Harry and the Bikini Bandits by Basil Heatter - Chapter 15

1971 Genre: Vintage Sleaze / Casino Heist

A wildly erotic novel of intrigue, suspense, and adventure...

There's a lot to be said for my Uncle Harry. Mostly unprintable. All my life I'd heard about him, and from a distance he was a kind of legend. But the moment I signed on as one-man crew to his beat-up old bucket, Jezebel, I found my hero of the sea was really a pirate. Broads and booze kept him afloat between capers—and so far, his luck was holding...

But this new harebrained scheme—to heist the loot from an island gambling casino—was the daffiest—and most dangerous yet.

And there I was. Right in the middle. Up to my virginal ears in naked nymphs and Nitrous oxide—with nothing between me and the future but a leaky getaway and a pot of gold that was fast disappearing behind Harry's private rainbow.

CHAPTER 15

We were up and away at dawn. The sun was the color of boiled lobster.

"Red sky at morning/sailor take warning," said Harry, rubbing his hairy back against the mizzen mast.

We steamed along hard on the wind. Harry decided it would be a good time to take what he called his sea bath. He lowered himself naked from the bobstay and let the water foam over him. He hung there for about half an hour and then pulled himself up and smeared himself from head to foot with Wesson oil. With his oiled red fur he looked more than ever like an ape and smelled like a salad.

Miss Wong stayed in her bunk. She said people developed anxieties and insecurities from getting up too early. That wasn't the way she said it exactly. What she said was, "Epidemic dislocation conditioning to insanity and reality beyond expectation." When I asked her what that meant she said it was just another way of saying anxiety and not to wake her for anything short of shipwreck.

We went booming along. It was great. Out there on the Banks the bottom came up and looked us in the eye. It was all clear clean sand, like sailing across a flooded desert. Not much sea life but occasionally something scraggly crawling away from our shadow. Once a big ray flapping off and another time a little shark with pig eyes. Nothing else for a hundred miles.

Then we began to see birds and native sloops. Jolly black men who sailed better than we did and grinned at us as they went by. At night the wind died and we lay motionless under the moon. Harry played something sad and sweet on his accordion, and Miss Wong sang in a foreign language. When I asked her what it was she told me it was the Chinese version of "They're Hanging Danny Deever in the Morning."

We drifted backwards and lost a few miles. Way off to the east a buoy blinked. A shooting star scratched the sky. Something man-made went smoothly through space like a glow worm. Harry was full of a lot of dope about the constellations. He knew all about them and the myths that were connected with them, and he had a way of making it exciting.

Every now and then I would think about Elvira and feel my prick rise.

Miss Wong sang another Chinese song that sounded like knives being scraped together. Harry sang his favorite number "Take It in Your Hand, Mrs. Murphy."

We ate raw conch. It had the taste and texture of rubber.

Now and then I thought of home and Mary Ann and how nice it would be to share this beautiful night with her. Then I began to think of robbing the casino and maybe getting shot in the guts, and Mary Ann bending over me with the tears running down her cheeks.

I fell asleep on deck. When I woke up I was alone and cold. The moon had crossed the sky and the stars were pale. I wondered if Harry and Miss Wong were down below making love. If they were I didn't resent it. I wanted them to be happy.

A little breeze came up. I slacked the main and let her run. The water was so smooth it was like sailing in a dream. The only sound was the chuckle of wavelets under the bow. The sky ahead turned gray and then pink. I lay on my back and steered with my toes. Just before the sun rose Miss Wong came and sat beside me. She brought with her two cold hot-dogs and a hard-boiled egg. I ate the egg in one bite and the dogs in another.

She put her arm around me and I leaned back against her. I could feel the slow rise and fall of her breathing. When I began to think of making something more of it, she let me know without any words but in a friendly way it was no dice. I really didn't mind. It was so nice the way we were.

The dawn came.