson.”
“Well Miss Dawson, I just need two more things before I can wield my blade.”
I agreed with Jack. This handsome man was an ass. Not only did he leave me standing there with my wrists bound, but he spewed annoying literary references while doing it.
I turned up my lip. “Just please cut me loose now.”
“You shouldn’t do that to your lips, Grace. They’re made for kissing, not for sneering like some lightweight pop-star.”
He put the blade on the band between my wrists. “Just one more thing then. Your number.”
“Jesus!”
He raised his eyebrows. His wet hair whipped around in the breeze. The waves rolled the boats and he held me, keeping me from falling. We moved like we were dancing to some crazy music played by wind and water. His lips twitched at the edges and somehow his mood grabbed me and my lips twitched as well.
“Three one two five five zero four.”
“Here’s your freedom, babe!” He sliced the plastic off.
Finally. I rubbed my wrists.
I laughed at the absurd scene. Just hours before my main problem had the belly fat above my bikini bottom, and now here I was having been saved from kidnappers.
Several lights shone from the Wind Walker and I noticed blood on Karl's lips. “You’re hurt.” I reached up to his sharp cheekbones and touched his face where it was cut. He caught my hand. “I’ll let you tend my wounds if you answer my final question.”
