Стюарт Вудс - Indecent Exposure

They frolicked in the water for another twenty minutes, then climbed back aboard and found their robes. Bloody Marys in hand, they greeted their fellow cruisers. Peter and Celeste dropped their robes.

“Large nurse shark over there,” Stone said, pointing. “It won’t be interested in you, unless you step on it.”

“Stone knows everything,” Holly said.

“Nearly everything,” Stone added.

They dove into the water. By the time they returned, Will and Kate had joined them for breakfast.

“Haven’t I been here before?” Kate asked, “and with the same people?”

“Nurse shark over there on the bottom,” Stone said. “It won’t bother you unless you step on it.”

“It seems to me I’ve heard this song before,” Holly said.

“Stone knows everything, doesn’t he?” Kate asked.

“Nearly,” she replied.

After breakfast Stone and Holly went back to their cabin and showered together, then got interested in each other. When they had made love for a while, they both fell asleep and didn’t wake until nearly lunchtime.

“So, is this our routine?” Holly asked. “Swim, eat, fuck, sleep?”

“Then start over,” Stone said. “It’s all there is to do.”

“I brought a book.”

“Good luck with getting it read.”

After lunch and a nap, Kate said, “Will and I are taking the tender over to Loggerhead Key.” She pointed. “I hear it has the best beach in the world, and there’s nobody there.”

“Want some company?” Stone asked.

“Nope,” she replied. “And we’re taking only one agent.” She pointed at a young woman standing by. “You. Can you drive a boat?”

“Yes, ma’am,” she replied.

“Then get one in the water, please, and we’ll leave.”

The only thing on the island was a lighthouse, way down the beach. “You remain here,” Kate said to the agent, “and turn your back. We’re going to take a walk, and we’ll whistle if we need you.”

“Ah, ma’am...”

“Stay here with your back turned, or I’ll have you shot,” Kate said firmly.

“Yes, ma’am.”

Kate and Will tossed their robes and swimsuits into the boat and, hand in hand and quite naked, they began their stroll up the beach.

The agent stood, uncomfortably, looking away from them.

Aboard Ciao , Bobby Marks was watching through his longest lens. “Two people have left the big yacht,” he said, “and they’re naked. They’ve gone to Loggerhead Key, over there.” He handed Gloria the camera, and she looked.

“I think it’s Stone and Holly again,” she said, handing him back the camera.

“No, this guy’s not as tall as Stone.”

“Okay, take some pictures.”

Bobby snapped away.

They passed a clump of bushes with a palm in the middle, and Kate dropped to her knees in the sand and held out her arms. “Come to me, Mr. President,” she said.

He came to her. “Gee, that’s what you used to call me.”

“It always turned you on,” she said, and they fell into each other’s arms.

The couple went behind some bushes and didn’t come out,” Bobby said.

“You think they’re fucking?”

“There’s nothing else to do on that island,” he replied.

“Well, the magazine’s not going to run pictures of people fucking, no matter who they are.”

“So I can have a drink and take a nap, then?”

“Why not, it’ll be my watch for a while.”

Bobby snagged a rum and tonic and stretched out on a sofa in the saloon. Soon, he was snoring gently.

Gloria picked up his camera, sighted in the clump of bushes, and focused. The couple must still be at it, she thought. She sat down on a chaise and put the back down. Soon she was sleeping, too.

Kate and Will emerged from behind the bushes and strolled back toward the yacht’s tender, dusting off the sand on their bodies. The agent was sitting on the sand, wearing a straw hat, but her back was still to them.

“Don’t move,” Kate called out. She retrieved their suits and robes, and they dressed.

“Okay,” Kate said, “back to the yacht.”

The agent waited for them to get in, then shoved the boat free of the sand, got in, and started the engine.

Kate put on a straw hat and her sunglasses, and Will put on a baseball cap.

Gloria was awake again, and she saw the people returning in the boat. She looked through the camera.

Bobby approached her from the saloon. “Who are they?”

“Beats me,” she said. “Just some other couple from their party, I guess. Of no interest.”

At lunch, Kate suddenly said, “I like it here. I don’t want to go anywhere else until nearly the end of our cruise.”

“I think this is the most interesting place we could go,” Stone said. “We should probably visit the fort and take the tour.”

“This is where Dr. Samuel Mudd was imprisoned, isn’t it? After setting John Wilkes Booth’s broken leg after the assassination?”

“It is,” Stone replied, “and he became a hero after putting down an epidemic of yellow fever on the island.”

“I’ll have the Secret Service arrange a tour, at a time when there aren’t many people there.”

“I should think we could go whenever you like — everybody is pretty much home for the holidays.”

“Oh, Stone,” Kate said, “I forgot to mention that on our next-to-last night, I’ve arranged something special for us. It’s a secret.”

“I’ll look forward to it, whatever it is.”

“I promise you, it will be a memorable occasion.”

They spent a lazy week, doing all the things Holly had enumerated. They also watched a couple of movies on DVDs, played charades, and indulged in some card games and chess.

On their fifth night aboard, they went to bed late, and everyone slept soundly. In the middle of the night Stone woke to hear the engines starting. Probably charging batteries, he thought, then he fell soundly asleep again.

He woke to a slight motion of the boat, got up and looked out a porthole. All he saw was sunlight on a calm sea. They appeared to be moving faster than on the trip out.

“What are you doing?” Holly asked.

“We’re moving,” he said. “This must be Kate’s surprise.”

“Come back to bed,” she said huskily, and he did.

Gloria woke shortly after dawn, got into her swimsuit, and went on deck. It took her a moment to realize that Trafalgar III was gone. She ran to the pilothouse and found the captain drinking a cup of coffee. “Where’s Trafalgar III ?” she demanded.

“Over there in the lagoon,” he said.

“She’s not, she’s gone.”

The captain had a look. “You’re right.”

“Where?”

He switched on the radar. “There,” he said, pointing at a blip. “She’s about twenty miles out, and she’ll be off our radar in a moment.” With that, the blip disappeared.

“Which direction?”

“South, more or less.”

“Get this thing started and follow her,” Gloria said.

Judy entered the wheelhouse with the captain’s breakfast. “What’s going on?”

“We’re weighing anchor,” the captain said. “ Trafalgar III is headed south, and we’re going to catch her.”

“South? There’s nothing out there.”

“Get on deck and stow the anchor,” the captain said, starting the engines and pressing the switch for the windlass that raised the anchor.

Fifteen minutes later they were headed south at twenty-five knots. “We can’t keep this speed for more than an hour or two,” the captain said to Gloria.

“Why not?”

“Because she uses more than twice the fuel at this speed than at our normal cruise. We want to be able to get home.”