Chapter 2

Alfred Maddon pushed himself up on to his hands and knees and scrambled guiltily from the bunk as he stuffed his now limp wet penis back into his open fly and zippered up his pants. His dark hair was tousled and his face was flushed. For once the crafty steward was at a loss for words.

"I . . . I . . . I didn't . . . he stammered. "Mr. Bonner, I'd no idea you were . . . that is, I didn't mean . . ."

"That's all right, Alfred," Len Bonnet said genially. "It was a great show. I enjoyed it." He produced the gold lighter and set fire to his cigar. "It's just too bad that it happened to be with a passenger's wife, that's all," he added.

Maddon stared at him. "I'm not quite sure that I . . . he began. "I mean, I thought you said --"

Bonnet puffed out a lungfull of smoke and gazed at him levelly through the blue cloud. "I mean," he sad quietly, "that I always dig seeing an expert at work. I really go for that. But it just so happens that I don't fancy seeing my wife screwed silly by a cabin steward."

"I didn't screw her," Maddon said sullenly. "You know that."

"Ah, come on. Let's not -- shall we say? -- split hairs," Len said with a chuckle at his own joke. "You were laying her, is all. Just where you put your prick and what you had your tongue stuffed up is a matter of detail. The point is, you forced yourself on a female passenger and made her submit to your sexual demands. Depraved sexual demands, I guess the captain would say."

"The . . . Captain?" Maddon repeated tremulously. "You wouldn't . . . ?"

"You heard. The captain. And sure I would. A man has a right to expect that his wife can rest up in her cabin unmolested on a luxury cruise like this, for God's sakes! I never heard of such a thing!"

"But-but-but," the dumbfounded steward shuttered, "but you know bloody well it wasn't like that! Christ -- you were right there behind that bleedin' door! You saw it all!"

"All I know," Len Bonner said calmly, "is I come straight into my bathroom through the door that leads to the corridor outside and when I walk into the cabin, I see my wife struggling on the bed underneath some maniac who has his fly open and his cock out." He glanced across at the bunk and added: "With her clothes torn to shreds for good measure."

"But it wasn't like that!" Maddon raved.

"What d'you mean, forced myself on her? What are you talkin' about? If anyone made demands it was her! She begged me! Ask her yourself . . . go on ask her!" He swung around accusingly and flung out his hand towards the girl on the bunk.

Harriet was sitting up now, the tattered remnants of her negligee wrapped across her swelling breasts, her head modestly bowed. "I'm sorry, Len," she said in a small voice. "I tried to fight him off, but he was too strong for me.

"Too strong!" the steward shouted angrily. "She practically swallowed me! She asked me to show her my prick and then she . . . Why, you fuckin' bitch," he seethed, turning on the girl, "I ought to bash your bleedin' face in! You cheap little . . ."

"All, right, all right," Len cut in. "Let's not add threats and menaces to rape, eh? As to what happened, I guess we should let the captain decide."

"There you go again!" the steward stormed. "The captain! Do you really think he'd believe all that stuff?"

"I don't see why not. There's two of us, for one thing. Paying customers at that. And a ripped negligee. And I guess there may have been complaints before, judging from what I've seen of you."

"You want I should scream, Len?" Harriet asked demurely. "We could set this whole scene a few minutes forward if you liked. It would kinda give it an extra flavor of drama, don't you think?"

Maddon stared from one to the other of them. He was breathing heavily and his fingers were clenching and unclenching at his sides. "I don't get it," he said hoarsely. "What's your angle? I don't get the play! What good would it do you to fix a frame-up like that?"

"I don't know what you mean by frame-up, Alfred," Len said. "You want to add slander to your other crimes?"

"You couldn't make that stick either."

Len rose to his feet. "Let's have the captain decide, eh?" He made as though to move towards the door.

"What do you get out of it?" the steward repeated furiously. "Okay, so you can fix it so it looks like I raped your wife. So I get fired maybe. But I don't see the point. What's in it for you? What's the percentage playing peeping-tom on your wife in the first place? Is that the way you get your kicks maybe? Are you kinky or something? Are you some kind of a faggot?"

Len had paused by the door. He turned and smiled enigmatically. He said nothing.

The steward sighed. "All right," he said. "I'll buy it. There's some kind of a catch in it, obviously. You can't have fixed this kind of a setup for nothing. As you Yanks say -- what's the pitch?"

Bonner walked back to the chair and sat down again. "That's better" he said. "Now wait'll I tell you. Here's the pitch, as you say. I catch you forcing yourself on my wife . . ." He raised a hand as the Englishman was about to interrupt, and went on: "By rights I ought to report you to your superior officers. But it just so happens you may be able to do a little service for me."

"Ah!" The steward nodded. This was a language he understood. "Here it comes! What do you want me to do?"

"And if you decide to help me out," Len continued smoothly, "I might -- I just might -- forget all about this unfortunate little incident tonight. And my wife might be persuaded to forget it too."

Maddon laughed. "I'll say she might! Okay -you fixed it fine and now you got me by the short and curlies. Both of you. So what do I do?"

Bonner swung around and tipped the ash from his cigar carefully into an ashtray on the make-up shelf. "sit down, Alfred," he said, gesturing towards the bunk. Glancing dubiously at Harriet, the steward lowered himself gingerly to the rumpled bed covers and stared expectantly at her husband. His world had been turned upside down. Making the girl had been a piece of cake. Far easier than he had expected. He had been hoping to put the screws on her a little afterwards. The bedridden mother in Liverpool, and the urgently needed operation for which his pay was inadequate, would have been one routine. Or perhaps the old one about the kid with polio -- Americans were suckers for that kind of thing. Maybe he could even have tried on that chestnut about wanting to put a talented son through college. Or simply asked for money if she didn't want her husband to know that she had -- ha-ha! -- transgressed. Whichever he chose, it would have had to be delicately played. But he could have done it.

But now he found the shoe was on the other foot. For once, he himself was on the receiving end! Not only had the bastard husband been in on the deal, he had proved himself a shrewder operator than Maddon himself. He held all the cards and now it was up to the steward to take his medicine. Okay, he would take it -- but his turn would come later, he thought viciously, staring at Len Bonner through half-closed eyes.

"I been watching you ever since we stopped off at Tangier on the outward journey," Bonner said conversationally. "I'd say you have an interesting life here on board, Alfred."

Maddon said nothing.

"There's the briberies," Len continued pleasantly, "the little bits of smuggling, the kickbacks from night spots and restaurants, the odds and ends you pick up from people's cabins when they're having meals . . ."

"Ere, what are you insinuatin' ?" Maddon protested, but the American raised his hand again and went on: . . . to say nothing of all those broads you lay and pitch a hard luck story to afterwards. That little redhead down the hallway, last night, for instance."

"You can't prove nothing," the steward said sullenly.

"I've a tape recording right here in this cabin says I can. You sure took a hell of a time serving that kid her tomato juice before dinner!"

"I don't believe you," Maddon said hoarsely. "You couldn't have a tape of that!"

"Didn't you ever hear of that attachment for recording phone conversations? You just stick a mike in a suction cup on the base of the instrument and everything on the wire goes down on that tape. It works just as well on a door . . . or a cabin porthole, for example."

The Cockney stared at him, open mouthed.

"But never mind all that," Len continued . . . "it's something else I want to talk about tonight. I noticed you smuggled aboard a certain package when we called at Tangier."

"So what?" Maddon said uneasily. His fingers were nervously pleating and unpleating a corner of the blanket.

"So I believe -- Tangier being what it is -- that this package probably contained a quantity of hash."

"Hash?"

"Yeah, hash. Grass, pot, hashish, call it what you will. It's still spelled m-a-r-i-j-u-a-n-a. And I guess the penalties for pushing it are pretty severe wherever you peddle it."

"I don't know what you mean," Maddon blustered.

"My guess is that you take on a load of grass at one or two main ports of call -- and then sell it off in small quantities to connections at the other stopover points, whenever you go ashore. You must have worked up quite a nice little business there, Alfred!"

"So what if I have? Just because I happen to oblige a few friends, do I have to . . ."

"There aren't too many places you can pick it up, though," Bonner interrupted.. "Tangier is one. But you must have got shot of most of that in Port Said and Haifa. I followed you to a dozen different joints in each of those dumps."

"I suppose you think you're clever," the steward sneered.

"Clever enough to realize that you're due to pick up another consignment any day . . . like when we call at Iskenderun tomorrow."

"Say, where the hell is Iskenderun anyway?" Harriet put in suddenly. "I never heard of the place."

"It used to be called Alexandretta," her husband explained. "It's a one-horse town, but it happens to be at the end of one of the main caravan routes bringing hash -- and other drugs -- from Persia and Afghanistan. It's in Turkey, not far from Adana."

"Oh, you!" Harriet said petulantly. "You know everything!"

"Well, Alfred?" Len demanded. "Do you pick up some more there -- or don't you?"

"What if I do?" the steward asked suspiciously. "You want me to fix you up with a few joints, is that it?"

Len shook his head smiling. "Never touch the stuff. And if I did, I wouldn't need to come to you.

"You want to cut yourself in on the deal? There isn't enough in it for two, I swear. By the time I've paid off my contacts and dropped the customs boys, there's hardly a cent to spare, honest."

"I'm not trying to horn in on your business,"

Bonner said. "Like I told you, I just want you to do me a little service, that's all." "Well, I'm listening."

"First off -- are you or aren't you picking up some stuff in Iskenderun?"

The steward gazed at him warily, "Suppose I am?" he said cautiously.

"Okay. So you are. Do you know the Grants? young American couple with a stateroom just along the corridor?"

"`Course I do. They're in my section."

"Right. Well, Mr. and Mrs. Grant will be going ashore tomorrow. All you have to do is make up a small package of hash and hide it somehow in Mrs. Grant's purse just before she comes back aboard."

"Hide a package of hash in her bag?" Maddon echoed. "Look, I tell you I can't afford to -- For Christ's sake!" Len interrupted angrily. "You'll get it back! I don't want your fuckin' grass. I told you already! I just want you to fix it so she brings it aboard without knowing it, that's all."

Maddon's face suddenly cleared. All at once he was on familiar ground. "Oh, I get it!" he exclaimed. "It's another frame. You want the stuff planted on her so she'll smuggle it aboard unknowingly . . . and then you can walk on in and discover it -- and you'll have a hold on her, too!"

"Now we're getting some place!" Len said. "Can't say I blame you," The steward said, with a sidelong glance at Harriet. "She's a smashing bird all right!"

Len got up and patted him on the shoulder.

"Think you can fix it, Alfred?"

"Course I can. Piece of cake . . . just you leave it to me, Mr. Bonner."

"That's my boy," Len said. "You do that, and I might even give you back that tape! In the meantime, how's about fixing us a couple of dry martinis? If you bring `em back quick enough, seeing Mrs. Bonner is kinda prepared, you might be in time to catch the second show and see how it should be done!"

Maddon jumped to his feet as the two men exchanged meaning glances. "Yes sir, Mr. Bonner," he said. "Right away, sir. I'll be with you in just one minute . . . Harriet giggled as the steward left the cabin. "Len, you are awful!" she said. "Just how long were you behind that bathroom door anyway?" Her husband grinned as he stripped off his shirt. "Long enough," he said. "Now move over on that bed, honey, and let a real man in. C'rnon now, get hustlin'. . . don't forget we got guests coming!"

The brunette stared at him with her torn negligee half off her shoulders. "You don't mean . . . ? You aren't really going to let him watch us, are you?"

"Why not, baby?" Len rasped down his zipper and stepped out of his pants. "You heard the dialogue. Alfred and me, we're partners, ain't we?"

He moved across to the bunk, his long thick penis lengthening and rising until it stood up ramrod stiff, with the glistening, bulbous head emerging from the sheath of foreskin around the rigid shaft.

"Mmmmmmm!" Harriet crooned. "I like!" Looking up at the muscled thighs, the iron-gray hair curling between the nipples on his chest, the wetly seeping cock with its sperm-bloated pouch of testicles beneath, she thought for the thousandth time: this is my man! However many others I have and enjoy, when it comes right down to it, there's nobody like my Len! Seizing the hot throbbing cudgel of flesh with one hand, she spread her legs and parted the warm moist lips of her cunt with the other as she drew him down on top of her.

Len groaned in anticipation as he allowed her to plunge the lust-inflated rod smoothly up into the clinging warmth of her pussy. Crushing down on to her voluptuously swelling breasts, he began driving his cock up into her belly with savage thrusts as the steward's knuckles rapped on the outside of the door.

Beneath his plunging body, Harriet turned her head and giggled, "Come on in," she called throatily. "The waiter's fine!"