Pete Lonsdale stood on the flying bridge of his trim boat, the Sea Stud, and watched the darkening sky in the Gulf of California. He pushed his captain's cap back from his forehead and turned away from the wheel to look at the after deck below. His wife, Bunny, a startling blue-eyed blonde, sat on the railing talking to Darlene Baker, a fragile beautiful brunette sitting in a deck chair next to her husband, Jim, Pete's accountant.
Both women wore bathing suits, Bunny a two-piece bikini which showed off her figure to advantage, and Darlene a one-piecer with enough holes cut in it to make Pete want to crawl inside it and pull her body out and ravish it. Pete had to use a lot of willpower to keep from getting a hard-on looking at his accountant's wife right then.
The two girls, Olive Baker, 16, and Cathy Lonsdale, 15, were in the cabin, out of his sight, playing cards, he knew. Olive looked a lot like her mother, except that her hair was long and light brown where her mother's was short and raven dark. Looking at Darlene, now, from his high perch, Pete realized how much he wanted to make love to her.
She was deeply tanned and the bold wine-red bathing suit she wore was tight around her hips. Pete imagined that he could see the outlines of her pussy, the swollen ridges of her mons where the suit was tightest, at her crotch. He could see her pubic hairs because she had a luxuriant growth, that in the tight "nude look" suit she wore, overflowed, stuck out from underneath in provocative abundance.
Darlene was only thirty-two and she looked nineteen. Her breasts were still firm and shaped, her tummy flat. Her legs were shapely, emphasized by slender ankles and well-proportioned calves. For her size, five foot four, Darlene was a finely wrought package of sexiness. Pete looked down at her and thought how good it was going to be when he took that body of hers. Jim, her husband, was already half-bagged on Tecate beer and was spineless enough not to object when Pete asked him to exchange his Darlene for sex with Bunny.
"Ask hell," he thought. "I'll just order him,"
Pete knew his employee wouldn't object even if he asked him to dive over the side of the specially-built Chris Craft and swim back to San Felipe. If Pete told him to do this, Jim would, without serious question. Jim was a damned good accountant but that was the very reason he was no damned good as a red-blooded human being. Jim lived in a world of figures and didn't know shit about anything else. Pete chuckled to himself.
Jim Baker was going to get a good education on this trip. Pete licked his lips and shouted down to the group below. "Hey, how 'bout a beer up here?"
"I'll get it," Darlene said, "let me," and got up from her deck chair.
Bunny shaded her eyes and looked up at her husband. His blond hair, like hers, was bleached even blonder by the hours in the sun. Bunny took pride in her husband's charm and enjoyed seeing it demonstrated by the alacrity with which Darlene leaped up to bring a beer to Pete. She watched Darlene climb the "ladder" to the flying bridge and thought that Jim's wife had a good ass. This didn't make Bunny jealous because she knew that she herself was every bit as much a woman as Darlene.
Bunny and Pete had begun swapping sex partners long enough ago so that she knew what sex meant to Pete and to herself. It was a groovy thing and the way she felt about it was "whatever turns you on-enjoy!" She and her husband had been members of an exclusive private club in Riverside County, California, for over a year now and during that time they both had participated in a great many "groovy" scenes. In a way, she reflected, those scenes had helped to save their floundering marriage. They had gotten bored with each other and when Pete had found out about the swap club, their lives together had changed. Pete was younger than she was and it had been hard to hold on to him until they had loosened the restrictions within their own marriage.
She knew that Pete wanted to ball Darlene and she was confident that he would "firm it up," as he would say, today. In fact, she was looking forward to having sex with Jim Baker, who was shy and milquetoastish and tended to get drunk too easily. Bunny thought that it would be nice to turn a guy like Jim on with her charms. Like seducing a young boy or a priest. She smiled to herself as she thought about it and then, inspired to flirtatious action, she arose from her perch on the side of the boat and went to sit in Darlene's chair next to Jim.
"How do you like it out here in the Gulf of California, Jim?" she asked him.
"Oh, I'm so grateful to you and Mr. Lonsdale for inviting us down here," he said. "I-we, that is, have never been to Mexico before."
"Pete likes you, Jim," Bunny told him. "He also likes Darlene."
"Yes, I know," he said, looking up to the flying bridge where Pete and Darlene were laughing over something one of them had said. "I'm glad they get along so well together. Your husband is a very fascinating and dynamic man, Mrs. Lonsdale."
"Now, Jim, I've told you to call me Bunny. We're not formal out here."
"Of course, Bunny." Jim knew he had been drinking too much beer and he was trying not to show it. His rs were starting to slur and he had trouble holding his eyes in focus for very long.
Bunny reached over and patted the back of Jim's hand.
"Bring me a beer, Olive," she told her daughter. "I'll have one with you, Jim," she smiled.
On the flying bridge, Pete was using all of his masculine power on Darlene, fully confident of himself. He wore shorts and no shirt, low-cut canvas deck shoes and his captain's cap set on the back of his head. He was very tanned and there was hair on his chest. He looked, Darlene thought, like a blond Adonis framed against the sky.
"We're a long ways out, Darlene," Pete was telling her. "I don't even know if we can make it back to San Felipe until after dark."
"I wouldn't mind that," she said. "I'll bet it's beautiful out here at night."
"It is," he said. "Beautiful and romantic."
"Ummmm. Sounds like a delight," she cooed.
"Want to try and steer this baby?" he asked her.
"Oh, Pete, I'd love to! May I?"
"Sure. Step up here. I'll show you how." Darlene stepped in front of him to the wheel and grabbed two of the spokes.
"No, honey," Pete said, "let me show you." He stepped close behind her and put his arms around her, his hands on hers. "Put your right hand here on this high spoke and your left down here. Keep the compass setting right there at 240."
"Oh, this is fun," she said.
Pete moved closer until his chest was touching Darlene's back and his crotch pressing against her buttocks. She felt the contact and moved her body almost imperceptibly. Her posterior pushed backwards and encouraged, Pete crushed his genitals in the cleavage of Darlene's rear. He leaned over and kissed her behind the ear.
"Be careful, Jim and Bunny may be watching," she whispered.
"So? They can't see anything, but even if they did…" his voice trailed off.
"You're very close, you know," she said. "And I like it."
"I thought you would. We're going to have a lot of fun on this long weekend, Darlene."
"Fun-fun or just plain old fun?"
"Fun-fun," he said, pushing harder on Darlene's rear. He was getting hard and he smiled to himself.
"Do I feel what I think I feel?" she asked.
"Partly," he laughed.
She turned and looked up at him, her mouth slack, her eyes glistening.
"Pete, you'd better be careful. You don't know me. I get attached to such things."
"Good," he grinned. "I think everything's going to be firmed up in a little while."
"How do you mean that?"
"Several ways, honey. Just leave it to old Pete. The captain's king, isn't he?"
"I hope so," she laughed.
"You better believe it."
Darlene turned around again to watch the compass and Pete slid his hands off her arms and to her waist. Then he moved his hands upwards until they touched both breasts. He cupped them in his palms and kissed Darlene behind the ear. She shivered in his embrace and he pushed his half hard penis harder against the crack of her ass.
"Pete, you don't know what you're doing to me." she breathed.
"Oh yes I do," he said softly in her ear.
"Can they see?"
"I doubt it. Bunny's talking to Jim and she knows what I'm up to."
"She does'?" Darlene was incredulous.
"Sure. We talked it over. She knows I want you.”
`And?"
"And everything will work out. She'll take Jim."
"Oh wow," said Darlene, "you mean we're going to change off, me and you, Bunny and Jim? I don't know what to say… I've heard of such things."
"Well, such things are about to happen. Relax, will you?" He kneaded her breasts in his palms and Darlene wiggled her ass against his hardening cock.
"Well, you're making me all hot and bothered," she said.
"Good," he said. "Just remember that tonight back at the motel." They were all staying at the El Cortez in San Felipe in three cabins, the way Pete had planned it. The two girls in one, Jim and Darlene in another and he and Bunny next door to them.
"I will," she said, "but seriously, you'd better stop that or I'll turn around and make you do it to me right now."
Pete laughed and took his hands away from her breasts.
"Whew!" he said, "you're some woman, Darlene. I'm about to rip my pants all to hell!"
Darlene laughed and their mingled laughter floated down below to Bunny and Jim.
"What're you two doing up there?" Jim asked, his speech slurring even more.
"Steering the ship!" Darlene answered.
"Well, steer a good course," he said and Pete and Darlene laughed again.
"We sure as hell will!" Pete shouted down.
He looked at the sky again and suddenly his face clouded up.
In front of the low elephantine clouds hung low in the afternoon sky. As Pete watched they seemed to dip lower and move closer. He looked around on all sides and saw that some of the sky was clear but very little of it. The sun, he knew, would soon be blocked from view.
"Looks sure as hell like a storm," he muttered more to himself than to Darlene.
"Does it?" she asked dumbly.
"Let's go below and turn on the ship-to-shore radio," he said.
Darlene nodded and he set the throttles. Darlene went down the ladder first and Pete followed then went into the cabin, past the two girls playing cards. Darlene stayed on deck with her husband and Bunny.
Pete turned on the Hallicrafter and it crackled into life.
"What's up, Pete?" Bunny called to him.
"Take a look at that goddamned sky!" he yelled. Pete heard the sputtering voices in Spanish talking back and forth. He identified them as part of the fishing fleet out of San Felipe. He listened and his face grew lined with concern. He looked down at his dials. They had been making good time out to the gulf and if he hadn't been paying all that attention to Darlene they wouldn't be this far out. He pulled back on the throttles and spun the wheel. The Reibowitz sank back on its haunches and arced in a wide starboard turn.
"Oh, are we going back so soon?" Darlene asked.
"Yeah," Pete said, tersely. "Storm warnings are up all along the gulf and on the other side of Baja."
Bunny left her seat and came in the cabin where Pete stood looking out at the water. The sea suddenly turned angry, whitecaps appeared, and they could feel the waves pounding against the turning hull.
"Bad?" she asked her husband.
"Bad enough. We'll be feeling wind in a minute or two. Look at those whitecaps. The Mexicans at San Felipe sounded scared as hell."
"Can we make it back to the El Cortez?" she asked.
"Hell, I don't know. It's a long way from here. It would take full speed steaming to make it back after dark."
"I'll make some sandwiches," Bunny said.
"Swell," said Pete. "I'm glad we stocked up the Stud for a long haul, just in case."
"Why?"
"Because I know damn well we're not going to make it back to San Felipe." He was listening to the radio talk in Spanish. "The Mexicans are saying that the storm has already hit them and is moving out our way. We've had it."
"What can we do?"
Pete looked at her and at the compass. He opened the box with the maps and charts and dug out several rolled-up ones.
"Hold the wheel steady on this course," he told his wife. He unfurled the papers and scanned them. "There, by God," he said after a moment.
"What is it, Pete?"
"There's an island near us that I remembered from before. A few Mexicans used to live there, then left. We used to stop there and hunt sea ducks after the war. Sonofabitch!"
He took the wheel from his wife and changed course. Fifteen minutes later the storm struck them with full fury and the six of them huddled in the cabin soaked to the skin. The Sea Stud tossed and floundered as it made its way laboriously to the island where Pete hoped they would be able to take shelter. Jim Baker was drunk enough so that he didn't realize the seriousness of the situation. Darlene hung on to Pete and looked at him every once in awhile. Bunny watched after Jim and the two girls were below in the sleeping quarters telling each other scary stories.
Darlene took reassurance from Pete, whose eyes showed no fear. On the contrary, she thought, they showed what she had seen on the flying bridge a half an hour before – a lustful shine that proclaimed that he wanted her and meant to have her.
In a while, Pete thought he could just make out the darker outlines of the island in the storm. He gave Darlene's hand a squeeze and gave her that look again.