"You know, thish shtuff's got absholutely no kick to it whatshoever!"
Miss Lawrence hiccupped, staggered a little as the night air hit her, and hung onto my arm.
"I'll need a shtiffener when we get back if I'm to fashe the resht of the night!"
She giggled.
"Letsh do it in their cabin!"
"Hush, you daft bat. We're burglars, not – not – whatever people who do it in other people's cabins are!"
"Letsh do it here then!"
Jay gave me a sozzled look and pushed me against the rail. She grabbed the hem of my dress and lifted my skirts. A bejeweled finger crept up my thigh.
"Gerroff! I'm not that kind of girl! Tits first!"
"You ain't got no titsh! They're fake!"
"What a thing to say to a nice girl!"
"You're not a girl! Or nice! You're a – you're not wearing any pantiesh!! You shlapper!"
Miss Lawrence's mind had to be returned to the matter in hand, but that was not going to happen until something else had happened. Come to think of it, now she had put the idea into my head...
I looked around for a relatively secluded spot and pulled Miss Lawrence, hand still up my skirts, into the lee of a pile of life rafts.
She put my hand on her crotch then thrust her own hand down her trousers.
"Feel that! Aren't I a big boy! I'll give you such a sheeing to..."
I had a feeling real cross-dressers were a little more sophisticated in their play, but needs must. I masturbated her hand vigorously through the cloth.
"Don't make me come in my pantsh! They'll shtain ... where'sh your pushy gone?"
A questing finger was searching for an orifice beneath my dress. I deemed it time Harry Neptune took charge.
"Zip or buttons?"
I tugged at Mr(s) Neptune's belt – in fact, my own thick black belt borrowed for the occasion.
"Buttonsh of coursh. I'm a gentleman!"
The finger had reached my bum when I pulled my wife's dress trousers down and pushed her against the life rafts.
"Ooh! You're no lady! You're an imposhter!"
"And someone went overboard when they circumcised you, sir. Have at you..."
I thrust into Jay's slippery cleft and set up a fast rhythm. Finesse was out. Harry was in, and we still had burglary to commit.
Jay's finger inserted itself in my anus. Slightly shocked, I returned the compliment. My dress rustled against her dinner jacket. I felt her nipples hard even through the thick material.
"Harriet...!"
"Jaynothan...!"
I pressed Jay against the life rafts as that familiar irresistible pressure built up under the impetus of Hermaphrodite and the kinkiness of the occasion. Jay's orgasm came seconds before mine. Still shuddering, she pushed me back and dropped to her knees.
I pumped my shaft those last few moments and she bowed her head. I came on her hair like Brylcreem from a barber's squirter. I carefully wiped the last few drops on her disheveled pate.
"Thatsh – that's better. I feel quite shober – sofa – sober now."
Jay ran her fingers over her hair, slicking it back into place with my warm come. She licked her fingers and grinned up at me.
"Tastes better than that oily stuff!"
"You put your finger up my bum!"
"Well? You're wearing a dress and you're an orifice short. A man has to do what a man has to do."
She pulled down the brim of an imaginary fedora and sneered.
"That's it baby. Love 'em and leave 'em Neptune, they call me. Hasta la vista, babe. Enjoy the memory."
"You swine! My mother warned me about men like you! Have your evil way and leave the poor girl holding the baby! Oh! A baby!"
I sobbed and groped in my handbag for a handkerchief. Mr(s) Neptune handed me a tissue.
"Stop your sniveling or I'll give you something to cry about."
I had another sob then pulled myself together and stuck my nose in the air.
"I don't care. I'm going to burgle a cabin. Are you coming or are you going to stand there preening all night?"
* * * *
I began to wish I'd taken the mini-skirted steward's advice about the cocktail du soir. Clandestine sleuthing and giggly inebriation are not compatible bedfellows. Talking of the latter, we appeared to have reached the spanker's lair. A smallish lilac sticker on the Boners' cabin door bore the legend "Accommodation Compliments of the Romance Authors' Association." I squinted at the swirling highly embellished print in disgust.
"I might have known the old miser wouldn't have paid a cent for this nautical jaunt!"
Harry peered at the sticker and pursed his lips. He desperately needed to refresh his lipstick.
"Hmm. I would have thought Frip'd have her stateroom covered as a lecturing author on a literary cruise. The cruise line might not have wanted to cover an accompanying spouse's costs, however, so maybe she had to drum up some extra sponsor money with her old hearts and flowers stuff. The Boner really is as tight as you described. And I thought you were exaggerating."
"I'll tell you about the pasta incident some time..."
My ex lover's concept of a romantic dinner for two was the three-dollar all-day breakfast special at a cut-price cafe where they gave you a ticket and called out your number when they'd griddled your order. I once suggested that we treat ourselves to a modest Italian meal and was rewarded with a Castro-length diatribe on the excessive and iniquitous mark-up on restaurant pasta. That was probably when my disenchantment set in.
"Keep an eye out while I fiddle with this lock."
I did my best to cover Harry's back as he bent to meddle with the cabin door. The corridor was empty, distant sounds of reggae music and hilarity issuing from the ballroom. It sounded as if they had brought in a DJ to replace the surviving members of the Latin band, who were no doubt claiming permanent emotional trauma from the events of the previous night. My stomach rumbled and I realized that we had forgotten to help ourselves to the buffet. This was turning out to be more of a weight reduction cruise than a literary one. I nudged the busy creature in the purple frock.
"Hurry up! I'm starving."
"Shurrup, Lawrence. Nearly there. Just a couple more little twists and twiddles..."
Footsteps and voices echoed down the narrow corridor just as my partner pushed open the cabin door with a triumphant click. Hurriedly, we stepped into the darkness within. The door closed behind us and we found ourselves in a veritable Stygian pit of velvety blackness. Obviously, the Boner-Drippits had drawn the blind down over their porthole before sashaying forth to the ball. A large hand gently fumbled across my chest as if attempting to tickle my nipples through my dinner jacket.
"Where's the light switch?"
"Very funny, dear. It should be near the door. Shouldn't it?"
The phantom hand marched back in the opposite direction and I slapped the black space before me, my eyes still unaccustomed to the severe lack of light.
"What's funny? Here we are. Jesus Christ!"
At that precise moment, three things happened. Harry found the bedside lamp and turned it on, creating a golden pool of light in the dark cabin. The light illuminated a small human skull, which sat on top of a hefty manuscript, like a macabre paperweight. Something hand-like ran down my trouser leg and scuttled under the bed. There was a brief pause, followed by an intense exchange of glances. I decided to go first.
"It's all right, darling, it's only Yorrick."
"Ditto, Jaybird, that was merely a tarantula."
"I see."
Every pore of my skin contracted and I stifled a powerful urge to scream. I'm rather fond of the reptile kingdom but large spiders in furry jumpsuits are guaranteed to give me the shudders. With as much dignity as I could muster, I backed away from the bed, convinced that a pair of beady little eyes on stalks were watching my every move. Without taking my gaze from the shadowy space beneath the bed, I picked up the skull and struck a Shakespearean pose.
"Alas, poor Yorri
ck, I knew him well. This is one of Boner's favorite things. Lord knows where he got it. I never did find out."
Harry picked up the manuscript. It had to be at least six hundred pages. My ex was short on generosity but long in verbosity. I think he was hoping to find a publisher who'd pay him by the weight of his tome.
"What is this? War and blinking Peace?"
We looked at the cover, which appeared to have been typed with an old-fashioned manual typewriter. I groaned.
"Don't tell me he still hasn't got himself a word-processor!"
"The Mashing of Melody Moons!"
I turned back the cover and began to scan the first page of purple prose.
"Wait a minute. This isn't one of Boner's lurid fantasies, although the title is certainly representative of them. Look – the author's name is given as Domina Dark."
A small sheet of scarlet paper fell out of the manuscript and fluttered to the cabin floor. Harry picked it up.
"Draconia Books. Specializing in Fem-Dom fiction for the discerning Mistress."
I recognized the small publishing house. Their books invariably came with an image of a fierce-looking cane-wielding Cruella de Ville type on the cover. Story themes inevitably revolved around the humiliation and subjugation of the masculine sex. Not my personal cup of tea but I have a friend who is a visiting dominatrix in Queens. Her ad runs: "Call 1 800 THE BICH."
My husband whistled softly.
"This is Frippery's writing, Jaybird. I'd know those flowery adjectives anywhere. So, our esteemed ex romance writer and current Puker Prize winner pens sadomasochistic knee-tremblers in her spare time, does she? I always had a vague suspicion she hated men."
I skimmed down through the first few paragraphs, which involved an incompetent "sissy maid" and a disgruntled Lady with a riding crop and a dust allergy.
"But, if so, why did she marry Boner? He's a man and he's not submissive. Or, at least, he always told me he wasn't a bottom. Actually, he went to great lengths to insist that he wasn't. However, I've never forgotten that time he asked me to spank him. Hmm..."
Harry smirked.
"Sounds like a distinct case of "methinks he doth protest too much". Never mind this ripping yarn, let's get into the closet before the dynamic duo return. There's only so much greenery they can consume at one sitting without sprouting floppy ears."
As if to punctuate his statement, a familiar voice called out from beyond the porthole.
"Oh, look Will! A myriad of thtars!"
Swiftly, Harry snapped off the lamp and the cabin reverted to inky darkness. I remembered Boris the spider and gritted my teeth.
"We'd better make a run for it, sweetie. We're only next door, we can get there before they reach this end of the corridor."
"Nope. I want some answers, Jaybird. Get under the bed."
"Dream on! There's a whopping great arachnid lurking under there!"
Two large hands grasped my trembling body and thrust me to the floor. One grabbed me by the seat of my pants, the other pushed my face down on the carpet. I squealed in horror as my husband unceremoniously shoved me underneath the bed. There was just enough space for me, although I felt like the filling in a sandwich. There was a brief hiatus, then I heard the closet door open and slowly close. Seconds later, a key turned in the cabin door and the Boner-Drippits returned.
* * * *
"Someone's been playing with my muse!"
Boner's aggrieved tones reminded me that I had flung the skull on the bed instead of carefully replacing it on the manuscript. Talking of the manuscript...
"Someoneth been pwying into my manuthcript!"
I wondered if there was anything else we had disturbed, but that seemed to be it.
"Must be the bloody maid. I'll complain to the Purser first thing in the morning. I left explicit instructions that nothing on that table was to be touched."
There was a sound as of manuscript and skull being replaced in their proper positions. Yes, there was something else we disturbed...
"Where's Hermione? Hermione! Here girl! Here girl!"
The next sound was chairs, cushions and pillows being shoved around in the search for Hermione – who, a pound to a penny, was lurking under the bed in chummy comradeship with Miss Lawrence.
"Hermione dear, there you are! What a leap! You must be ready for your grasshoppers."
From this, and without the benefit of the sense of sight, I gathered that Miss Lawrence must have expelled Hermione with some vigor into the arms of her master.
"Will! Put the horrible monthter away! I told you not to let it out! Ughy ughy icky icky!!!"
I remembered that last expression from my brief marriage to la Drippit. Anything not sealed in zip lock bags or Saran film was a candidate for ickihood. Frippery had no time for anything icky, including the exchange or donation of bodily fluids. A large hairy spider, though in fact they feel quite dry and rarely slaver from bared fangs, was a dead cert for ickiness.
"Now, now, Hermione darling. Ignore the nice lady. Let's get you some nice din-dins. Here we go..."
A click as of the lid of a spider tank closing was followed by the crunching demise of a startled grasshopper – or the latter could have been my imagination, overworked in the rather cramped closet.
It was at this point that the inevitable desire to sneeze began its insidious assault on my nasal nerves. Inevitable? What do you expect, put the hero in a dusty cupboard and what better way is there to give him away in flagrante? Or her. I imagined it was even dustier under the bed. I carefully raised a hand and wiped my nose.
There was a slightly squelchy sound.
"Will, what are you doing now? Why are you thquithing up that nathty Raoul?"
"Raoul no longer concerns us, lambikins. Someone with a pistol got there before Mother Voodoo finished her work. She would have though. He would have died in agony and quite inexplicably..."
There was a note of sadistic satisfaction in Boner's voice that created a resolve in me to rearrange his nose before the voyage was over. That aside, what we were hearing from our hiding places sounded much to me like an admission of conspiracy to murder – even if the weapon might puzzle prosecuting counsel at the Old Bailey. And why did Frippery apparently have it in for the late lamented Raoul?
"Good," came Frippery's voice with a vicious twist I had only heard from her before when mentioning socialists or compost. It looked like her hatred for anything not matching her world-view had vented itself on the deceased dago. Not to mention through the writings of Domina Dark.
"He laughed," snarled Frippery. "He laughed when he should have begged and cried. He deserved everything he got."
Under the impetus of her fury her sibilants had come back. I knew that only happened when she was about to throw a milk bottle through the neighbor's window for parking in the wrong spot. Someone was in for it.
"Now with a little remodeling – a slightly bigger head, I think – yes – altogether bigger – it'll take all I have – that's it – now the hair – perfect!"
"Wonderful, darling! You are tho talented!"
The sibilants disappeared again with the satisfaction of a job well done.
"It'th him to a T! Big and ugly and nathty! Put him in!"
I wasn't sure what the last meant, but it was followed by a wooden click and the clack of something being laid on the table.
"I want to do it! Give me the thpear!"
There was silence for a moment, then a searing pain shot through my back. I was too shocked even to cry out, if a cry could have found its way between my gritted teeth. My body went rigid, all feeling focused around the red-hot pain eviscerating me.
I twisted in silent agony, trying to reach behind me to remove whatever was driving me toward insanity. The closet was dark but I felt a deeper darkness approaching.
I dimly heard the light switch click off and the cabin door close. I was caught in the clothes hanging from the rail, now strangling as well as dying of that terrible wound.
"Harry
! What are you up to? The Watusi? There is a time and place, you know!"
I fell out of the closet onto the floor, my wife nimbly sidestepping rather than being squashed herself.
"Harry! What is it? Are you having a heart attack?"
Jay's concerned gaze hovered above me, dimly visible through the mists of pain. I turned my head to the table and saw a box with a steel needle sticking out of it. I struggled to my knees and started to crawl toward it.
Jay put her arms around me and helped me half upright.
"The box!" I managed. "The needle – take it out..."
Give Jay credit, she didn't waste any time with stupid questions. The pain suddenly disappeared and I fell back to the floor. When I opened my eyes Jay was kneeling over me with a small coffin-shaped wooden box in one hand and a glistening six-inch steel spike in the other.
I staggered to the sofa and sat back with my eyes closed. The residual pain was receding and I started to feel almost half a Neptune again.
"Give me the box..."
It was fashioned as a crude miniature coffin, the lid held in place with a piece of rough string. I slipped the string off and tipped back the lid.
"It's just like you! How clever!"
I looked warningly at my wife.
"Don't say that – you'll only make it believe itself and become even more dangerous. And be careful with that spike."
I took the spike from her and gently rubbed the wax effigy's arm with it. I felt cold steel and the hairs on my arm ruffled. Jay's eyes went wide.
"Ooer!"
"Ooer indeed. I wonder where Boner got this stuff from? It's ancient. This kind of wax hasn't been made since the days of the pirates in Hispaniola. Haiti, for a guess, the home of voodoo. Over the years it must have been made into many effigies to have accumulated such power."
"Can it be destroyed? Or is always going to be a menace?"
"Wax burns. Fire will destroy it..." I said idly.
As I spoke I was remodeling the soft wax. A little smoothing on the pate, a little remodeling of the nose, a tuck here and a tweak there ... The therapist often gave me Plasticene to play with before he discovered what I had secreted in my lunch pail.
"Harry! It's him to a T! Big and ugly and nasty!"
MASTER AND BABY : A Tale of Erotic Submission Page 27
