Chapter 1

My very words ... not two seconds ago.

Two days ago I left Chicago on my dad's Catalina 33 ... was my father's ... it was mine now. It had sat on its cradle for the two years it took for my older brother and his penny pinching, money grubbing, bitch of a wife to finally run out of courts to appeal the ruling laid down by the Clinton County Circuit Court Judge.

The will plainly stated, after the houses, lands, cars and businesses were granted to Charley, exclusive of the vacation home at 201 Carroll Street in Pentwater, Michigan ... that:

As the eldest son has never shown any interest in my hobbies, to the contrary, he has begrudged every penny I spent on them, I therefore leave to my second son, David James, my boats.

To Wit:

One Catalina 33, serial number 25xxx, stored at Major's Marina in Chicago, Illinois.

One Baltic 50, serial number 9x, stored at City Boats and Bait in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

One Beneteau Oceanis 40, serial number 6x, stored at the Cleveland Yacht Club in Cleveland, Ohio.

Along with sufficient funds to maintain said boats, sufficient to be determined by a reputable ships surveyor not chosen by Charles, his spouse or any relative of his spouse.

My dad didn't like her very much. He had excellent taste.

My aircraft, my firearms and appurtenances.

There were over a thousand firearms. She was a liberal Democrat.

My camping gear.

Daddy had gear from mild to wild ... from useless to perfectly suited to conditions ... all conditions.

Oh yes ... Daddy, ever the Lawyer, laid it all out, right down to the penalties for each and every attempt to break the will...

An additional sum of One thousand and one dollars per month for life for each lost court appeal ... along with the dockage or storage penalties accrued.

The will was so cleverly crafted that I never once had to hire council. Every time the bitch opened her mouth in court a little piece of my brothers' inheritance found its way to my pocket ... and she would NOT shut up. She finally gave up when she realized the Cleveland Country Club home would have to be leased to pay for her big mouth. Of all the family homes, it was her favorite.

As far as I was concerned, Daddy had his revenge on me with the last sentence of my part of the will...

and the sum of one thousand dollars a month so long as David can show legal income of one thousand dollars a year.

I am a lazy bastard. I hike, run, swim, climb, mountain bike, fly, sail and fuck with healthy abandon ... and a dedication that my father thought I should extend to wo ... wo ... wo ... employment. I do not like to wo ... wo ... work. It's not that I am above wo ... wo ... wo ... employment ... it's that I do not suffer fools gladly and I never met a boss who wasn't a fool.

Casting about for a suitable place of employment, I was at a party given by my good friend Billy M ... when I happened to mention the dire terms and conditions of that curst document, the Will.

"Thousand bucks a year?" asked Billy.

"Yup."

"Before or after taxes?"

"Oh God ... that word..." I almost swooned.

"Taxes?"

"Oh please ... refrain from such vulgarities."

"I'll pay you one thousand dollars after the governments' cut for nine nights at Christmas break, three nights during spring break and seven nights during holidays ... from the last of September until the first of May. Nineteen night shifts Five pm to Two am."

"Doing what?"

"I own Ms Kitty's."

"Down town?"

"Yes."

"Across the street from the hotel?"

"Yes."

"The store with the rocket scientist?"

"That's the one."

"I'll d-d-d-do it."

I now had legitimate employment in a Porn store. Oh yes, nothing so remotely acceptable an occupation as a clerk in an Adult Establishment ... I managed to secure a position working spring and fall holidays and Christmas break at the only dildo shop in a small college town. There were nine thousand residents and seventeen thousand students ... half of whom were cornfed midwestern blondes of the female persuasion.

Ms Kitty's was the ONLY outlet for relief from male idiots who comprised the other half. The only adult store in one hundred and twenty five miles in any direction. It was the only adult store due to changes in the City Charter after the wife of the Mayor caught him in one of the 'booths.' Ms Kitty's was grandfathered in.

The only way Ms Kitty's would lose that grandfather clause was by a unanimous vote of all 19 council members. 18 of them were regular customers.

The rocket scientist was blonde, statuesque and blindingly smart. Her Junior year she off campus interned with NASA. One of her design ideas flew ... is flying ... it's up there ... circling the planet, sending ultra secret information to the Federal Alphabet ... we'll call her Sarah.

Sarah is one of the reasons I wo ... wo ... wo work Holidays and Christmas and have from May to September off. Cindy is the other one. I am their substitute. I am grateful ... it's a great place to wo ... wo.

I learned a lot and answered some mighty embarrassing questions.

It's a dirty job but somebody has to do it. Take me! Take Me!

At the time I was amazed at the naiveté of college freshmen. Where did the government obtain the statistics about middle school sex? These girls knew how cows did it but never for a minute imagined that humans did 'That', too.

I volunteered to cure the ignorance but, alas, I was, at 25, too old for serious consideration from the freshmen ... and not old enough for those with a father fetish. This hellish condition existed for a year... 19 nights of stay at the dorm during breaks and holidays students. The breakthrough came at the beginning of my second year, Thanksgiving shift.

The door is locked at 12:30 ... the hour and a half between 12:30 and 2am was spent mopping up the splooge in the viewing booths, counting out and placing the bank bag in the timed safe in the back, and counting booth tokens. And vacuuming the maroon carpet.

The first thing Billy wanted to see when he came to work in the morning was the vacuum cleaner by the door. Evidence that the nightshift had, indeed, cleaned that expensive carpet.

Chores done, I was preparing to leave when a timid knocking was faintly heard on the smoked glass of the front door.

"Who is it? ... We're closed." It wasn't Billy, he had keys and he'd never knock.

"Mister?" A female voice.

'Young, ' I thought.

"Sir?"

A second voice ... also female ... also young.

"What?" I asked in my very best snarl.

"We want to buy a movie. We heard something at the bar and don't know what it is." Spoken like twins.

"We're closed. Come back in the morning," I said in a slightly less belligerent voice.

Money was slid under the crack at the bottom of the door. "We want a movie about Manage a tro."

You have no idea how long it took me to decipher the words to understand they meant Ménage à trois.

Shit ... the bill slid under the door? ... it's a fifty.

"Pick one out and keep the change," the timid voice said.

"Bring it out with you, we'll be in the Volvo across the street," said the other voice.

"Listen ... the three of you find a bed, take off your clothes and let Mother Nature take her course," I suggested.

"We need three? There's just two of us."

Big heavy sigh..."Ok ... stay away from the door. I'm armed."

Fifty bucks ... I could get one of the nine dollar movies ... but we just got in a shipment of PRIVATE ... first class European porn shot on film with excellent direction, a plot and a cameraman who understood the word, Focus.

They were expensive ... and the only movies I couldn't take home to watch while I introduced Mr. Happy to Rosie Palmer and her five daughters. I stuck the fifty in the bottom of the register with a note to Billy and picked the one titled Ménage à trois, Italian Style.

I checked the monitored outside cameras ... nobody outside ... nobody in the alley ... and only two sets of small footprints in the new fallen snow. I put the movie in a Ms. Kitty's bag and held the store .38 behind the bag.

One thing I knew about college girls ... they get laid anytime they want ... unless they're barkers of the first water.

Two young girls going home alone fit the barker designation.

You know the old saying, "A two at Ten is a ten at Two." That's rating the prospect on a scale of one, "the worst imaginable," through ten..."OH MY GOD!! I've died and gone to heaven!" If you haven't picked up a beauty by closing ... any port in a storm.

I set the alarm and let myself out. The door shut, I listened for the automatic lock. I put the store gun in the dropbox slot. I heard it fall in the basket.

It's fucking cold... 2AM ... new snow ... wind blowing like a motherfucker. Windchill is probably 5 below zero. Buck up, David ... home is only a mile walk.

Across the street, a red Volvo 245 was surrounded by exhaust steam.

I know that Volvo ... um ... ah ... Brittany? ... yeah ... Brittany.

This doesn't make a dime worth of sense ... Brittany was an easy eight, borderline nine...

Who is that with her? A swirl of wind blows the steam away from the windshield.

... OH MY GOD...

It's Keirstann.

Keirstann of the amazing 32DD boobs ... Keirstann's boobs can not hold up a toothpick. She doesn't sag enough.

Keirstann's nipples cut tiny quarter sized figure eights when she runs.

Speaking of running ... cats in a bag fighting to get out. That's Keirstann's ass in ski-pants.

Keirstann ... the only eleven on campus.

I had seen them both on the slopes. Last year, neither one acknowledged my existence.

The window rolled down ... I handed Brittany the movie ... the window started up ... Keirstann leaned forward and looked, "David?"

Now I Am shocked ... Keirstann knows my name ... she knows what I look like ... There's only one explanation possible ... I must have frozen to death ... I am in heaven.

"David ... get in this car. You'll freeze to death."

"Too late ... you spoke my name ... I've already died and this is heaven ... Damn cold for heaven, though." I was babbling ... my mind had done flew de coop. I was reluctant to ride the chariot through the pearly gates.

"Aw, that's sweet ... isn't he sweet, Britt?" Keirstann opened her door. "Get in the car."

"For angels, you two are dressed for the cold."

"David, get- in- the- car." She slid out, grabbed me by the arm and pushed me into the car. She got in.

A Volvo 245 wagon is a pretty big car, as far European cars go, but it's still two bucket-seats and a console. It's a stick shift on the floor ... there's no possible way I can sit on the console. There can be only one explanation. God is reinforcing the fact I'm dead.

Keirstann is on my lap.

She wiggled.

"Hold on ... Something is trying to push me off your lap ... Oh." She blushed, "OH! ... Britt ... there's a baseball bat in David's pants."

Brittany looked between Keirstann's legs ... she turned on the interior light. "Ann, that's not a bat."

Keirstann reached between her legs ... I clearly wasn't thinking clearly ... i tried to stop her. I failed.

"It feels like a bat, Britt."

"In about five seconds," I garbled, "That bat is going to make a mess in my pants ... Let go."

I said I wasn't thinking clearly ... mostly I wasn't thinking at all ... my brain had no oxygen. It had no oxygen because all my blood was concentrated in my 'bat.'

"Ann, let go." At least Britt was thinking. "I want to feel." No, she wasn't.

I knew I'd died ... I didn't know angels drove Volvos, though.

"Oh God." Too late.

"It's shrinking, Britt ... do something." Keirstann yelled.

Britt did something ... she turned into my parking lot ... shut off the car and hustled us up the stairs ... how did she know where I lived? How did she know I lived on the second floor? No doubt in my mind ... Angels ... both of them ... God told them where I lived. It's the only possible explanation.

How did I get naked? ... and wet ... and where did these marvelous boobs come from and that's a wonderful place my bat is ... wet and warm and slippery and slippery, and slippery ... oh shit.

"Dry him off, Ann ... he can do us some good now. He's tasty ... you'll love it."

I assume Keirstann did ... I know I did. I am eternally grateful that I didn't have to go to work tomorrow.

I know that doesn't explain, "What the Fuck?" but it does explain why I was in the middle of Lake Michigan sailing north into a northern half gale.

It doesn't?

Well, the girls wanted to go sailing ... in November ... and the Catalina was the only boat I owned that wasn't already on the hard at the yacht basin in Pentwater.

I had moved the Beneteau Oceanis 40 from Cleveland during the warm and balmy months of May and June, sailing from the Yacht Club to Sandusky and overnighting at Cedar Point harbor. It's a hop, skip and a jump from Cedar Point to Kelley's Island and its interesting Museums.

People forget we fought the British twice ... the Revolution and the War of 1812. Sailing north between South Bass and Middle Bass to Put-in Bay, where our fledgling volunteer Navy fought a much better armed but slave British one.

I know ... Pressed Men ... not slaves.

If a man is hit over the head and wakes at sea, where he stands a very good chance of being hung if he doesn't obey ... where a failure to perform is punished by 12 lashes from a Cat-O-Nine Tails. Stripes that take the flesh down to the bone and leave a mass of ugly scars. If he's stuck in that ship until the war or in this case ... WARS ... are over ... that's slavery. Some men survived FIFTEEN years of slavery to the British Navy. If that same man is traded to another ship? Slavery.

Chapter 2 »