Chapter 4
"So there you are, you two!" Samantha exclaims, at the sight of Brim and Cindy, appearing on the sun deck.
Samantha is already topless, Cindy cannot help but notice, as she sits up, removing her sunglasses as though she must take them off in order to be able to speak.
And, apparently such a state of undress is quite usual with her, judging by the deep tan on her mammoth mammaries, quite in keeping with the tone of the rest of her.
Below, she wears the skimpiest of string bikinis, like Cindy's own.
Or, for that matter, Brim's.
Before them, the pool beckons, its waters crystal clear, inviting instant relief from the heat of the sun.
Cindy knows that it will not be long before she avails herself of its relief.
Because this sun beating down on them is fierce, even at this early hour, as it floats in a cloudless, azure sky.
"Take off your top, my dear, why don't you?" Samantha suggests. "Makes for a much more even sun tan."
Cynthia does so.
"Here, best put this on," Samantha says, handing Cindy a tube of sunscreen.
Cindy liberally smears her breasts first, since they have had almost no sun this season.
Almost, as opposed to none, because she did manage one visit to the nude beach with her friends before this trip came up.
Brim seats himself on the opposite side of Cindy, so that he can be near the bulkhead on which another telephone, plentiful throughout the ship, hangs.
"While you have the tube," Samantha says, "would you mind doing my back?"
"The front has gotten quite enough sun for one day, I should think." And Cindy complies.
As she smears the gel carefully over shoulders and back, working lower and lower, until she reaches Samantha's rounded, ample buttocks, bisected by the string of her bikini.
And Cindy does not hesitate, lingering with her slippery hands and fingers on the prominent twin mounds.
"Mmmm!" Samantha enthuses, "That feels simply marvelous!"
And Cindy keeps it up.
Even when Samantha reaches a hand in back of herself and suddenly pulls the waist string of her bikini down below the cheeks of her ass.
As Brim, reclining on his side, watches the action intently through the dark lenses of his sunglasses.
And the wall phone rings, apparently as expected.
"Yes ... Put him through ... Hello, Lon! amarche, alors, tout nos affaires Paris? ... Oui ... Oui ... Mais Lon, je vous ai dj dit que—merde, alors! Cinq minute, s'ils vous plait, pour me permettre d'obtenir les papiers. Un moment."
Brim clicks the receiver.
"Hold this call. Transfer it to the master cabin. I'm going there now."
He hangs up.
"If you ladies will excuse me, my friend in Paris seems to have wandered off the beaten path.
"I must guide him back safely, so carry on."
And Brim, towel in hand, leaves them quickly.
"Nothing serious, I hope," Cindy says.
"Oh, not at all, not at all, I shouldn't think."
"Happens all the time."
"Brim has this ability to switch from business to pleasure and vice versa on a moment's notice.
"One of the keys to his success.
"He's never fully at work, never fully at play.
"Gives him a rather detached view of both, I should think."
"How very clever of him, to manage always to live in both worlds," Cindy observes."
"Oh, not at all."
"I mean he is clever, but actually, work is a form of play to him, a kind of board game."
"You know—Monopoly, Parcheesi, that sort of thing."
"Except that the prizes and the money are real."
"As, of course, are the decisions behind them."
"Still, he doesn't take any of it all that seriously."
"Leon seems to have him fairly upset, though."
"The only real danger, the only real threat to the smooth flow of successful business."
"A man with a better idea, apparently."
"But I thought that was what business is all about, Samantha, better ideas."
"Sometimes, sometimes not."
"Better ideas are a two-edged sword."
"On the one hand, one cannot succeed without them; on the other, it's the better ideas that kill you."
"Words to live by," Cynthia says, continuing to play with the cheeks of Samantha's now bared buttocks.
"Not for you though, my dear," Samantha says, twisting over in her sturdy deck chair, reaching up her hands, pulling Cindy to herself.
"At least not yet. You've a few years to go yet, before you have to start worrying about the so-called better ideas and what to do about them."
And their big jugs, slippery now with sweat and sunscreen, balloon against each other.
"Meanwhile, I think you'll find this a much more interesting game."
And Samantha hugs Cindy to herself with one arm, even as, with the other, she reaches down and inserts a hand between the waist string of Cindy's bikini and Cindy's snatch.
And quickly locates slit and clit.
And now, she is rubbing Cindy's joy buzzer with her finger.
As Cindy lets herself relax, going with the flow of sudden inner warmth.
As her active arousal takes hold.
As she once again finds herself on the right, the true path.
Fulfillment.
That's the name of the game.
To scratch that innermost itch.
To satisfy that most fundamental need.
And now, now the surroundings make sense, have meaning for Cindy.
Because this is righteous, is the swimming pool, the sun deck, the sky above, the ocean all around them.
Because this is the conversion of the world to the supreme cause, to the only true cause, the only one worth striving for.
And yes, it is all, all! a part of that now.
A dozen or so crew to keep the thing running.
Them, and the millions of dollars supporting the entire operation.
Just so that she and Samantha can be doing this right now.
And Cynthia sits up, removing herself momentarily from Samantha's embrace and attentions, but only so that she can remove the bottom of her bikini.
Grinning, Samantha raises her legs and slips her own bottoms off. Why not?
They have converted the whole world to their own use.
And this, they confirm to themselves and each other, as Cindy once again lies down in Samantha's waiting embrace, is the use to which they choose to put it.
Their private world.
A world for just the two of them to do exactly as they please, to please themselves by pleasing each other.
And now, it is Samantha's turn to break the clinch.
But only in order to adjust the sturdy wooden deck chair to the flat position.
And this time, when she lies back down, Cindy bridges her body with her own, knees planted firmly in the pad on both sides of Samantha's body, her face hovering over Samantha's snatch.
Even as her own twat hovers above Samantha's head.
So that Samantha can see cunt and ass hole, their outline blocking the sunlight as she removes her sunglasses, tossing them onto the deck chair vacated by Cindy.
And now, the view moves even closer to Samantha's face.
As Cindy settles her snatch down on Samantha's waiting lips, ass hole inches from her nose.
Even as Cindy's mouth covers Samantha's big, hairy snatch.
And now, the women begin slowly, gently eating each other.
And not in the confines, the privacy of some darkened cabin down below.
Rather, this is done in broad daylight, their heat, their desire not sequestered from the world but a part of it.
That, and more.
Because they are using the world as mere background.
Yes, they are in the foreground of this modified universe they have created, forming it of their own lascivious wills, their own sensual desires.
And now, it is theirs, all theirs.
And there is no part of it which is left out, which is not.
The hierarchical structure of all that is has been re-formed, with themselves at the very pinnacle of existence itself.
And Cindy thinks, the world is not all bullshit after all; that is merely the use most people try to make of it.
Used properly, the world can be a fine and beautiful place.
Cindy knows that now.
As witness—this.
And on that thought, she is flickering her tongue against Samantha's big clit, making it bigger, firmer than ever, even as Samantha's clear, hot pussy juices begin to flow with her incipient arousal.
And Samantha engages in similar efforts on Cindy's equipment.
So that quickly, very quickly, that special magic of two similar creatures doing similar things to one another is formed.
Mirror imaging.
In which what one does to the other, the other returns, tit for tat.
So that no sooner does Samantha make a side trip with her tongue to Cindy's ass hole than Cindy is rimming Samantha.
What one does, the other does.
Until neither can say who is doing the initiating, who the following.
Until neither can say who is doing what to whom.
Because it seems to both of them that they are actually causing what happens to happen within themselves merely by making it happen to the other.
So that a flicker of the tongue here, a lunge into the depths there plays on themselves, on their own bodies exactly, undiminished.
Yes, they have actually found a way to eat themselves.
And so it goes.
As both of them get hotter and hotter, the double action of sex and sun inflicting itself upon them with a vengeance.
So that they are actually becoming light-headed, dizzy and disoriented.
Doubly so, from the combined heat of their own actions and the relentless sun.
As they force each other higher and higher up the rainbow of their shared arousal.
As even now, they feel it within them.
It.
The presence of the pleasure beyond pleasure, a mere pinpoint of intense heat deep within their abdomens.
Which even now begins to expand, each stroke of the tongue seeming to fan its flame, making it glow to incandescence, then begin to expand outward in all directions.
So that now the pressure of the pleasure drives them up, up, up the rainbow, higher and higher, piercing and transcending level after level of arousal.
Until the surges of sexual electricity which pulsate within them become a steady hum.
Which grows louder and louder within them, the blood pulsing at their temples, roaring in their ears.
And still they rise, through ecstasy, through rapture, until they are carried away on the crest of the tidal wave of the pleasure beyond pleasure.
And they share their series of multiple orgasms, twinge after twinge, exquisite and irresistible, of the ultimate pleasure, Cindy's only objective, the centerpiece of her existence.
So that once again she is confirmed.
It doesn't get any better than this.
The problem being that "this" doesn't last.
Not very long, anyway.
True, while she is "there", it's great, fantastic, everything she could have wanted it to be and more.
But.
Sooner or later, she must descend, must float back down to earth, there to linger in the aftermath of passion spent, savoring it, remembering it— above all, missing it, even though it was within her only seconds before.
It is, she supposes, a kind of addiction.
But addiction to what?
Can one be said to be addicted to a fundamental truth?
Are enlightenment and addiction one and the same, in her case?
Because she regrets nothing, feels no sense of waste, feels, on the contrary a sensation of having accomplished something very, very positive, of having once again done the only thing on earth really worth doing.
And if this be addiction, then all she can do is to make the most of it.
As, even now, she lands back on earth with Samantha.
And peels off of her at once.
And plunges into the middle of the pool in the middle of the deck in the middle of the ocean.
And knows, beyond all question, that she is at the center of her chosen world.
And, if there is a lot here, was a lot here already, it nonetheless requires her presence to give it meaning, to complete it.
Because only thus does it have any real function at all, in the absolute sense.
It is not just the plunge.
It is not just the plunge into this particular pool at this specific moment in time that counts.
Rather, it is the plunge in celebration of the truth she has once more experienced with her body, her mind looking on to savor, to appreciate, to receive the impression of what has occurred.
And not, as is the usual practice with minds, to attempt to control, or to interpret with a conceit and a pseudo-sophistication and an utter boob-like self delusion which is what all the wise men, all the philosophers so love to do, from the Marquis de Sade, wallowing in the filthy dregs, the nightmare of his own sickness, to Saint Augustine, apologizing for his past misdeeds.
Yes, she has taken the overview of philosophy course in preparation for college.
And that will be, perhaps, her most difficult subject.
Because she will be studying the ravings of maniacs.
She has her way of life, which she refuses to imbue with the false dignity of calling it a philosophy.
It is what it is.
Her life; nothing more, nothing less.
To be lived meaningfully.
Meaning to reach within herself, under proper stimulation, and there to achieve true happiness and ultimate pleasure by methods known very well to her.
And the rest is, well, not bullshit.
This experience has shown her that, she realizes, as she does naked laps in the small pool, steadily, lazily swimming as Samantha lies there in the chaise, still recovering her body temperature and breathing.
Really turned you on, didn't I, big Sam? Cindy thinks.
And she is glad of it.
Because the reverse can also be said.
And whether this was merely a privilege in which Samantha was, is indulging, a prerogative of her lifestyle or whether she too believes in the fundamental necessity of sexual activity, the result was the same for Cindy.
Who has not Samantha's experience, who may not have all of Samantha's tastes, but who nevertheless got off in a big way and helped Cindy to do the same.
Brim understands.
Or says that he does.
And again, the result is the same to Cindy.
What difference does it make, in reality, if she is in fact being manipulated?
Really, there is no sense, no sense at all in erecting defenses against that which she most desires, that which is to herself a vital necessity, merely because it comes to her as part of a plot, a scheme to gain access to her bod.
Better, far better, infinitely better that things should be this way than that she should be forced into the senseless journey she had anticipated with such revulsion.
And in fact, there seems to have been a world of possibilities deliberately created here on the ship.
Because, if what Brim says is true about the sailors he has recruited, then each and every one of them is a walking source of that which she most requires.
And, this being the case, she need lack for none of what she was going to get from her cronies this summer.
And in fact, as Brim says, this could very well prove to be the far better way.
Why not?
Why not take on men instead of boys, not to mention the inimitable—and inimitably horny—Samantha?
Who is all the woman she for one could ever desire.
Who is Brim's very understanding wife, even if that understanding proceeds from self-interest.
And who even now gets up, strutting her voluptuous curves over to the edge of the pool, sticking a toe into it, and recoiling.
"Come on in, Samantha," Cindy invites, hooking her elbows into the gutter of the pool, "the water's fine."
"I am afraid, my dear, that my athletic endeavors are confined to the bed, or equivalent thereof.
"I find that sufficient indulgence in sex keeps me in excellent condition."
And Cindy certainly is not about to dispute that point.
Because she would not mind looking that well in her late thirties or early forties.
Cindy's breasts are very large, firm and well formed.
But she feels that, although she has an hourglass figure, her ass could be bigger, her hips wider, her thighs heavier.
True, most men would prefer her to Samantha, but what do they know?
What do they know of the satisfaction of knowing that one is ample, without being overdone, in one's own flesh.
"Tell you what, my dear," Samantha says, "why don't you come to my room for a decent shower, instead of the salt water?"
"Now that," Cindy says, "that I would really love."
And she hoists herself deftly out of the pool, her bare ass slapping on the lip.
And she stands.
"Better put on your bikini bottoms, dear, just in case we should encounter one of the crew."
"But I thought that they—never mind."
"Been talking to Brim, have we?
"Well, he has his version of how thinks should be run, and Henry—that's the captain—has his.
"Henry claims that it is necessary to discipline that we maintain some minimal semblance of decorum, at least during the day and in fact at all times other than those to which selected members of the crew are specifically invited."
"Then some of them feel—left out?"
Cynthia throws her head back, laughing, as they proceed to the master cabin.
"This time around, they probably do."
"Or will, those who, for one reason or another, usually because of duty rosters, don't get selected."
"At other times, however, I can assure you that they are only too glad to be left out of the action."
"Why is that?"
"You haven't seen some of the people we have as guests, my dear."
"Believe me, were you a member of the crew, you would indeed be hard put to accommodate them."
"They're that ugly, you mean?"
Samantha shrugs.
"That ugly, that perverted, that demanding, that insatiable—take your pick."
"We've even had complaints."
"Brim and I are at pains to sympathize with the offended guest, naturally, but nothing ever happens to the crew member over it, I can assure you."
"Basically, you can't fake a hard-on."
"True, some of the crew know how to force one, but still, there are limits."
"And Brim and I understand that."
They arrive at the master cabin.
Where Brim is seated at his desk, over against the outer bulkhead, still talking on the telephone, his back to them.
"Lon, soyez rassur que je comprends."
"Mais d'abord, faut tudier de longue en large ce monnaie, mon vieux."
"Autrement, notre position vis—vis la situation franc-yen sera compromettre at nous n'oserons pas faire des grands coups sur la bourse, comprenez-vous? ... Bon, Lon. Et, au futur, quand vous vous trouvez avec des brillantes ides, simplement tlphonez-moi en avant, oui? ... Lon, pour vous, je suis toujours prsent, n'importe point quel heure du jour ou nuit, okay, babe? ... Oui, a va ... A bientt, kid, take it easy."
And he hangs up.
"Seems that idiot boy in Paris decided to do something with florins."
"What's a florin?" Samantha asks.
"My position exactly, my dear."
"Until we've had a chance to study it thoroughly, we do nothing with it, no matter how good it looks, even if we miss the boat the first time round."
"Tomorrow is another day."
"Well. So much for business, unless somebody else comes up with something too brilliant for words and too good to pass up and doesn't want to bother me for fear I might be sleeping."
"Did you two—never mind."
"I can tell by looking."
"Yech! Get thee to a shower, the two of you!"
And they comply.
"Why don't all the rooms have fresh water showers, Samantha?"
"In order to support the swimming pool, the ship is designed to operate on sea water when at sea."
"In port, we hitch up to fresh water lines and you will be able to have a normal shower then, whenever you like."
"Aha!"
"Yes, you have discovered one of the many limitations of our mini-ocean liner, I fear."
"No interior ball room is another."
"Still, all in all, as yachts this size go, it isn't too shabby."
"Certain middle eastern potentates we visit from time to time do much better, of course."
"Still, one shouldn't complain, I suppose."
"Seems perfectly fine to me," Cindy says.
"How very kind of you to say so, my dear."
And Samantha actually sounds serious.