Crude

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Once Jocko had creased her n****e back one last time and given her a final squeeze, Mickey was free to adjust her bra straps and shovel her breasts back into the cups. She pulled things into place and buttoned up the front of her jumpsuit. She wasn’t proud of herself, though she knew some of her crew would be happy to trade places with her. Mickey rested her hands on her knees and, studying her fingers, all she could think was once again she had proved to him how easy she was. Jocko need only snap his fingers and she was ready to crawl right back into bed with him. Wife or not.

Mickey felt like a deflated beach toy. “I better check in on Alison. If she vomits in her sleep, Amy says she could choke.”

Jocko pulled himself vertical. “Yeah. And I left Butch at the wheel. He’s pretty good at the helm but still, I’d rather be there. You wanna go forward? The next weather advisory is due and we can check on our position.”

Mickey nodded listlessly. “Sure, I guess. I’ll follow you.”

Mickey had neglected to do up the top button of her jump suit, a small detail which didn’t escape the sharp eye of demolition specialist, Tyson Templar. “She’s looking a might flushed,”Tyson smiled into Cat’s face. “Must have been a good meeting.”

Cat watched Jocko as Mickey dutifully placed a hand on Alison’s forehead. “He doesn’t punch any of my buttons but I can see how Mickey might enjoy getting her t**t unfolded. He’s probably built like a bull. Son of a b***h, look– he’s taking her forward.”

The two looked on with interest as Jocko held the bulkhead door open so Mickey could step up into the wheelhouse.

Tyson smiled. “That’s the trouble with these crew-boats; no privacy. Watch now. If Butch leaves the wheelhouse, we’ll know for sure Jocko has her up there alone and bent over the console with her underpants down.”

“Good luck f*****g standing-up in this storm.”

Tyson laughed. “They’ll manage.”

Cat pointed along the center aisle. “Who’s the new bit of fluff?”

She was young. Too young to be onboard with a boatload of gritty wildcatters. She sat prim and proper on an inside seat next to Rosa, the expedition’s cook.

“That must be the new domestic. I hear it’s her first trip out. Boy, did she pick a doozie.”

Cat eyed the girl carefully. “She seems to be holding up rather well, actually. Pretty girl. Heard what she’s called?”

“Yeah, but don’t laugh. It’s Precious.”

“You shittin’ me?”

“Nope. Saw it on the roster. Precious.”

Cat sat back and licked her lips. “Nice little titties.”

“Hey. You’re not supposed to be looking at anyone’s t**s but mine.”

Cat shrugged. “Variety,”and she looked again. “You’re nice but she’s young. And quite delectable, don’t you think?”

“I was young once,”Tyson shot back.

“Never mind, b***h. We’ll share. Get her before she has her first period.”

Inside the wheelhouse, Jocko adjusted the frequency of the single side-band radio transceiver. “Be a minute or two before the update. You meet Butch?”

Mickey was reminded of Brutus from a Popeye cartoon. The man behind the wheel was grossly overweight and his black beard was dirty and patchy. “No. We’ve never met.”She extended a hand. “Mickey Dalton.”

The man was focused on the windscreen. “Just a sec...”

The boat came up on the crest of a wave and the height gave Mickey a view through the forward windscreen, unimpeded, all the way to the horizon. She went pale. Ridges of thirty foot waves, as far as the eye could see, were marching endlessly down on the small vessel that held her life in its crux. The wind was blowing so hard it whipped the spume from the tops of the waves, driving it horizontally against the glass with a sound like hailstones.

The boat teeter-tottered on a crest, seemed to hesitate, then lost equilibrium. Butch paused, waiting for the rudder to regain its grip on the heaving sea. When the boat fell into the trough, he jumped to spin the wheel to correct the boat’s trajectory down. Mickey realized it was a guessing game. Butch had no clue as to how the boat would react to the descent until the sea made up his mind for him. Then he had to be quick to react to keep the boat from broaching and tumbling onto its side and over turning.

“Sorry?”he said as the boat, now under his control, tobogganed down the backside of the wave. “Didn’t catch the name.”He looked up and grinned.

“Mickey,”she repeated. “I don’t believe we’ve met. You been with Pentoxx long?”

Butch returned his eyes to where the windscreen wipers were madly dashing away the spray. “Yeah. A few years now, but Pentoxx had me out in California; was workin’ rigs in the Santa Barbara Channel. You been working the Gulf of Mexico, outta New Orleans?”

“Galveston, actually. Now this.”

Butch tightened his grip on the wheel. “Hold onto something, sweetie. We’re gonna hit.”

The boat nose-dived into the bottom of the trough. And with a jolt that could loosen teeth, they were suddenly underwater, the translucent green submerging the windscreen.

Mickey stumbled forward and tried to catch herself with hands extended toward the control console. Butch got a hand up and Mickey was shocked to feel his fingers close on a breast. She would have lashed out at him but she was too busy holding on.

Butch wasn’t shy about giving her an extra squeeze before returning his hand to the ship’s wheel. “Nice,”he laughed.

The boat started to lift again and Mickey gathered herself. She experienced a rush of indignation and looked to where Jocko was fiddling with the radio controls. If he’d seen anything, Jocko was content to ignore it so, reluctantly, Mickey elected to say nothing. It wasn’t the first time a rigger had copped a feel at her expense and in all likelihood, it wouldn’t be the last. She had learned long ago, you live with rude fingers groping in your ass or about your breasts or resign yourself to a desk job; working in a cubical in some dreary city, wearing pantyhose and making eighteen thousand a year. Your only hope of a promotion being the outside chance the boss might notice your legs and ask you work late one night.

“Fucker. Come on...”Jocko swore at the radio and toggled a switch. “The battery’s dead. I’ll go aft to the electrical panel and switch over. Be back in a second.”And he darted out the wheelhouse door leaving Mickey alone to deal with Butch.

Butch tossed his head. “Take Jocko’s seat. That way you won’t fall on your keister.”

Jocko stepped into the crew compartment, closed the door to the wheelhouse and found an empty seat. He got comfortable with a magazine.

“Now that’s interesting,”Cat remarked. “He’s left her alone with Butch. She’s f*****g both of them?”

Tyson was watching Jocko flip pages. “The randy slut.”She turned to Cat. “I wonder if she’s doin’ both of them, like together, at the same time, I mean?”

“Like a group f**k? Maybe, I guess, when she’s got a bed big enough for all three of ‘em to fit,”Cat laughed. “You got any beer left?”

Tyson rummaged in a duffel bag by her feet. “Yeah. Got ‘em wrapped in towels. Should still be cold.”

“Nothing goes together better than bourbon and beer,”Cat looked across at Precious, “except maybe tongue and pretty little titties.”

Tyson popped the top off a long neck. “You can’t fool me, girl. You’re thinking of sticking your tongue someplace further south than titties.”

Up forward Mickey watched out the windscreen as the crew-boat slammed into a solid wall of green. The boat shuddered and the wheelhouse submerged for a long moment, lifted, and then seemed to shake off the cascade of foam. Mickey wondered how much longer the glass in the windscreen could stand the strain.

“Son of a b***h,”Butch swore, spinning the wheel. “Good thing this steering is power assisted. I’d be wrung out in fifteen minutes of this shit.”

“Auto-helm not working?”

Butch shifted his haunches in the pilot seat. “Auto-helm can’t anticipate the waves and would be overwhelmed. You makin’ out okay?”

“So far. Guess I got a good stomach.”

Butch looked across and gave her a dirty grin. “And a great body. Ah– Jocko says you’re quite fuckable...”

Mick thought someone had dropped a block of ice onto her chest. “Christ. Jocko said that? About me?”

Butch, still grinning, shrugged. “Naw. I think what he actually said was you are a decent comfortable fuck.”

“How nice of him, to share out that information.”Mickey worked her tongue against the sour taste in her mouth.