Chapter 10

The days crawled by slowly. Bart sat on pins and needles. He slept with his gun under his pillow at night, and kept it handy all the time during the day, too. The first time he handed the two goons a short count, he almost crapped. The smaller of the two, the one who always did the talking, looked at the money after counting it. "It's not as much as yesterday," he said.

"Some days are better than others. Yesterday was a very good day."

"With all the classy cunt you have lined up, you should be doing better than this."

"Christ, I do the best I can! I can't keep them working all the time, you know. I don't have that many steady customers. And besides that, I have to let them lay off when they're on the rag."

"Sure," the man said. He took out Bart's share and handed it to him. "The junk arrive?"

"Yeah."

"Good. More will be over here tomorrow. I took it out of your share of the dough."

"I figured."

The man smiled. "Sure you did. Just keep 'em workin, boy. Keep the money coming in, and the Company will take care of you."

"And if I don't, the Company will take care of me another way," Bart said, and the men both laughed.

"How right you are," the small one said. He rose from the couch and walked to the door. "Keep honest, boy."

He almost gave them full count the next day, he had been badly shaken by the man's suspicion. Then he realized that to do that would be a dead giveaway. So he decided, at the last moment, to give them a short count again. He gave them less than he had the day before. Just a little less, but he made it a point to give them less. Despite the fact the day had been a little better.

He was really nervous that time. But the man didn't say anything about it, and Bart congratulated himself. He had put it over on them. They were accustomed to the short cut now, and didn't expect him to come up with any more.

He salted it away quickly after that, counting the days until the ship would leave. He had the date filed away in his brain. But the days crawled along like snails.

The day before he was to leave, he packed his clothes. The money he wrapped in a piece of brown paper and stuffed it into his overcoat pocket. He had managed to salt away the seventy-five hundred passage money and another thousand for his own pocket, just in case. He was about to set the packed suitcase in the closet when there was a knock at the door. He walked across the living room, leaving his bedroom door open, and opened the front door.

It was Angela. She stood there, in a miniskirt and a blue sweater, and her books hugged against her ample bosom. "Hi, Bart. I'm reporting for duty," she said, smiling nervously up at him. Bart glanced at his watch. "Oh, I know I'm early," she said hurriedly. "But I-I couldn't wait. All right?"

"All right, come in," Bart said. He stood aside and she entered the room. He walked to the drawer where he kept the junk and got out a needle and loaded it. When he looked at Angela again, she had put her books down on the couch, and she was staring into the bedroom.

"Where are you going, Bart?" she asked, wide-eyed. Bart cursed himself for having left the door open, and the-suitcase on the bed in full view.

"I'm just leaving town for one night, baby," he said. "I'll be back tomorrow." She stared up at him.

"No, you're not going to be back," she said. "You're going away for good, aren't you?" She stared up at him for another moment. "Bart, you can't do it," she pleaded in a nasal whine. "Bart, honey, you can't run out on us. We need you. You know that. We can't get along without you, Bart."

"I told you, I'm only going out of town for a night," he said again, but he knew she wouldn't believe it. Shit, this would have to happen.

She ran to him and grabbed his shirt front, clinging hard. "Bart, take me with you. Please. Wherever you're going. Take me with you. I don't know where to get junk, and I can't get along without it. You know I can't, Bart. So take me with you, honey. Please take me with you. I'll be no trouble. I'll be good, Bart. I will, honestly. Haven't I always been good? Haven't I always done what you said?"

"I can't take all the girls with me," he said.

"I don't care about the others. Just take me, Bart. Please."

Bart stood looking down at the girl for a moment before answering. He thought of playing along with her just to shut her up, but then the thought hit him that there wasn't any reason why he shouldn't take her along. Sure, two hundred grand was enough money to keep the broads coming as long as he wanted them, but it couldn't hurt to have a sure thing around. And it might take time for the word to get around he was rich. Besides, it was going to be a long ocean voyage, and a little pleasant company would be nice for passing the time. And when he got tired of her, there would be ways of getting rid of her. The guy from the Company had said they had connections all over the world, places where a troublesome cunt could be peddled at a nice profit. Why not do the same with Angela when he'd had enough of her? He didn't have those connections, but he could make them. He'd never had any trouble making connections before, not that kind of connections anyway. He might be able to add another five yards to the kitty. Angela was a real prize, a real beauty.

"Okay, kid," he said, running his hands lightly up and down the meaty part of her arms. "Sure, why not? You want to go with me, I don't see any reason why you shouldn't. Provided you can keep your mouth shut and do as you're told, of course."

"Oh, I can, Bart. You know I can. I always have, haven't I?"

"I guess so. I'm not leavin' until tomorrow night."

"You-" She looked panicky, as though she thought he might be lying to her, putting her off so he could sneak away without her.

"You're gonna have to take my word on that, kid. Otherwise it's no go. I told you, you have to keep it shut, and do what I tell you."

"Sure, Bart." She still didn't sound very secure, but she had obviously made the decision to go along with him, since she had nothing else to do.

"Okay. Now, you be here tomorrow night about eleven o'clock. Can you manage that?"

"Oh, sure. I'll go to a movie with some friends. My parents have been wondering why I don't go out more often nowadays. They think it's strange I always come home from school late, and then stay home all the time. So I know they'll let me go. Then I can sneak out of the movie and come here. It won't be hard."

"I don't want the story of how you're gonna do it, Angela. Just do it. Or you'll be left here. You got that?"

"Sure, honey. I'll be here."

"Good. Now how about sealing the bargain with a little kiss?"

"Sure, baby." She stretched up on her tiptoes to give him a kiss, but Bart drew his head back.

"Not there, baby. You know where I like you to kiss me. And how."

"Sure, Bart. I know where, and I know how." She sank to her knees and worked open the zipper of his pants. Bart placed his hands on her shoulders, steadying them both, as Angela reached inside his pants and fished out his cock. Her fingers were cool, and the touch of them there made him shiver with a little thrill. Then he felt his cock come out of his pants, with the cool air playing over it.

Angela leaned forward a little and began to lick the head of the organ, her tiny tongue moving over it light, moistly, warmly. One of Bart's hands slid up over her shoulder to her neck, and played in her hair. Her hands caressed his cock, moving over it gently, as her tongue continued to work. Then she slid her lips over it, moving up over the length of it a little, letting the head of his cock feel the warmth and moisture inside of her mouth before she withdrew and began to lick it again. She knew how, he thought. She had learned a lot since that first time. Now she knew how to please a man, and she had also learned to work hard at it, to die a thousand deaths at the thought she might fail. That was good, that was great for a little junky whore. It would also be good for a sea voyage companion. And also good when the time came to sell the little twat.

She pulled his cock up out of the way. It was already stiff as a board, of course. She pulled it out of the way and began to kiss his balls, then to lick them. Her tongue moved over his scrotum quickly, with a kind of feverish haste, and then she was back to his cock again. He could feel her hands move deftly, expertly, over his privates, and then she was back again, with her mouth on it, the cock thrust in deeply, so that he could feel the roof of her mouth. She began to suck on it, lightly at first, leaving from time to time to baby him along. Then she was sucking harder, and her tongue moved over the shaft and head of the cock quickly, and then more quickly, and then with feverish haste, until he grunted with unsuppressed delight, and his cock was trembling and shaking with the preliminaries of the climax, ready to spurt out at her, ready to fill her mouth with come, and he knew it wouldn't be much longer now.

He gripped her shoulders with both hands, digging his fingers into her flesh until she winced from pain. But he didn't care, it was nice to make her hurt while she was giving him pleasure. He dug in all the harder, wringing fresh tremors of agony from her, pulling the stops as the pleasure in his own cock took hold of him, gripping him and shaking him like a rag doll. He grunted and grunted again, and his skin puckered in gooseflesh, and he cried out with it, cried out as the pleasure drove him over the edge, and his cock quaked and spat, and the come flooded into Angela's mouth, driving deep into her throat, and she seemed on the verge of gagging for a moment before she caught hold of herself and choked it down, fighting her own reflex and swallowing the come as fast as it came into her mouth. The final, glorious burst of pleasure came over Bart, driving him wild with joy, and things seemed to burst in his head, explosions that filled his brain with pleasure and color and heat, and then it was over, and he looked down, shaken with the power of the orgasm, at Angela.

She still had the cock in her mouth. It was growing limp now with each passing second, but still she rolled it about her mouth with her tongue, tasting it and giving him the little dregs that were left of the pleasure.

Then she opened her mouth and withdrew, letting the cock hang limply between his legs. She put it back in his pants and shorts, and pulled up his zipper. "How was that, Bart?" she asked almost shyly. "Was that a nice kiss?"

"Shit, that was a great kiss," he said, forgetting for the moment his iron clad principle against giving any of the girls a lavish compliment. He had always felt that it was best to keep them thinking they were only fair at sex, to keep them trying harder, to get better and make themselves safer from punishment, but this had been a great one, the best he had ever had, and he couldn't see any harm in telling her now anyway. She wasn't going to be a moneymaker for him after this afternoon anyway. She was going to be his own little toy, and nothing more until he decided to sell her, and that might be a long time indeed.

"I'm glad you liked it," she said. "You see, if you take me with you wherever you're going, I'll be able to do that for you all the time. I don't usually work all that hard, even for a paying customer, but you're more important to me than a customer, Bart. You're my master. You're the one who can take me with you or drop me. You're the one who can give me my fix or not. So I'll be working that hard to please you all the time, no matter what. And I can start while we're on the trip, if it's a long one. Will it be?"

"Sure. We're going to Europe. A ship to Copenhagen, and then by rail to Switzerland. I have a numbered bank account there, and I'll be able to live like a king. And you can live with me, as long as you know your place, baby."

"I won't forget my place, Bart. You can bank on it."

She seemed to be as good as her word. She worked that afternoon, going out on the call without giving any sign to the others that this would be her next to last call, and perhaps the next to last call for any of them. She was a good little actress, Bart thought. He was the only one who had any idea of what was really going through the little cunt's brain.

She worked the next afternoon as well, and then she was back that night, as she had said she would be. She showed up fifteen minutes early, her face flushed with excitement. She was dressed in a pantsuit, purple and black, and she looked like a little doll. He wanted to have her suck him off right then, but he knew they had to get going. On the ship, he thought, there would be nothing but time to put her through her paces, and maybe even teach her one or two things she hadn't picked up yet. It would be possible to make her draw back in disgust, he thought with delight.

They took a cab to the docks and then walked the last couple of blocks. Bart had an overcoat, and in the hand that wasn't carrying the case with the money and the heroin, he had his gun, hidden inside the coat pocket. He was still nervous about things. Things had gone very well, not a single snap, and that worried him. He tried to tell himself that that was silly, and the time to worry was when things started to go wrong, but still he couldn't help thinking it was too goddamn easy.

They walked to the ship and up the gang plank. A seaman was standing at the head of it. He stopped them. "I'm a passenger," Bart said. "The captain must have told you about the deal."

"He said there'd be just one guy," the seaman said, managing to look at Angela with a glance that combined suspicion with hunger.

"There is just one guy. And a girl."

"The cap'n didn't say anything about a broad."

"Well, there's been a change in plans."

"I'll have to go talk to him. You two wait here."

"Sure." With one backward glance at Angela, the seaman headed for the captain's cabin. He was back in a moment, and the captain was with him. The old man looked at Angela with casual interest.

"You bring your amusement with you," he said.

"That's right."

"Our deal was for one person."

"She can share whatever room I'm in. And she won't eat much."

The captain thought about it a moment, then shrugged. "Okay, son. It's nothing to me. This man will take you to your cabin. He'll have to lock the both of you in, and you'll have to stay there except for a half-hour a day exercise time. I'm afraid the girl will have to stay in the cabin all the time. There's a toilet and basin there."

"All right."

The seaman took them to a door and opened it with a key he had in his pocket. He couldn't stop staring at Angela as though she were a rare steak. "I could peddle your ass to him any time I wanted to," Bart said when he and Angela were inside, and the door locked behind them. His words made Angela shudder, but she smiled.

"Any time you wanted to," she agreed. "

"And speaking of ass," Bart said, "I think it's time I had a piece. That's why you're here, remember?"

"Sure, Bart." She took off the top part of her pantsuit, and then shucked the pants, too. She was wearing sexy white bikini panties and a flimsy bra that matched. Neither piece of clothing hid anything much from view. Bart's prick got hard just looking at her. She came toward him and laced her arms around his neck and kissed him on the mouth, hotly, deeply, wetly.

Bart slid his hand under her panties and felt a nice, warm handful of ass. She bit his ear lightly, using the play to work him up, and he felt as though he had never needed working up less. Not that he was going to object.

He placed both hands between her shoulder blades and began to work at the clasps of her bra. She stood very still to make it easy for him. In a moment Bart had the clasps open and the bra fell away from her body. She drew back a little, and her breasts thrust the garment away quickly. It slid down, revealing darkened and distended nipples. The straps slid down her arms a little and stopped, because her arms were still high, her hands resting on his shoulders. She removed them, and let them hang at her sides, and the bra slid down them to fall on the floor with a plopping sound.

Bart took her in his arms and kissed her again, and then walked her to the narrow bed against the wall. She went with him meekly. He laid her down on it, and then slipped her panties down over her hips and down the length of her legs. The tiny garment looked almost ridiculous without her body to give it shape and meaning. He dropped it to the floor and then stripped himself quickly, letting his clothes drop where they would. He could have Angela pick them up later.

He got onto the couch with her and they embraced, kissing and tasting each other's skin, and then he told her to scoot down and french him. She did as she was told without a moment's hesitation, sliding down the length of the narrow bed and jamming herself between him and the wall. She took his stiff cock in her hands and began to lick it. Bart grunted with pleasure and she took it, as he had known she would, as a signal to go easy, to baby him along, because he was already too worked up, and he didn't want this to go too quickly.

So she licked lightly and slowly, taking her time between strokes, holding his cock lightly in her hands, without squeezing or milking it, until he was evened out, and about where he should be, and then she began to work more diligently, licking and sucking and kissing his balls and thighs, working him up higher and higher, until he was grunting and crying out with joy.

"All right," he said finally, "that's enough. Come up here now. Come on. Hurry it up." She came up beside him again, and they were lying facing each other, on their sides, and Bart slipped his left thigh between hers, and she parted her legs for him readily, making room for him. Her hands slid down between them, taking his cock in them and inserting it into her cunt. Bart thrust his hips toward her, driving the prick all the way in, and she gave a little squeal of delight, and they clasped their arms about each other, their bodies moving together and molding, fitting like two interlocking halves of a puzzle, every nook and cranny of flesh filled, and he embraced her tightly, feeling and delighting in the pleasure of her breasts against his chest, flattened by the pressure, but still there, still big and round and ample, her nipples hard against his skin. His hips thrust and worked, pressing and plunging his cock into her, and she responded expertly, and a little more than expertly, with real passion as the pleasure got to her.

Then he went over the edge all at once, and his come flooded her, filled her, and she cried out, and he knew she was having a climax, though not a big one, not one that would fulfill her. He had gotten hot on the frenching, and he was coming too soon to fulfill her. But that was all right. Fulfilling her wasn't the reason for it.

When it was over, he lay back looking at her, their faces only an inch apart, and then sat up on the edge of the cot. "Get these things picked up," he ordered.

"Sure, honey. Sure." She busied herself picking up his clothes, and her own, and laying them across the one straight chair in the cabin. Bart watched her, enjoying the perfection of her body as the little muscles rippled under her flesh, watching her bend and stoop, and then turn and smile at him as though to tell him she knew he was enjoying looking at her nakedness and that she was happy he was. Then he stretched out on the cot and slept.

He woke to a knock at the door. Angela was sitting huddled on the straight chair. She had put her panties and bra on, and stopped there, as though not entirely sure whether he wanted her to dress, and therefore compromising about it. Bart pulled his pants on and motioned her to stand against the wall, out of sight of the door. He didn't want any members of the crew to get a shot of Angela in her undies. Just knowing there was a beautiful young girl aboard, and that she was fucking for the passenger, would be enough to cause trouble unless that captain was as tough as Bart judged him to be. If they started seeing her partially nude, that could be the primer.

Bart got his gun out of his coat and walked to the door. He held the gun in such a position that it would be behind the door, and yet he would be able to get it out in a hurry if he had to. He rapped on the inside of the door and heard the rattling of a key in the lock.

It was a seaman, big and muscular, with a belly that hung over his belt. But the belly didn't look like the kind a man would want to try .to sink his fist into. The man was unshaven, and he was carrying a large steel tray, loaded with plates and food, in one hand as though it were a saucer of milk.

"This is your dinner," the man said in a voice like the grunt of a gorilla. He looked past Bart, apparently trying to get a look at Angela. Bart took the tray, having some trouble holding it in one hand. The gun kept his other hand occupied.

"Thanks," he said, and then pushed the door closed with his foot. He heard the door lock. They were sealed in again.

"Pull the chair over here," he ordered Angela. He sat on the bed and she on the chair, and he put the tray down beside him and started to divide the food. He took more than he gave her, and she didn't object. Junkies didn't get too excited about food. In fact, you had to keep after them to keep them from starving themselves scrawny. But there wasn't much chance of that happening to her in this cabin. About the only exercise she would be getting would be fucking.

After they ate he listened to her beg him awhile, and then he gave her the fix she needed. Actually, she didn't need it until the next day, but she wanted it, so he gave it to her. Spoil her a little, he thought. Besides, he could see light leaking through the porthole cover, and he knew they'd be coming for him to take his exercise pretty soon. It would be better if she was a little woozy through that. Less likely to get into trouble or to start fishing through things to get her own heroin. She could give herself a goddamn overdose without any trouble at all, and there wasn't any sense in losing her now.

He put on his shirt, shoes and coat, and then there was another knock on the door. He took the tray over and rapped back, and the door unlocked and the same seaman was there. He was looking past Bart again, trying to get a look at the girl. "Cap'n says if you want to take some exercise, this is the time to do it."

"Fine." Bart stepped through the door and stared at the man until he closed the door again. "I think you'd better lock it," Bart said. The man locked it. "I'll just walk up and down right along here," Bart told him, to let him know that the door to the cabin wouldn't be left unwatched. The man grinned, revealing a scar that had been hiding in the creases of his face. Bart walked up and down the deck a few times, breathing deeply. The cabin was stuffy and it was good to smell fresh air.

He walked down to the end of the deck, and got a shock. He was sure of it the moment he saw the girl on the deck below. The deck he was on was a shortened one, not running the full length of the ship, and the other was in sight of it. The girl was small and blonde, and just when she was at the closest part of her walk, she looked up at him, and he knew she had recognized him, too.

Cathy Winslow.

Bart heard the girl gasp, cry out a little. Then he spun on his heels and ran for his cabin. He didn't know what was going on. He did know that things were strange here. And he wanted his gun.

He reached the door in fewer strides than he had thought possible. Of course it was locked. He raised a fist to pound on it before the futility of that gesture struck him. Angela couldn't let him in. The door would have to be unlocked by someone outside of it.

A seaman was walking down the ladder from the next deck, and Bart hailed him. "I want back in my room," he said. "Who has the key?"

"Can't wait, eh?" The man grinned and turned. "I'll tell the cap'n."

Bart walked around in tight circles for what seemed a half-hour before the captain showed up. "What's the trouble, son?" he asked. Bart noticed he had three burly seamen with him.

"No trouble," he said. "I just want to get back into my room."

"The seaman said you were in a mighty big hurry about it, boy," the captain said. "Sounds like there's somethin' wrong."

"No, no, there's nothing wrong. I just want to go in and go to bed now, that's all."

"All right, matey," the captain said. He fished a key out of his pocket and opened the door. Bart almost ran inside. The door closed behind him. He waited for the sound of the key, but it didn't come. He got the gun out from under the mattress, where he had placed it, and cocked the hammer. He always kept a live one under the hammer.

"What's the matter honey?" Angela asked nervously.

"Shut your mouth," Bart hissed. She backed away, into a far corner. Bart stood waiting. After a moment, the door opened, as he had expected it to, and they came in after him. The door was a narrow one, and he knew they'd have to come in one at a time. That would give him a chance. He could kill eight of them anyway. And he had ammunition in the case. He wished for a moment he had gotten it out, but it was too late to worry about that. He leveled the gun at the open door, at the man who filled it, and pulled the trigger.

The hammer clicked on an empty chamber.

He only had a moment to wonder about that. He knew he had checked the gun before coming aboard the ship. And he knew that no one had come into this cabin since then. No one, of course, except for Angela.

The first of them reached him a second after the door opened, and something hit Bart alongside the head.

When he woke he was on deck again. He was naked, and his arms were tied behind him. He looked around quickly, frantically, and saw that Angela was nearby. She looked at him with a cold smile. "You outsmarted yourself, Bart," she said.

"What is this?" Bart demanded. 'I paid you to take me to Copenhagen." The captain was standing right in front of him.

"I know, boy," the captain said. He smiled at the men around him. "But you see, we're not going to Copenhagen. This is about as close as we get to Copenhagen, in fact. So we're going to let you off here."

"Christ's sake," Bart whined, "you can't drown me! What did I do to you?"

"To me personally, nothing," the captain said. "But you did something to the Company, the people we both work for. And I can't let you get away with that. If I did, I wouldn't live much longer than you're going to."

"The Company...?"

"That's right, matey. The Company. We both work for it, but you're the one who tried to screw the Company. Did you really think you could get away with that, son?"

"Wait a minute...."

"liven if they hadn't been on to that short cut you were giving them, this young lady here would have told them what you were doing. As indeed she did. That was mistake number two. Trusting a user."

"Now, look, Captain. Maybe we can make a deal. I have almost a quarter of a million bucks in a numbered bank account in Switzerland...."

"Oh, yes. That number you had scribbled on the inside of your case in the cabin. That wasn't very bright either. You should have memorized it. Then you'd have something to deal with. Not that it would have done you any good in the long run, of course. I'm not stupid enough to go against the Company. They reserve a terrible vengeance for those who have supped at their table and then turned against them."

"Jesus Christ, you can't just drown a man...."

"The Company will take over your stable. They have a lot of bright young men about to take care of that kind of thing. And all the debts those boys and girls owed you will be transferred to the Company."

"Except for mine," Angela said eagerly.

"Yes, that's right," the captain said. "Hers we're writing off."

"You fucking little bitch!" Bart screamed at her.

"You see, we were carrying one girl anyway, as you know. The one the Company sold. Now we have another one to sell."

It took a moment for the meaning of the captain's words to sink into Angela's brain. Then she turned to him, white faced. "No! You said. I mean they said-"

"Take her away," the captain said to a couple of his men. "Back to the cabin. Strip her and tie her to the bed, and pass the word that she's available to officers and crew for the rest of the voyage, just so they don't rip her up and reduce her sales value."

The two men grabbed the struggling Angela and carried her back to the cabin.

"Why did they let me get this far?" Bart asked, his voice shaky.

"Why not? It was a handy way to get you out of the city, out of the state, out of the country, and into the middle of salt water, where you can disappear without a trace. Why not let you go of your own free will, with a little cock pleaser to keep your mind off of things?"

"Captain, please, for Christ's sake, let me go. Wherever you're going, you can just let me off there, and I'll disappear. They'll never know I'm still alive. I swear it. You can't just drown a man-"

"Now who said anything about drowning a man? We're not going to drown you, matey."

"You're not-"

"Of course not." He motioned to someone behind him, and the man brought up a covered tray. It was just like the tray on which their food had been brought to them earlier. The man lifted the' cover, and Bart saw several huge chunks of bloody meat on the tray. "This is shark water," the captain said. He lifted one piece of meat and waved it back and forth a couple of times. Bart watched it, fascinated, and the captain and some of the men laughed. Then the captain tossed it overboard. It hit the water with a splash, and the water around the splash turned dark with blood. Nothing happened for a while. Then there was a great thrashing of the water around the splash. Bart saw, with horror, the bodies of sharks, huge things, bigger than horses, as they fought over the piece of meat. The captain took another piece and tossed it in. He tossed in another and then another, and the water was a mass of bloody foam, filled with the huge fish. There were two pieces of the meat left. The captain brought one of them over to Bart and held it under his nose. "They always go for the blood," he said. "They have uncanny noses. Go straight for it every time. Straight for it." He lowered the dripping piece of meat and let it brush over Bart's cock. Then he rubbed it over the organ with greater force. He took the cock and rubbed the meat all over it. Finally Bart's numbed mind registered what the man was doing, and he screamed and tried to fight, but they had him held good and tight, three of them, and his arms were held behind him by ropes. The captain took the other piece of meat and rubbed that over his cock and balls, doing a thorough job of it. Then he took a length of rope and tied it around Bart's waist, loosely. He thrust one of the pieces of meat through it on either side. "And now," he said jovially, "I think we'll end this discussion. I'd like to go have some fun with that little dark one before the crew get to her. There's still some fire in the old boiler, you know, and that little gal is just the one to get it stoked up nice and high." He smiled and then made an up-and-over gesture to the men who were holding Bart.

Bart struggled and screamed, but it did him no good. They picked him up as easily as though he had been a sack of garbage and threw him over the side. He heard them laughing and joking as they did it, and as he fell.

He landed in the water with a huge splash and began to sink immediately. He kicked his feet wildly, trying to keep afloat. He had some success. The ship pulled away from him, the screws churning the water noisily. Bart looked back to where the ship had come from, and saw the tail fins of the sharks. Three of them peeled off and came for him. He tried to kick away from them, but it was no use. The first one reached him twenty feet ahead of the others. The tail disappeared as the shark dived, to come up at him from below. Going for the blood, Bart thought. He screamed, and then screamed louder as the mammoth jaws crushed shut on his pecker, and his balls.