stag night

        "Stag night!" Speedboat shouted and plunged into the cushy depths of a well-worn sofa with a well-oiled armrest. She had changed to a khaki vest and cargo pants ensemble, and a gray cotton gym shirt, all emphasizing her flat bosom and hard body. In her fifties she remained slim and buff, muscled like an athletic man.
        She shoved Kat aside, claiming shotgun.
        "Damn you, Speedo!"
        Lounging long-legged in his leather recliner, Kit was firing up a small clay pipe loaded with Moroccan kif. He winked at Pirate Jenny and said, "Sometimes I think I have two bobbysoxer daughters instead of two lovers."
        "I heard that," snorted Speedboat. "Jen, you stay away from that man."
        Kit grinned wickedly. To Pirate Jenny he added, "That hoodlum and I go way back."
        "Get the lights, old man." Kat smirked.
        Kit reached up to a drawstring and turned off the table lamp and clicked on the little projector.
        As host Kat announced the first flick. A short one called "Central Park."
        "This will set the mood."
        "What kind of mood?" Pirate Jenny quizzed.
        "Well, we'll just have to see."


                                                                                    *


        Pirate Jenny found a seat in the other recliner.  It afforded her a view of poor McEwan's lithograph. There was Stanley and his simian friends. One man fetches a longneck bottle of beer from a wood crate and another man stares dully at the discarded poker cards, his elbows resting on the tablecloth. Stanley and Mitch are on their feet, heatedly aware of the women secluded behind a privacy curtain, preparing for bed. Blanche's supple body can be seen clearly through her flimsy nightgown. Nipples upon rounded breasts, navel upon rounded belly. Her sexually battered sister cowers in subconscious fear. Pervading the entire scene was this miasma of wistful despair and lust.
        "How're you doing over there?" Speedboat asked Kit, who wore a bemused smile.
        "I have slipped the surly bonds of earth."
        The projector chattered.
        A 16mm black and white movie about two women in a rowboat lasted about ten minutes. By the end of it Pirate Jenny understood what Kat had meant. Kat was petting with Speedboat in a very velvet way.
        Pirate Jenny was positioned so that she could view the movie as well as the lithograph. "A Streetcar Named Desire" interested her the most. But she found it difficult not to watch Speedboat twiddling Kat's rosy tit.
        Bloody hell! I'm jealous!
        She couldn't believe herself. So she decided to phone home. Maybe Johnny Luck had returned from the Dutchman's.
        Using the pantry phone, no answer.


                                                                                   *


        Midway through the half-hour black and white movie "Rules of the Game" Speedboat and Kat were hotly engaged. Suddenly the cellphone in Speedboat's cargo pocket chimed.
        "The fuck is that?"
        "My phone, you dimwit."
        Speedboat squirmed to her feet and dug out the device. She looked down at her rumpled lover and pointed it at her. "Set phasers on stun, Mister Spock."
        "Answer the frigging thing!"
        "Hello. Just a moment. Jen, it's for you. The Jolly Roger."
        Speaking to Cap, "This is Jen."
        "Got some bad news, missy."


                                                                                    *


        When Cap sat at his private table with a soccer magazine and a bottle of Matusalem gold rum he did not wish to be disturbed. He drank slowly by the tumbler because the booze was smooth and sweet. It had once been a product of Cuba before Castro snuffed much of his indigenous business opportunities, settling for a piece of Soviet utopia. The Matusalem people moved to Puerto Rico and continued to sell most of their product in the States.
        A ratfaced man called Boca Raton chewed on a swizzle stick with rodent teeth. His stool at the end of the bar was near the phone on the wall. The beast rang and Boca jumped as if it threatened to devour him.