*** Writer’s note: this is not a direct sequel, but ‘Marlie Fucks on a Boat… Eventually’ establishes the main characters. This story continues some time afterwards.
Marlie screamed as two rough hands grabbed her.
Raw panic gripped her. “I was just dropping off your stuff,” she sputtered. Given all that’d happened, she didn’t think there’d be a confrontation. Certainly not violence, and not right at sunrise.
“You’re in so much trouble,” she heard.
She was quickly yanked aboard by the overnight bag she delivered to the boat. She was spun around and pushed into a soft bench, bag only then dropping on the deck. Those hands inexplicably caressed her cheeks and then Cheryl kissed her on the mouth.
The shock of it all was unexpected, starting from being cowardly asked by her new boyfriend, Cheryl’s ex, to drop Cheryl’s bag off after their breakup. Marlie moving in with Blaine was sudden and she knew it would ruffle feathers. And yet, the last thing she expected was to be kissed by the girl whose relationship she broke up. This… bizarre response was such a relief.
Few months back Cheryl walked in on her boyfriend messing around with Marlie while they were on a group boat outing, and instead of throwing a shitfit she gracefully bowed out. It was the most drama-free breakup Marlie had ever witnessed, even though it made her feel horrible for causing it. The kiss felt surprisingly welcoming because it seemed Cheryl had forgiven her.
Cheryl was a friend. She used to split her time between staying at her mom’s or at Blaine’s. Now she stayed aboard her docked cabin cruiser all the time and no one’d heard from her for a time. Marlie was tossing and turning all of last night, worried about Cheryl being mad at her. Dreading the confrontation. She wanted this over and done first thing in the morning.
The kiss was a new experience for her, she’d never kissed a girl. It was somehow subtly different from what she knew, somehow far more intimate. Forbidden.
She was confused by it, and she was a little surprised that being confused felt kind of nice. She had a vibe that Cheryl was bi, but didn’t know for sure until today and tried to form an opinion of it. So far it was a good one. She kissed her back after a few seconds of all these thoughts running through her head, her breathing thrown off.
She tried speaking after a minute but was shushed. When arms went around her and those hands started sliding over her back she returned the kiss far more willingly, surprised with herself. Then, when Cheryl straddled her, the whole thing felt way too comforting, somehow moreso for it being so startling.
That’s when she put her hands around Cheryl’s hips and the initial panic in her returned because she felt something. And not just how surprisingly turned on she was. She felt a yearning. She started pulling Cheryl’s body into hers, bizarrely wanting to feel legs wrapped around her own body. It was almost frustrating.
…
Ten miles away, officer Byrne watched two morons anchored in middle of the bay. After a few seconds he sighed and let his 8x42s hang down, habitually capping the lenses despite the fogproofing.
Striper season was delayed until next month. So what the fuck were those two idiots doing out there with rods out? And in this fucking weather? He pushed both throttles forward and the twin Evinrudes brought the patrol boat on plane faster than he wanted them to. He let them run wide open for a pinch longer than he had to, then throttled back to cruising speed. This new boat gave him an unadulterated grin.
…
“Don’t like the look of that guy,” Luka muttered, white-faced. The chop wasn’t the only thing making him sick now. He and a large guy called Bazoo did everything they could to blend in unnoticed. They stormed a sports store the day before and camouflaged themselves in ridiculously colorful UV-protected gear. Boat they snagged had a recent fishing vessel decal. They were wearing lifejackets, the fishing rods were up on the holders. Just two guys fishing. He popped another dramamine, wondering if they would ever kick in.
Bazoo just grunted, glancing at the approaching boat. He was staring more intently at the GPS tracer he brought along, hoping the blip would show up and it’d start beeping. But the signal disappeared days ago and all he had was coordinates he was told to memorize. There was a more accurate GPS mounted in the boat’s console, but he didn’t know how to use it. He stared at the murky water, frustrated at the naive plan of seeing all the way down to the bottom once they got here.
“Baz, what’s the plan?” Luka asked nervously. He pretended to adjust a fishing rod for show, swinging it around so it’d be plainly visible to the cop. See, just fishing, nothing to see here, he thought to himself. For all his effort, it just didn’t work and they’d somehow drawn attention anyway. The waves were making him feel so ill.
…
Officer Byrne turned the flashing lights on and gave them a complimentary patrol honk few hundred feet out, to put the two idiots in a more receptive mood. He dropped down to idle and checked on his hanging fenders. Sure as shit, he was gonna check their coolers. And that’s when he noticed something was off, even from fifty feet away.
One of the rods was obviously a freshwater baitcaster, the other way too thin for striper. Neither rigged right or even being used. No spares. He’d expected to see an umbrella rig or a spoon, but the spinner wasn’t even spooled with line.
As the distance closed, his suspicion started firming up. Whatever these knuckleheads were up to, sure as shit it wasn’t fishing, he thought to himself. The rods came clearer into view and there was still only one highly reflective gossamer-thin line to see from that distance, not two. He absurdly thought he’d see a bobber- these clowns had no business being out on the water.
Before he recognized an unexpected sound, he felt it jar his bones. It was all wrong because he felt the sound from the inside. His inside.
And that was the last thing he felt.
…
Marlie screamed in pain.
Cheryl bit the inside of her thigh, an inch away from where the bite would’ve felt fatal. It both startled and hurt Marlie, felt like somewhere between a tickle and pain. In the moment she wanted to jump away toward safety and close her legs protectively, but within a second that feeling radiated into pleasure spreading deep inside her. The bite mark got kissed and before Marlie even registered how delicious that felt, Cheryl crawled back up and kissed her on the mouth.
When her shirt got pulled off leaving her in nothing but bra and undies, she looked around nervously to see whether anyone was watching, and then she realized they’d gone inside the cabin without her fully being aware of it. She was so in the zone right now, almost feeling intoxicated by the new experience. It was a little hot inside, but an open window provided just the perfect amount of breeze for necking. It was downright cozy here. She felt an overwhelming desire to help Cheryl out of her shirt as well so she did, but that’s as far as she got.
“Nuh uh,” Cheryl said quietly, pushing her hands away, and then gave attention to Marlie’s breasts over her bra. Then under it. So much attention. Her tongue and lips were taking turns with her greedy hands. When Cheryl’s tongue pressed into her nipple and sucked on it gently, she felt it deep inside. Like a jolt going through unpracticed nerves and confusing her body very much. She ran her hands through Cheryl’s hair and then felt curious to explore with her hands, trying to reciprocate.
“You sit back quietly,” Cheryl stopped her and pushed her back into the bed. Marlie always knew Cheryl was assertive, but that was an academic understanding until you faced her in an intimate setting. Then it became indescribably hot. She moaned in a shade of compliance and when Cheryl started peeling Marlie’s panties off, she helped, desperately hoping for another bite.
But Cheryl had other plans. She lovingly kissed Marlie’s frog tattoo on her ankle, and slowly ran her kisses and a naughty flicking tongue all the way up her leg, painfully slowly.
…
“What the fuck are we going to do about that boat?” Luka asked in a blind panic.
They’d tried removing the plug but didn’t know where it was located or that it was inaccessible while launched. So they made a plug hole of their own with a.40. Minutes later, they discovered twin bilge pumps could handle that just fine. Few more plugs for good measure finally overwhelmed them, but twenty minutes later they discovered that flotation foam existed. Luckily they didn’t try shooting through the fuel tank, so they had that going for them.
They had to do something soon because they absolutely couldn’t draw attention to this place they were sent to check out. The patrol boat’s decals were absolutely radioactive and two of them felt entirely exposed. Luckily the water was empty all around them, but for how long?
“We’ll tow it and dump it behind that overgrown island,” Bazoo grunted and pointed with his shoulder.
Luka found thick rope in the first hatch he opened and tied the two boats up in unpracticed spaghetti knots. The moment they started trying to tow the waterlogged boat, the nearer knot gave way. Luka’s countermeasure was to add more knots and that worked for awhile until the bimini strut he tied it to snapped off.
As he set to retie the boats, he wished they had a tarp or some spray paint to crudely cover up the patrol decals and buy them more time, but that was neither here nor there.
“The fuck did you have to do that for anyway?” he complained.
“He saw my face,” Bazoo answered. And suddenly Luka felt primal fear when that statement put him on the same side of the fence as the cop. He didn’t really know Bazoo all that well. Bazoo’d come down from New York for this thing.
“Why won’t these fucking things work,” Luka deflected to his miserable sea-sickness and shook the tiny travel bottle of dramamine, wishing he’d gotten a bigger one instead, “they’re supposed to work!” he pleaded.
Twenty minutes later, their boat stopped moving and they discovered the excess line had gotten wrapped around a prop. Within a minute the waves got messier as they turned the boat the wrong way, facing their beam. Now they were rolling the boat more violently, making Luka feel sicker. Bazoo was yelling at him for not securing the end, which didn’t help him feel any better. From this side, half the waves had whitecaps. At least they were almost at their destination.
“Fuck, what next?” Luka whined and popped his last dramamine.
…
Marlie was in heaven. Cheryl was going down on her expertly, and after mere minutes she felt her legs tense up, signaling an inevitable orgasm soon. Her moans said one thing. Her reluctant hands attempting to gently push Cheryl’s head away said another. And her involuntary twitching told Cheryl yet another thing.
“Tell me before you cum,” Cheryl commanded her and kissed her other inner thigh. Or at least it felt like a command coming from her. Cheryl could be intense. Nodding a confirmation felt so bizarrely erotic because there was no guesswork, nowhere to go from here but be made to orgasm. It was so much hotter that Cheryl was assertive.
“Fuck…” is all Marlie could whisper as she lay back and closed her eyes.
Cheryl was kissing her clit, alternating between licking and sucking it. Her head turned with the motion and her tongue kept going off reservation, slowly sliding elsewhere over her skin, teasing her. It felt great, beyond description, but Marlie regretfully wanted it all to stop. She felt mortified, didn’t know how to ask.
“Please stop,” she tried directly because there was no finer way to do it.
“Why?” Cheryl asked playfully but kept going.
“Because,…” and truth be told, Marlie really didn’t want her to stop. But she was about to die of embarrassment. There was a measurable sense of shame in what she was about to say and it always haunted her to confide. It was ugly. It’d ruin the moment. Despite the intimacy of the moment, some things were very private. When Cheryl continued pleasuring her, she realized she had to make it stop and now before it was too late.
“Bec…because I might make a mess,” she blurted out, and started getting up. There were some things she could only take so far and she was glad Cheryl stopped.
Cheryl stroked Marlie’s thighs and looked her in the eye for a few intense seconds, then gently slid her hands all the way up to Marlie’s huge breasts, enjoying them. She’d been shamelessly staring at them all day some months back and today she decided she wouldn’t waste a moment testing her cravings. She gently pushed Marlie back into the bed and went back to eating her out, nothing would stop her. She was lightly swishing warm saliva while sucking on Marlie’s clit and to Marlie, fuck, that felt so awesome. Just not… now, Marlie thought.
Marlie wanted to just disappear but someone’s horny fingers playing with her nipples arrested her protests. The humiliation that this lesser-known part of her triggered was something she carried with her all her life. But something about Cheryl’s confident intent helped her put it on hold. Her legs started shaking a little more, a tell she couldn’t control. Fuck, Cheryl’s tonguework was expert. She moaned..
“Oh…” she moaned again, “…I’m gonna…” She tried to stop it, but Cheryl’s mouth was unrelenting. Her tongue was flicking so fast now. Marlie now wanted her to keep going… just please keep going…
The tongue kept pressing right through the skin, right on her button and the suction was divine. It kept changing directions, up down, left right, diagonally and she couldn’t tell which way she liked it better, all ways were. It felt a little bit weird, just a little bit vulnerable to spread your legs for someone’s mouth.
Marlie again changed her mind about letting Cheryl continue and didn’t want to embarrass herself, so she ran her hand through Cheryl’s hair to guide her away, but Cheryl didn’t budge an inch.
She tried more forcefully and instead all she got was Cheryl’s tongue deep inside her, teasing her. It caught her off guard and she’d bucked against it, hoping it could reach just a little further, but that lasted only a moment. The hungry mouth resumed eating her pussy, lips sucking and tongue licking her clit more intensely. Harder she tried to pull Cheryl’s hair, harder Cheryl fought back and ate her out slightly more forcefully, Frenching her royally.
“Please….” she tried one last time, in a clearer tone.
It didn’t help. It made it worse. “Don’t make me tie you up,” Cheryl threatened.
That was so fucked up because she was sure Cheryl was dead serious, and that was so fucking hot. It helped her cross the point of no return. She started orgasming, and clenched hard but the squirt she couldn’t control started. She started half screaming in pleasure, half moaning, her orgasm so intense that it almost hurt. Cheryl was still sucking her clit, her mouth moving in wider circles but more slowly.
Before the bad scene unfolded, before a single pang of horror registered, before self-consciousness kicked in, Marlie realized there was no mess anywhere. And then the realization hit her.
“…you swallowed it all,” Marlie whispered slowly, amazed. All of her life, she simply hadn’t known that was an option. It was intoxicating. She had this relaxed dazed look on her face, a major release she needed.
Afterwards they cuddled, she still amazed at the level of acceptance that so suddenly replaced her stigma. All those years of disgusted looks, of dread. Of having to explain. Of judging. Of avoidance. She was happy in this moment. Her orgasm had never felt more complete, the way it ended. She wanted to make Cheryl happy too, to return the favor so she stirred after a few minutes, anxious about what she was about to do.
“What are we going to tell Blaine?” she idly wondered, still thinking about the next steps. She’d never gone down on a girl before and felt nervous about it, but really wanted to.
Cheryl sat up and fondled Marlie’s ankle tattoo. She cheerfully said, “I don’t think we should tell him anything, my little froggie” and then got off the bed and started straightening herself out.
Marlie was confused, twice over. She didn’t understand at first until Cheryl playfully tossed a shirt at her. Wasn’t even her shirt.
“What you did still hurt,” Cheryl explained and smiled gently, and that felt like a punch to the gut to Marlie because it was all true. Because Cheryl was all grace. Because Cheryl made her feel so good. Because she now wanted Cheryl. Feeling confused was an understatement.
“It’d be best if you didn’t come back,” she said a touch curtly, straightening herself out.
Cheryl wasn’t being mean, she was being truthful and that hurt far more. “My pop-pop always told me not to let people walk all over me,” she added, “Look, I was just being greedy. That’s all. Woke up super-horny.”
“And I was jealous,” she added gently and briefly kissed Marlie on the lips. But of exactly what, she didn’t say. She soothed, she always soothed after hurting someone. Kiss after a bite. “I have to go to work, alright?” Marlie nodded, like a sad puppy, and started to make herself decent. Where were her pants? Somehow she lost those next few minutes, her brain in a blissful state. The shirt wasn’t hers, but she put it on anyway. It smelled like Cheryl.
As Marlie was getting back out onto the pier, Cheryl changed her mind about being so distant, and called after her.
“Hey,”… she paused for awhile thinking things over. “Text me later, alright?”
…
The waves slowly pushed the two boats toward the island they were heading to anyway and they got mostly beached on it, still fifty feet away from the shore. It was surprisingly shallow here. Bazoo figured out trim controls and got a partial look at the prop. He managed to carelessly cut away most of the rope wrapped around it, but not all. By now, his hands were freezing. This was fucking hopeless, he thought grimly.
“This fucking mess,” he bitched and thought things over. He should’ve let the other boat just drift away on its own earlier, he thought bitterly. That idiot Luka still thought they could’ve talked their way out of it. Way too late now. Now they were beached in freezing water. They could easily call for trusted help, but they had to ditch that patrol boat first and that was difficult when every other wave nudged them further into the silt. Maybe they could get away and hide in the thicket until the waves changed direction, he decided.
They got out and started wading toward the shore. It smelled overwhelmingly like clams all around them. The water was freezing and the silt sucked their boots down with each step.
“What the fuck is this place?” he asked out loud when he was able to read the faded sign.
“DANGER. UNEXPLODED ORDNANCE,” the leaning sign read.
…
Cheryl had spent a good hour rigging pop-pop’s old 35′ draketail. She shook her head and corrected herself, no, it was her boat now. It truly felt like her boat when she’d modified it, removing the starboard cleats so they wouldn’t snag her trotline. She then had a specialized marina on the eastern shore install a rear steering station on the same-side gunnel so that she could crab by herself.
It was simple work, attaching chicken necks every six feet and cinching the knots, but she had to go through 600 feet of trotline. After her break-up she decided to try in pop-pop’s footsteps for awhile and applied for a commercial license.
Despite the pleasant morning’s delay, she kicked herself for a late start. She had less than eight hours left to set and collect. It was already pretty choppy out so she rushed to her secret spot in the upper bay before the conditions worsened. Normally this was a 2-3 man job on a boat this size, but she was just starting out and figured she’d just take her time, work her efficiency up and then grow incrementally if it appeared to be sustainable.
There were no competing buoys in her secret spot because the salinity gradient snuck up northward without many noticing. She knew that because she mapped it out with an aftermarket salinity meter earlier in the week. Her handdrawn map differed from the one the state released, because theirs was an infrared estimate and only went surface-deep. Crabs didn’t live on the surface, and they liked saltier water. She set her trotline in this sweet leeward spot she knew she’d be able to safely run later and waited.
…
“Fuck,” said Bazoo, that one word packed with meaning.
Few hours later, the waves hadn’t changed direction. Worse yet, Bazoo realized they were now definitely stranded for another six hours as the water level was still falling, low tide hadn’t hit yet. At least they didn’t step on a mine, so they had that going for them.
Luckily, no one had spotted their boats and bothered to come investigate, but it was just a matter of time. Longer they spent doing nothing about it, greater the risk of blowing this whole operation, as ill-planned as it was. They still couldn’t call for help and have others find out just how badly they screwed up so early. They had to sweep this fuckup under the rug first. Daytime was short these days and they chanced coming out of the woodwork to see exactly where things stood.
By now Luka felt better but the sight of what they saw made him sick again. Their stolen boat was now practically on dry land. There was no way they could push off now, or get rid of the damned patrol boat, but Bazoo insisted they at least cover up what they could. As they were about to toss the body overboard into the silt, they saw a boat approaching.
“Think we got ourselves a ride out,” murmured Bazoo.
…
Cheryl was on her way to run the trotline and get her first crabs out when she saw two beached boats on the proving grounds island, so she headed that way to see if anyone needed help. Even with a detour, she’d have enough time to lay another string before her legal time limit expired. She didn’t see any distress signals, but something was way off about the scene. Two guys were milling around on the shoal and one of the boats should’ve known better.
Closer she got to the boats, she realized she couldn’t do much to help but pick those fools up. Her old workboat drew only a freakish 18 inches so she managed to get within a boatlength of theirs before backing off astern. The two guys started wading toward her. She eyeballed the currents behind her and idled in reverse just enough to ensure she wouldn’t get beached and the guys could come climb aboard.
“Get your fucking hands up,” the grim looking guy screamed at her. It scared Cheryl. She was paying more attention to the danger behind her, and having a gun pointed at her was the last thing on Earth she would’ve expected to happen. “What the fuck….” she started saying and raised them.
“How do we get in?” the other guy screamed at her. He looked pale and pathetic, as if he’d had enough seawater for a lifetime. With her hands off the helm, the boat was drifting out of position and he was looking for some kind of a magic ladder. “Do you have any fucking dramamine,” he yelled at her rhetorically.
“Just grab the rails and pull yourself up,” Cheryl told him. She motioned toward the port side with her head, because all the cleats where still there. Her blood ran cold at seeing the gun but the feeling was starting to get replaced by seething rage. As that whiny guy on edge of his strength started climbing aboard, she looked at the beached boat off to the side and noticed it belonged to NRP. It was plain as day, yet she only now fully noticed it. And then she noticed that it had a body in it.
First thing the chunky guy did once he was pulled up aboard was walk up to the helm and yank out her corded VHF radio microphone out of the socket. He threw it out into the shallow water and told her to back them out of here. So that’s how it was going to be, she thought grimly.
…
Back at home Marlie took a bath, feeling confused. Horny confused, and then that horny converted to emotionally confused. Then back to horny again. But one thing was becoming clearer, which is that life just wasn’t that straight-forward.
Fucking Cheryl, she thought harshly, she was supposed to throw a fit. All her mental preparation for a confrontation was wasted. Marlie couldn’t get the thigh bite out of her head no matter how hard she tried, it kept going back to her. Of course, the hickey down there helped remind her. And that fucked up threat of tying her up, why did that make her feel so hot?
Her naughty hand went from soothing her bitemark right onto her pussy lips. She couldn’t stop thinking about wanting to bite Cheryl’s thigh back and finding out what rest of her tasted like, aside from the lips and neck that she got to experience.
And now that she had Cheryl’s shirt, she absolutely had to bring it back to her. Like soon. Cheryl probably needed that shirt pretty bad, Marlie thought, yeah, and kept playing with herself.
…
“Bazoo, ask her if she has any dramamine,” Luka insisted after she kept ignoring him.
Being abducted at gunpoint was one thing, but this whiny guy being loose with his hands was infuriatingly creepy so she didn’t offer him help of any kind. It was the second time he asked in as many hours, and second time the other guy told him to shut the fuck up by name.
Cheryl did the math and the equation didn’t look so good now. Dead-body, names, faces, question mark, her.
The two idiots told Cheryl to bring them to some random coordinates she didn’t recognize by number, but what she did recognize was that it was atop an oyster reef once they got closer. One of the last few primeval oyster reefs remaining in the Chesapeake Bay, going back thousands of years. Submerged, but it was there. She knew that place by heart because it was a favorite fishing spot for many, on clear days anyway. And the state wanted to dredge half of it, kill off the last surviving oyster colony in the bay, for like no reason any biologist could think of.
Her thoughts went back to the body that she saw far too late to do anything about. She tried to put it out of her mind, but couldn’t stop thinking about it as it prophesized her own future. It was plain as day as to what’d happened, and their demeanor was so nonchalant to a point of being scary. What was so important to kill over it so casually?
“No, get it closer, like this,” Bazoo shoved his portable GPS into her face as if that extra decimal point helped her keep station somehow. And for what? Absurdity of the task snapped her back to reality. Whatever they were after would take a floating derrick and a trained retrieval crew. Cheryl barked at him, “you know we’re in twenty mile per hour winds, right? And it’s about to pick up?”
When no recognition crossed his face, she tried to help him, “If you told me what you’re looking for, maybe I could find it for you better.”
Bazoo thought it over. Luka looked ashen, still pleading for his dramamine. That still didn’t stop him from leering at Cheryl’s body.
“Alright, keep your fucking panties on,” she screamed at him.
Threat of becoming a second dead-body didn’t stop her from being her feisty self. If anything, it steeled her resolve. Fewer choices you have, more certain you get about them, she remembered her pop-pop telling her once. She only now appreciated what those words meant. Despite her movements being scrutinized through a gun barrel, she dove for a first aid kit out of a locker.
She thought it over for a second, but the dead body she saw earlier made the choice for her. There’d be no turning back from here. She unlatched the one waterproof ammo box she kept supplies in, and tossed an unremarkable bulk pill bottle at the pale shitbird. He almost fumbled catching it.
“If it hasn’t been working on you so far, you’re gonna need a megadose,” she told him, “pop a dozen pills fast, better if you do two dozen at once. Three if you want relief right away.” Luka looked puzzled, but he did it unquestioningly. She sounded like she knew what she was talking about. Cheryl watched him pop a horsepill after horsepill, look of relief on his face growing.
She demanded, “Now, what the fuck are you looking for because my crabs are gonna run out of bait and start eating each other in about an hour?”
Bazoo and Luka exchanged looks, and in that moment they didn’t even pretend that her fate wasn’t sealed. They wore these nasty smirks and the approaching sunset worried Cheryl, it meant some very concrete things had to happen soon.
She could navigate in pitch black just fine, but, even she couldn’t see submerged logs floating down from Pennsylvania after heavy rains. Hitting one was survivable, but she’d mess up her outdrive. There was a reason why crabbing wasn’t done at night.
“Friend of ours had something… sink here,” Luka explained.
Bazoo continued, “This GPS unit has a mark where it was last seen.”
“It was being dragged behind a big boat,” Luka said, “box size of a car’s trunk, wrapped in a cargo net.”
Cheryl took the unit and pretended to look at it, hitting a few buttons to zoom and pan, but she was merely thinking furiously considering her situation.
So far, her situation was basically unchanged. She was still very much in trouble. These two morons had no idea what they were doing here. Whatever was being illicitly towed got snagged on the reef and broke off, that much was plain to anyone. But they were looking in the wrong place, she thought. Whatever it was, it was probably washed out all the way down to the Atlantic Ocean by now. They should’ve been looking for it south of here.
As inexperienced with water as they were, the amount of effort and resolve they’ve demonstrated so far was serious, which meant there was no way they would just leave and not come back. Effort they needed to retrieve their lost package was well beyond their ability, which meant that they’d have to come back later with retrieval gear. Which meant that they wouldn’t leave her standing after what she’d seen and heard.
She proposed a plan to them. A believable plan to retrieve their “something.” And somewhere between her voice sounding eastern-shore sweet and their level of desperation, it almost sounded like a real plan.
…
Marlie just couldn’t fucking drop it right now. She wrote Cheryl a text message novel, and then deleted it before sending. It was only earlier in the day she’d seen her, but she was desperate to hear back from her. She compromised, or tried to. So that she wouldn’t come off as pathetic, she wrote she’d be in the neighborhood later and offered to buy dinner. She hit send and hoped.
Marlie was so fucking confused. Being confused was more fun than she’d ever imagined. And she worried if she was being a tad more generally impulsive than she should be.
…
“Fuck, I don’t feel so good,” Luka whined out of breath for the tenth time over the hours. He was touching his stomach as if in pain.
Bazoo yelled at him, intent on his own chore, “Shut the fuck up and watch the depth meter.” He was sure there was something fucking wrong with Luka over the past hour, he was dumber than usual and fading fast. At least he stopped groping the girl, that sick fuck.
Cheryl explained her fishfinder to them earlier, and assured them they could spot and raise their “something” very easily if they just worked together. She’d faked through parts they didn’t understand and assured them that they’d definitely located their missing object, which was a huge load of horse shit. The readings were delayed and only approximated shapes underneath them. The machine wasn’t built for finding sunken treasure.
Somewhere between being completely out of their depth and being desperate, they believed her more easily than she’d imagined they would. Bazoo became noticably relaxed. Luka, despite his discomfort, started leering at Cheryl again, knowing something she didn’t.
She assigned Luka at the helm so she could keep an eye on him, and put Bazoo on the port side to slowly feed a spare trotline anchor while she handled starboard, doing the same thing. She’d told them that doing a zigzag pattern over the reef and slowly feeding the two anchors was guaranteed to snag their missing object right by that cargo net and bring it up to the surface. She lied about doing it before many times. It was getting dark and the whitecaps were steady now. There wasn’t much time left.
Cheryl started quietly forming a large slipknot on the deck, waiting for the right moment. She read the waves since she was a kid and this one she was certain about, sent by a passing tugboat a mile away and awhile ago. Those things displaced a surprising amount of water, as slow as they went. She yelled at Luka, prepared for her move. She paid out a long distance and then let go of the starboard side anchor. It sank fast.
“Alright, turn all the way to your right fast,” she screamed at him, “go go go.”
He did, like an idiot. The moment after he started turning toward starboard, a three foot wave creamed them followed by another. Cheryl was ready for it but the two guys lost their footing. Luka freaked out and ducked protectively, hiding under the antique windshield. In the confusion, she activated the stern controls and gunned the engines, wildly turning the spinner knob and generally compounding the chaos. While those two idiots were fighting to stay upright, she took her slack loop and threw it over the fat guy as if he were a dock piling, and started pulling hard.
“You fucking bitch,” the man roared and punched her in the eye. Cheryl took the hit with a scream that curdled Luka’s stomach, but held onto the line. She braced herself against Bazoo with her feet and kept pulling, cinching her rope tight. Like a fucking six foot tall chicken neck, she thought.
The man dropped his side of the line to focus on her full-time and kept punching her, landing a solid stomach blow that laid her out on the deck gasping for breath, then switched to kicking Cheryl when she fell down. Or trying to, because at that moment, the portside anchor he let go made contact with a reef and brought the entire vessel to a lurching stop. It bought Cheryl a few seconds of respite while he steadied himself on his feet. The boat broke free and kept going. She ran out of moves, she thought. This was it.
But mere seconds later, Bazoo became an anchor. With nothing to hold onto and no cleats for her line to catch on, he got pulled four feet across to the other side of the boat, knocking it out of gear with his body. He barely made a scream before disappearing under the surface.
Cheryl caught her breath, nursing her ribcage. She’d never broken anything before in her life, but she immediately felt she had a cracked rib or two. It hurt to breathe.
She and Luka stared at each other for a time. They were both sitting on the deck now facing each other. He was near the bow, clutching his stomach on the upper right side, trying to shelter from the spray. He was sweating profusely. Cheryl leaned over and checked that the remote shifter was in neutral. The wind had picked up and the boat was uncontrolled in the waves, anchored tight.
“You’re dead,” she told him quietly.
Luka didn’t understand. He didn’t have what it took to answer her, he felt so confused, befuddled. She was just sitting there watching him. There was no fight left in him, he felt so weak. “Get me help,” he whispered staring at unforgiving eyes. His organs were on the virge of shutting down, starting with the liver. He was in incredible pain and couldn’t focus to reason out why he felt so bad. Brain had been fuzzy for awhile now. Had he been a touch more skeptical, he would’ve noticed the tiny labels on the generic-brand extra strength pain pills she tossed him hours ago. They just sat apart until darkness fell over the skies.
…
“What the fuck happened to your eye??” Marlie screamed after picking her up from the marina late that night. She’d gotten a puzzled text message asking for a favor and her immediate happy context was entirely inverted by now.
Cheryl was spent, “Long story. Can you drive me to the city or not?”
Marlie could, and did. They went to a dive bar next to the closed tattoo place she worked at, and she watched Cheryl order and take three shots of tequila in a row. “What happened to you?” she kept asking but got no answer other than Cheryl switching to beer. Cheryl’s friendly arm around her shoulders were enough of an answer so that was that. She smelled like sweat, like honest work. Cheryl didn’t want to talk so they just hung out and drank and listened to music, and that was fine.
An hour later, Marlie’s uncle asked skeptically, “Is that all you want?”
He rarely worked now except for doing challenging pieces. Fact that his niece asked him for a favor this evening was the only reason he bothered coming out. He was annoyed; two of them were a little drunk but Marlie could’ve handled this, he was sure of it. This weird friend of hers with the bruised eye… was weird. He came out all this way and all she wanted was two parallel lines on her shoulder, like tally marks. But not centered. She asked for enough reserved space to complete a five.
“So are you going to tell me what happened or not?” Marlie demanded back at the bar, when it was all done and her uncle went home.
Cheryl smiled, her lower teeth slightly bloodied from a seeping cut that wouldn’t stop. Sight of it terrified Marlie, but somehow it also looked freakishly hot because Cheryl was a bad-ass.
Cheryl thought about saying something but then trailed off. It didn’t matter. None of it mattered the same way anymore. They drank and enjoyed the music and the late night climate. She smiled, “you know what, that old coot never had to repel boarders,” she grumbled under her breath.