Harry and the Bikini Bandits by Basil Heatter - Chapter 27

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 27

And no more could Harry. Each day I saw him getting a little more uptight. When he was with me working on the boat, he snarled like a bear and made it pretty clear that he could hardly wait to get ashore. And when he was ashore it was worse. Miss Soames had made it plain from the start that the hospitality extended to shipwrecked sailors had very definite bounds. She provided us with the shed to sleep in, and she said we were free to take what we wanted in the way of food, but we were not to enter the house itself except by invitation. A few times she ate with us, but right after the meal she would disappear into the house or for a solitary walk along the beach. Harry asked three or four times if she wouldn't like company on her walk but she only gave him that cool smile and a shake of the head.

What I couldn't understand was that she seemed to prefer my company to Harry's. I noticed after a while that the only time she came out to the boat was when I was working there alone. When Harry was with me she stayed ashore.

I talked to her a lot about Harry. She sensed that something had happened between us, but of course she didn't know what.

She said, "You're very impressed by your uncle, aren't you, Clay?"

"How do you mean?"

"Somehow you always bring the conversation around to him."

"I wasn't aware of it."

"But it's true."

"I guess it is."

"He's a very unusual man. I can understand it."

"Do you like him?"

"No."

"Why not?"

"He's weak and he's full of the arrogance that comes from weakness."

"Harry weak?" What a nutty idea.

"Weak and insecure and unpredictable. I know he likes to think of himself as a free spirit and perhaps you like to think of him that way too, but I can assure you he's not. He's bound within the confines of his revolution. And the real trouble is he's a revolutionary without a revolution to go to. Basically he's a coward."

I shook my head. "Uhuh. You're wrong about that. He was a big war hero."

"I would suppose that plenty of cowards become war heroes. I don't mean a physical coward. I mean a moral coward. He's afraid to commit himself emotionally to a cause or to people. What he is really is an aging hippie. A lost soul. That sort of thing can be amusing and sometimes even attractive in the young, but not when its practiced by a man of Harry's age. In addition to everything else, he could do with a bath and a haircut."

"You seem to have learned an awful lot about him in a few days."

"Yes," she said. "I have. And I've learned a lot about you too."

"What?"

"Why for one thing you're quite beautiful."

"Me?"

“Absolutely. A most elegant young man. Tall and clean and young and beautiful and kind. Given half a chance I think I could fall in love with you."

I was speechless. What a thing to say. Was she putting me on? But if there was any hint of laughter in those cool gray eyes, I could not see it. I could not make her out. Everything about her kept changing before my eyes. Now she looked about eighteen, her skin golden and her hair shining in the sun. And what she had said about falling in love with me was crazy but kind of exciting too. I looked at the shape of her breasts under the blue denim shirt and suddenly felt weak in the knees.

"Come on!" she said. "Let's go for a swim." She yanked me up and pulled me down across the sand toward the water. She let go of my hand and made a running dive into the surf. She went under a roller and surfaced with her wet hair gleaming like a seal's skin. I went after her.

When I came up she was far ahead. Small and softly rounded and feminine as she was she could swim like an otter. I gave it everything I had and overhauled her in about thirty strokes. She turned to face me, grinning with excitement. I grabbed her around the waist and she put her arms over my shoulders and her mouth to mine. It was a wet salty kiss, but as delicious as a crisp apple.

We sank down through the clear water pressed together until we touched the sand and then, breathless, bounced up again. I made another grab for her but she darted away.

That was when I saw Harry. He was a long way off and crouched down behind a little rise, but I could still see the top of his head.

It made me sad to see him spying on us that way. He must have seen us fooling around together in the water and I felt embarrassed. Not so much for myself or Hester but more for him. I turned my head away so that he wouldn't see me looking in his direction, and then I swam slowly in toward the beach.