Ring ring, ring ring.
"Alright, alright, keep yer trousers on. What does this one want?" she wondered. He wants Russian, she does Russian, the siren call of a Cossack beauty urging on her wild black stallion, her flaxen hair streaming in the wind, riding it hard, whipping its sweating flanks as she thunders across the Siberian steppes. He wants Asian, she can transport him to Shanghai, or Mandalay, whispering dirty things in his ear with a voice like the tinkling of prayer bells. And she does it all, or so her advertisements say: "Live one-on-one fantasy, older women, horny housewives, hard-core domination, big-boob babes, ebony sluts, kinky college co-eds, girls-next-door, hot Latinas, naughty Orientals." She earns £100,000 a year working part-time. And never on a Sunday. Andrea can give you the sound of cheeks blushing. But her best work is her femme fatal, a seductive, husky, throaty southern belle, dark as molasses, sweet as honey dripping on ripe passion fruit, the sort of voice you'd pay to read you her shopping list.
Ring, ring.
Growing increasingly irritated in his flat in Pimlico, George can't believe she is not picking up the phone.
"Wouldn't you know it," he thought to himself morosely. "The bloody first time I ring for phone sex and there's nobody home. Just my luck. I'll probably get call-forwarded to Mumbai."
He is just about to hang up when Andrea picks up the phone.
At this moment it's not precisely clear which one of them is least inclined to initiate a sexual encounter. But Andrea, ever the professional, gets her act together.
"Well, hellooooooo, daaarling."
"Is this Sadie?"
"This is she. This is Sadie."
George is talking to the southern belle.
"I've been expecting you, daaarling. What kept you? It's not nice to keep a lady waiting."
George wanted to tell her in no uncertain terms that he was the one who had been kept bloody waiting. But on the other hand, she was on the line and there was work to be done.
"I'm sorry," he said. "I've been busy. I mean, I saw your ad. My name is George, I'm researching..."
"Researching, is it? That's different. We're all researching, daaarling."
George made a mental note to ditch the line about research because it was invariably received with disdain. He wondered if he would be more successful if he said he was a census taker.
Andrea got down to business.
"First, Sadie needs your credit card number. Ok, shoot. Er huh, er huh, got it thank you, was that a five or a nine, a five… good, got it… and the expiry date? Exxxxxcellent."
Sadie can take several second to say excellent.
"She paused theatrically, sighing the deep unimagined longings of unfulfilled desire.
"It's been so long for me, George. I need a man sooooo badly."
"Gosh. I mean, that's good isn't it? I mean my calling. I mean… as I said, what I'm interested in..."
"We'll come to your interests in a minute, George. I can't imagine what they might be you wicked man. But for now, let me do the talking. Relax, take a deep breath. Lie back, close your eyes and listen. You seem nervous."
Her voice seems to emanate from some primeval deep, the soft grating of polished pebbles swept along by a wilderness river.
"No, no, I'm fine. Really. No, honestly. It's just that it's a bit warm in here, that's all."
"Yes, darling, it's hot, so hot. I need to cool off. I'm unbuttoning my blouse. Slipping it off my shoulders. Now I am cupping my breasts in my hands. Mmmmmm. Feels so good, sooooo good. When I touch them like this it makes my nipples go hard."
"Gosh." George wiped his brow. He was sweating. It must be the hot chocolate. Even the little fella was starting to sit up straight.
"I love to get naked on hot summer afternoons, don't you, George," Sadie seemed to be breathing in his ear. "Sometimes I am watched by a man across the street. I tease him a little, then I draw the curtains. Being watched makes me hot, but this is my private time. Time that I can spend with you, George. I am taking my slip off, pulling it slowly over my head. It feels silky smooth when I draw it across my nipples. I love that feeling. Would you like to feel my breasts, George?"
"Gosh, yes, may I? I should say so. Um are they …?"
"46 triple D."
"Golly. That is large!" He nodded appreciatively. George used to be in weights and measures.
"Mmmmmm. I just love the way your tongue licks my nipples, holding them in your lips. First one, now the other. If I squeeze them together just a little like this, you can lick both at once. That drives me wild, George, wild. Oh oh oooooh."
Her voice drops an octave.
"Now I'm lying on my back spreading my legs running my fingers up and down my body teasing my pubic hair, not going lower mind you, not yet. Soon, though. I'm wearing my favorite black Chantilly lace panties. Will you help me pull them down, George? I like to slip them off slowly? That's right. Mmmm, they smell so good."
George took a deep breath. He remembered, his imagination working overtime.
But Andrea was watching the clock and it was time to move things along. She lowered her voice to whisper.
"Would you like to lick me?"
"Golly, that's quick, but it works for me," George is thinking. He used to be an inspector in fair trade practices. The little fella was now in full combat mode and George let him out for some air. This is not easy when you're holding the phone to your ear.
Sadie is doing all the talking now. She is in full flight, Andrea Anderson, the Oscar-winning actress, Belle in A Streetcar named Desire, wild eyed Ophelia in the throes of madness, center stage at the Old Vic.
"I'm so hot. You must be too. Let me help. Here, let's unbutton your shirt. That's better, let me unzip your fly." Another pause, a longer one this time. She raises her voice.
"Mmmmmmm, you're so big, so hard. I'm so ready for you, George. I want you to fuck me. Fuck me, doggy style. Fuck me hard!" George closed his eyes and imagined Pem in that position, arching her back showing him her shapely bottom then settling in for the ride.
For 30 seconds, maybe more, nothing was said above Sadie's cries of ecstasy. George relaxed his grip on the phone then he heard.
"Was that good for you too?"
"Rather, I mean yes. Honestly, it was a pleasure. You're hot." George believes in giving credit where it's due.
"Thank you, daaaaarling." She said still role playing, that exaggerated Deep South politeness. "I hope that was good for you, too. Was there anything else? You said you had a special interest."
"Yes, I do." George felt he could confide in her by now. "I have a special interest in erotic discipline. I'm trying to find out if women enjoy being spanked."
"You mean like this, when you bend over me and make me touch my toes. Spank me, George. I've been such a baaaaad girl, George. Punish me."
Andrea Anderson switched on her sound system and George could hear the sound of one hand clapping coming clear across the city from Islington. "I deserve it. Spank me, please. Harder, please sir. Harder. Spank my sorry ass." Andrea turned up the volume.
But by then for George it had all gone terribly wrong. Whatever was happening went from erotic to abusive. Sadie's fake howls were nightmarish. George held the phone away from his ear shouting, "Stop it! Stop it! That's not what I meant. You're ruining everything. I want tenderness not abuse. You don't understand." He was distraught.
Sadie killed the sound. "Hold on, cowboy, I'm just giving you what most men want. What are you, some sort of wierdo?"
George almost laughed with relief. "I guess I am. I'm weird. I want to cause pleasure not pain." Sadie paused. This time it was for thought, not for theatrical effect.
The next voice George heard was Andrea's.
"This is Andrea. I know, I sound different. Sadie is just one of the voices I do. I'm sorry, George, I didn't mean to upset you. I could rework the tape. I'll get it right next time, I promise. Did I tell you about my two-for-one rate?"
George's breathing was back to normal. He felt sorry fo
r Andrea, sorry for Sadie, sorry that he had yelled at her, sorry for himself.
"I have your number." It sounded silly to say it. Probably thousands of men had it.
"Goodbye Sadie, I mean Andrea."
Chapter Twelve
Pale, moon-scattered light
drowned by a churning sea
hides towering waves
you cannot see
in the blindness of the night
Who can say they have no fear
of the ocean's random fury?
Only those condemned before us
by Neptune's judge and jury From North Atlantic Storm by CM Jones When I first got to Sydney and moved in with Jen it was some time before I felt like looking for a job and this gave me an opportunity to write. Jen worked in the Central Business District and I used to meet for her lunch at the Rocks at one or another of the ethnic restaurants that draw visitors in shiploads to the oldest part of town. What more perfect setting could there be for a romance novel than aboard one of the great passenger liners docked at nearby Circular Quay?
"I think that's a great idea," she said. "Look at them, they're huge. Those things are floating cities. Imagine 3,500 people from all racial and social backgrounds, their destinies locked together for a week or more. Anything can happen on the high seas and probably does."
So I invented Britannia Line and its flagship RMS Britannia, the biggest, most luxurious passenger ship afloat. Britannia's mission statement – 'Your way. All the way' – hints as to what separates it from conventional cruise operators. Most lines forbid ships' officers to fraternize with passengers. But on Britannia Line off duty officers are encouraged to do so to enhance the cruise experience of single guests. My heroine, Rachel Branson, lucky girl, is booked on a transatlantic voyage from Southampton to New York. As the drama unfolds over seven days she will find romance, love, betrayal and ultimately redemption. This is a voyage with a countdown. RMS Britannia is a ticking time bomb set to explode in New York harbor.
As the port of Southampton slipped away, Rachel Branson looked out over the calm waters of the Solent and reflected contentedly on her future. Far out to sea on the starboard side, the late afternoon sun cast a pool of light on the wine dark sea and a rainbow arced into gathering clouds. It was an omen, she thought. Ahead lay a new job in New York as vice-president of data security for a multi-national genetics engineering company and at the other end of the rainbow was…. was what?
"So what do you think?" a man's voice at her side asked her, as if he had been reading her thoughts. "You think there is a pot of gold at the end? I doubt it."
Rachel turned to confront him.
He was leaning casually on the rail at her side. Slim and handsome, with brown skin and curly black hair, he showed her his perfect smile, teeth as white as his crisply-starched uniform. Her eyes went to his epaulettes. One and a half stripes, an officer, she noted. Pakistani, most likely, but a Brit through and through, she could tell from his accent.
"How can you be so sure?" she said, brushing a strand of hair from her eyes. "Perhaps there is a pot of gold."
He laughed.
"Well if you find it, don't tell Britannia Line. They'll want 15-per-cent off the top."
He held out his hand.
"Harry. Harry Karim, third engineer RMS Britannia, at your service."
"Rachel Branson." She gave him a mock salute. "Just the person I need. Do you think you could fix my hair dryer?"
"Sorry, not my area of expertise. If it requires enough power to light up Las Vegas, I'm your man. But I'm sure your state room steward…."
"Just kidding."
Harry laughed, moving closer to her, both hands on the ship's railing next to hers.
"This your first crossing?"
"Yes it is. First time on a passenger ship. Normally I would fly, but I have a ton of luggage. I'm moving to New York. I have a new job, a promotion, the whole bit, it's all happening for me, Harry, ta da…."
"Lucky you. Are you lucky in love too?"
"Desperately unlucky, thank you for asking. Maybe New York will change that, although I doubt it. What about you? I've heard about sailors – a girl in every port."
"I have two in Southampton." He laughed. "Not really. I wish. One would be good. A seafarer's life is quite lonely despite what they say. The senior officers are allowed to have their wives on board, but not at my level, not that I have one anyway, a wife that is."
He allowed his left hand to drift towards hers where she was holding on. A hundred feet below them, the North Atlantic swells were building and the great ship moved to the sea's relentless rhythm. She felt his hand graze hers, the faintest of touches, allowing it, not moving away.
For a while they were silent together, high enough up to see the curve of the earth, the horizon fourteen nautical miles in the distance.
Harry put his hand on hers for a split second.
"Well, it was nice meeting you, but duty calls," he said, hesitating. "Rachel, I'm off watch at eight. I would be delighted to buy you a drink?"
"That's kind of you. I'm at second sitting for dinner but I could meet you around nine if that's not too late."
"Nine it is. I'll see you in the Captain's Bar, deck eight, front of the ship. It's quiet there at that time because most passengers go to the shows. We can talk some more."
Rachel nodded. The voyage was four hours old and she had a date. Things were looking up. Maybe what they said about cruising was true. Was Harry an officer and a gentleman? Ah ha. She would find out. Men in uniform were a turn on. She could imagine herself thrust over his knee being spanked for some breach of ship's etiquette.
So there it is, girl meets boy, item one on my outline and, wouldn't you know it, romance is already in the air. I've read enough novels to know that a good story has a beginning, a middle and an end. All I have to do is fill in the blanks. What could be simpler than that? Item two on my list is character development. Who are these people, anyway?
Rachel: Twenty-six, slim, nice body, pretty but not classically beautiful. Confident and self-assured. Sexually aggressive. Perceptive. Grew up in Peshawar, Pakistan, on the northwest frontier with Afghanistan where her father was in the British diplomatic service. Speaks fluent Pushtu. Computer genius. Colleagues and competitors alike say there isn't a computer or database in the world she can't hack into.
Harry: Thirty-one, marine engineer, born and raised in the East Midlands, only son of Pakistani immigrants who own of a chain of Tandoori restaurants. Attended public school where he excelled academically and athletically. Won a scholarship to Leeds University. A loner with a secretive nature. A convert to Islam.
For Rachel it will be love at first sight, one of those crazy spontaneous shipboard romances that begins with a chance encounter, the faintest of touches and blossoms into a passionate affair. By day three in mid-Atlantic, 900 miles off Cape Finistere, with New York still 1,200 nautical miles to the west, they will make love for the first time, the curtains and balcony door of her stateroom open to the roaring sea.
And I'm thinking: This bit will be tricky. The lovemaking will have to be implied, not described, according to the guidelines for Pandora romances. I can have some fun with that. What else might be implied?' I think to myself. Could erotic discipline be implied, for example? Rachel's fantasy of being spanked by Harry excites me. And why not? It's my book. I can make it happen? Harry is a public school chap. He'll get it, the thrill of putting her over his knee before the joy of making love.
Okay, I'm not sure I can convince the publishers, but I can try. Most readers of romance literature are women and whether they admit to it or not, erotic discipline is sexually arousing. I will write it in a way that will stay within Pandora's guidelines.
After noon, before he began his 4 pm watch, was their time to be together. Behind the locked door of Rachel's stateroom on deck ten it was if they alone inhabited the world with not even the company of gannets and shearwaters that sometimes could be seen in the vast and lonely s
ky. She undressed and slipped on her bathrobe while he waited for her on the outside balcony staring out to sea, his collar turned up against the wind that was tearing at his hair. He re-entered the room and slid the door shut behind him.
"Yesterday I told you to meet me at noon. I am not pleased you chose to keep me waiting." He turned away, taking something from his pocket, something she should see, before turning to face her. She glanced at what he was holding, her face suddenly flushed, Then she threw her arms around his neck and kissed him, "I'm the one who has been waiting."
Harry said nothing as he tidied his hair and casually placed the brush on the bedside table beside him. Then he sat on the bed, and beckoned for her to approach. "I believe you know what is expected of you." There was something compelling in his tone, a quiet authority that made her heart race. Rachel slipped out of her bathrobe and went at once to his side.
Was that too obvious, or too subtle? It is important for my story to accentuate the tension building between Rachel and Harry. She is infatuated, deeply in love, but already she has begun to doubt him. She senses there was something about him that is inconsistent with a seafarer, the many phone calls and text messages he makes, always to the same number in Leeds. She would find out more about Harry Karim.
It was a joke at her office that Rachel could hack into the Pentagon if she wanted to. It was a simple matter for her to search his computer, find its hidden places – and what she found there chilled her.
She discovered that an Islamic plot to destroy a British icon was in the planning stage before the smoke had cleared from the debris of the World Trade towers. Al-Qaeda in England was given a deadline of five years to achieve another monumental strike and RMS Britannia had been targeted even before the keel was laid. The plan was to plant a bomb in the engine room and other bombs in the bakery and laundry below the waterline with enough explosive power to tear holes in the side of the ship. The bombs would be detonated in New York harbor as the ship passed the Statue of Liberty en route to its berth at the Brooklyn Marine Terminal. Ripped apart and with hundreds dead or injured in the explosions and subsequent fire, the ship would sink with all aboard.
Spank: The Improbable Adventures of George Aloysius Brown Page 17
