Chapter 9
Fran and Liz didn't speak as they walked slowly back through the garden to their cabana. In the deep dusk the swimming pool was now deserted and fireflies were beginning to appear out across the lawns and amongst the dark shadows between the trees. Electrified antique wrought iron lanterns along the main path to the cabanas lit their way. Heat lightning was flickering in the distance far out over the bay, and there was a hushed silence over everything, with the only noise an occasional rattle of dishes from the direction of the hotel's kitchens.
In spite of herself, Fran realized that she was actually enjoying this place. It was a perfect evening. Far to the east she could see the first little pinpoints of light as the stars began to come out for the long tropical night ahead. Back home in Shaker Heights it was never this lustrously shining hair, and locking her room behind her, went next door to see if the others were ready.
When Liz knocked, Fran was already applying the last touches to her own makeup, and Bill was almost ready, too. Bill let Liz into the room.
"Wow! That's some outfit," he said, his eyes bugging in appreciation. "And it looks really great with your tan."
"Thank you, sir," Liz replied gaily, then looked at her older sister for approval. Fran rolled her eyes in mild reproach. "That's a little much, sweetiepie. Don't you think?"
Liz pouted. "I think it's just right. It's cool." Fran stared at the hipline and back where no bra straps or panty outline could be seen. "It should be cool," she said in warning.
"Well I don't have time to change," Liz said firmly as she walked to the door. "And besides, Ramon doesn't look like the sort of person who likes to be kept waiting," she added.
As they walked from the cabana and crossed the lawn toward the front door of the hotel, Bill asked suddenly, "Hey, what do you think he wants? I don't like the idea of him having just the three of us for a private dinner," he continued, sounding apprehensive.
"Darling, we've told you," said Fran impatiently. "Unless we do what he says, he might keep the plane here forever. It has something to do with information he wants from Charles, the man I was talking with in the pool this afternoon."
"Oh, I see," replied Bill, not at all sure that he did.
Walking between the two sisters, he found himself glancing frequently at Liz. Now as they approached the front steps of the big hotel he realized he could see down the front of her jumpsuit to the semi-circles of the tops of her aureoles and even her nipples, lighted now by the soft yellow light from the lobby. He, of course, had seen them before, every delicious curve, when he had opened the door of her room and found his sister-in-law nakedly coming from the bathroom earlier that day. But somehow in this light, with the soft open-mesh lace of her tight jumpsuit tantalizingly clinging to her slender waist and gently rounded little buttocks and long sensual legs, she seemed to exude an almost overpoweringly tangible aura of sex. As a matter of fact, the young girl was even more exciting than she had looked to him when they had been next to each other by the pool that afternoon. He thought she seemed some how different ? more adult ? sexier!
Fran's thoughts were on the evening ahead as she wondered just what would be best for her to say if Ramon asked her anything else directly. She realized that everything depended on whatever Charles, himself, was willing to do for the hi-jack leader, but she hoped that she and Liz could at least help to influence the swarthy hi-jack commander in the right direction.
Excited by the hot, hungry glances of Bill, and serene in the knowledge of what had happened to her with the older man earlier, Liz happily walked on with the other two. She wasn't worried about a thing. She knew she looked good. She knew that Ramon and Bill?as a matter of fact, all men, everywhere?would think she looked good, too.
Ramon suddenly appeared out of the big open front door of the hotel and stood waiting for them. As they climbed the steps he greeted the two girls in turn with a slight continental bow and then reached out to shake hands with Bill. "I'm so glad to see all of you finally on a purely social basis," Ramon said warmly. "It's been a busy day for all of us, and I haven't had time to treat my special guests as well as I'd like to. Come." He took an arm of each of the women and led the way into the lobby.
Bill's mind raced for the meaning of Ramon's use of phrase "special guests." What in hell could he mean? Again the dull needles of apprehension began pricking at the young insurance salesman's mind. The hi-jack leader guided them to the same hall in which Fran and Liz had waited under guard of the sinister Hans and his dog, Bruno, less than an hour before. The young wife's heart skipped a beat as she thought that Ramon might be taking all of them to his office, that office where the TV set with its tape was probably still sitting ready to ruin her marriage, her whole life.
quiet, she reflected. Even on summer nights when she and Bill would sit on the terrace beside the barbecue for one last drink before going inside, it was never this peaceful. There was always the traffic noise from the expressway, or the sound of jet planes overhead. And the air was never so clear.
As they approached their cabana, Liz broke the silence by asking, "Fran, do you really think Ramon's going to release us and the plane soon?"
"Who knows," Fran answered, sighing deeply, "Let's handle one thing at a time. Right now we've got to convince Bill to come to dinner tonight in Ramon's suite. And we have to act with him as though nothing had happened," she said.
"Do you think he's still asleep?" Liz asked, continued.
"Come on in and talk to him with me and we'll see," Fran replied as she tried the door to their room and found it locked.
"Who's there?" Bill's voice came from inside.
"It's Liz and me."
"What in the hell happened to you two?" he questioned unhappily as he unlocked and opened the door.
"Well it's a long story, darling," replied Fran. "Right now the important thing is that we're all due back in the hotel in twenty minutes to have dinner with Ramon. He's ordered all three of us to come, and we're going to have to go because it may make the difference of how soon we get out of this place."
Bill stood in his bathrobe, a perplexed look on his face.
"What do you think he wants?" he asked.
"Whatever it is," Liz answered, "it's important that we go. I'll go next door and get dressed Fran said, agreeing, "I've got to begin getting ready this instant myself. And Bill, you need a shave," she added hurriedly over her shoulder, heading toward the bathroom.
The bewildered husband heard Fran turning on the shower as he went toward his suitcase to take out the fresh tropical worsted suit folded carefully there. Fran had bought it for him just a few days before and he had never worn it.
As Fran stood under the tingling shower, she tried to make up her mind what she would wear. She knew that she should look her best if Ramon was going to be convinced that he should allow them all to fly on to Miami. She briefly considered her new lavender pants suit but realized the evening was much too warm for that, and then finally decided on the white mini-skirt which clung so lovingly to her sleekly tapered thighs. Back in Shaker Heights everybody said she looked "sexy" in the dress.
Clean, she turned the temperature knob on the shower briefly to colder, and twisted her body to allow the chilling sensation to strike her directly on the lower belly and pubic mound. She closed her eyes under the stinging spray and shuddered deliciously. It was odd, she thought, already there was a building excitement in her loins about this evening; something was going to happen? that's why she had sub-consciously decided to wear the white mini.
Then, without speaking, he handed Fran a folded handwritten note, before spinning on his heel and leaving them alone once applied a base green eye makeup, realizing how well it blended with her full blonde hair and the new tan she had acquired just that afternoon in her hours by the pool. Then she went to her luggage and unhesitatingly picked a sleeveless, skin-tight, lace jump suit that indented in the slightly hair-fringed vaginal cleft and the smooth white crevice between her buttocks. Her full fleshy breasts swelled breathlessly out of the top. After adding a pair of long pendant earrings that Al had given her for her last birthday, the attractive young girl gave a final quick brash to her side.
But instead he led them from the hall up an ornate cast iron staircase to a higher level. A fan with blades as big as an old airplane propeller turned lazily over the landing, but it did nothing to dispel the heated beads of sweat on Fran's forehead. She was relieved to find, as Ramon swung open the big double doors to his suite on the second floor, that it was apparently fully air-conditioned just as was his office.
Big French windows led from the main room that they entered, apparently to the balcony that circled the second floor of the hotel outside. But these had been shut in order to keep the cool air in.
"Please sit down," Ramon gestured to a large dining table, luxuriously set with antique silverware, expensive china, and lace napkins. Two huge candelabra threw flickering gold light throughout the room.
The 8-course dinner was impeccably served by one of Ramon's men who had put on an immaculate white waiters jacket for the occasion. Ramon's conversation through dinner was absolutely polite, and the Americans found themselves listening with deep interest to a discussion of the natural beauties of the Caribbean and the history of the hotel in which they were sitting. Twice, Bill almost interrupted to ask Ramon about his motives in hijacking the plane, but then thought the better of it. Fran and Liz waited expectantly, but in vain, for Ramon to bring up the subject of Charles and whether or not he was willing to cooperate.
As the four of them sat eating, Ramon's frequent looks at Liz were frank and rather curious. The gourmet food and vast quantities of wine seemed to go to all of their heads, and by the time they got up from the table, everyone was feeling a warm mellowness. Bill even found himself joking with Ramon as though they were old friends.
As for Fran, she was again amazed at the intense charm of the darkly handsome hijacker.
Liz, who had rarely drunk wine before, was bubbling over inside as she responded to the attention both males were giving her.
They moved back into the other room again and, after enjoying a tropical liqueur around the coffee table, Ramon rose and asked Liz if she would be interested in seeing the communications center that he had set up. Bill started to get up accompany them, but Fran pushed him back into his chair and hissed, "Ramon didn't ask us."
"We'll be right back, my friends," called the Cuban cheerily, as he and the drunken young girl walked out of the suite and down the hall to another door. Taking keys from his pocket, Ramon opened the door and led her inside. Liz fell against him giggling in the semi-darkness before he turned on the light and closed the door.
"Ramon, you're simply wonderful to take all this trouble with me," Liz said as she walked slowly around the room, trying to look impressed as she stared uncomprehendingly at the elaborate short-wave communication equipment.
"And you're a wonderful guest," Ramon said softly as he approached her from behind and put one hand down lightly on her gently flaring hip.
Liz spun around and found herself staring directly into his handsome face. "Ramon... " she breathed. "Let me show you something else," he whispered as his knowledgeable hands began to move boldly over the tightly stretched material, caressing her young, trembling buttocks.
"Oh no, Ramon," said Liz feebly, "we shouldn't... "
Waiting in the suite Fran and Bill had begun to discuss the reasons why the hi-jack leader had been so eager to take Liz away to see his communications center. Almost as soon as the young girl had been led giggling from the room, Bill had begun to express concern.
"I think I'd better go see what's going on," he said. "That Ramon is the kind of guy a young innocent girl would find hard to handle."
"I think all that wine went a little bit to Liz's head," commented Fran, remembering her younger sister's outfit and the fact that the girl was naked under the jumpsuit. "Maybe we should find out what they're doing."
"I'll take a look out in the hall and see if I can see what's up," Bill answered.
Her husband was already moving to open the door when Fran abruptly remembered the apparent intimacy that had been building up all through the trip so far between Bill and Liz. Was that why Bill was so eager to go and search for Liz? Was he jealous?
"Wait a minute, Bill," she said firmly. "If anybody's going to go to look for them, it should be me."
"No, just sit tight. I'll be right back," Bill replied adamantly.
Fran rose and stood in front of him. "But Ramon and his men might not think too much of you spying around the hotel without their permission. Let me go. Remember, Ramon knows me better," she added.
"Well... I don't know," Bill answered.
"Don't worry, if anybody sees me I can make any one of a million excuses," his wife replied.
"Well, OK. But, Christ, be careful. And yell if you want me to come," said Bill.
"I'll be right back, darling." Fran opened the door quietly and looked each way, then stepped out.
A moment later, she was moving rapidly down the hall in the direction in which she thought she had heard Ramon opening another door a few minutes before.
She hesitated outside, listening for any sign of life, then stealthily opened the door. At once she could hear her sister's voice protesting something softly. What was happening? What was this depraved man attempting to do now?
It did sound as though something was going on. Fran inched the door open another fraction. Now she could see Ramon slowly pulling down the long zipper in the back of her jumpsuit. It peeled off her shoulders like a thin, second skin and the softly fleshed mounds of her young breasts gleamed warmly in the light. The hi-jack leader buried his head hungrily between the succulent globes.
"No, Ramon," Liz was saying, dizzily pushing at his head with her hands. "Oh... Oh... Ramon."
Whatever her little sister's experience with men might really be, Fran realized in a flash that she could not let this go on any further. It was her duty to protect Liz just as she had done through their childhood when there had been no father to perform that function. Fran knew that right now she had to do anything necessary to keep Liz safe from this vile beast; then after Liz's head had cleared from the wine, it would be the girl's own business what she wanted to do with men or have men do to her.
Closing the door again with extreme care, Fran then immediately knocked on it, calling out, "Hello. You two in there?"
Waiting for perhaps five seconds, Fran then opened the door confidently and stepped into the room to see her sister hurriedly zipping up the back of the jumpsuit. Ramon stood now with his hands on hips glaring angrily at Fran.
Before the young American wife could say anything, Ramon strode past her to the door and hammered on the entrance to another room directly across the hall, called, "Hans. Come here this minute."
Hans appeared quickly, pulling on his T-shirt.
"I'll do whatever you want, Ramon, but please let my little sister alone." Fran pleaded from him, knowing now there was going to be trouble and resigned to almost anything just as long as her sister was safe. "You really mean that, don't you?" Ramon smiled, as he turned now to study the two girls. Hans stood waiting, ready to do whatever Ramon ordered.
"Yes," Fran replied, a shiver of expectation running up her spine. In spite of herself she remembered the images of herself she had seen on the television tape that afternoon, the pictures and sound of this man humbling her in her drugged defenselessness, yet she remembered, too, how this man had drawn sexual responses out of her that she had never known were there before.
Striding back into the room, Ramon took Liz by the arm and, leading her to the door, pushed her toward Hans.
"Take her to the storeroom. Lock her in there, and keep her husband occupied in the dining room." he ordered.
Then he shut the door. Smiling, he turned toward Fran. "This time, you will feel everything. And it will be good to you," he said.