The first thing Carter did when he finally woke up was vomit.  He tried to get to his knees first but his limbs wouldn't respond, so he rolled awkwardly onto his side and threw up.  Violently.  Each retch felt like it was splitting his skull.  He'd once read that vomiting was a normal reaction after coming to from a blow to the head, so that explained the sickness.

When there was nothing left to regurgitate, he fell back against the narrow mattress.  The stench of bile was overpowering.  Carter breathed shallowly through his mouth, probing his body with his mind.  The blinding pain behind his left temple was gradually subsiding.  The side of his face felt wet, but he couldn't tell if it was sweat or blood because someone had tied his hands behind his back.  He lifted his head gingerly, and let his breath out in a ragged hiss at the sight of the thick rope coiled around his ankles.

Carter knew he was at sea.  He rocked in sympathy with the creaking ship, listening to the rumble of its diesel engine, to the water charging past its hull.  He stared at the Perspex hatch cover in the center of the low roof, watching the stars wander back and forth as he tried to
recall what had happened.

There was dinner with Angelica at Melville's (the thought of oysters refreshed the foul reek of his bile, making him gag afresh).  They'd left at ten, gone to the Marina for cocktails.  Then to his hotel room.  His lips turned up at the memories.  Her ash-blonde hair flared against the pillows; jewels of sweat across her breasts; her writhing body gleaming in the Mediterranean moonlight.  The sound of her passion.  The delicious taste of her innocence.
 
 

And then he remembered where he was.  "Hello?" Carter called out.  Nothing.  "Anyone there?"  Nothing again.

"Hey, what the hell's this about?"

Carter struggled to sit up, managed to swing his feet down onto the luxuriously carpeted deck, his exertions reviving the pain in his head.  He sagged forwards, eyes screwed tight.  Angelica had left him around two to return to her rich cuckold.  Carter had seen her out, and then . . .

A key turned in a lock.  The full-sized door at the end of the cabin swung open.  Carter recognized the man standing there as Angelica's cuckold.  Behind him were two younger men wearing white shorts and vests.  They looked strong and capable.  Carter shivered despite the balmy air.

The cuckold entered the cabin.  He smiled at the pool of vomit seeping into the carpet.  "Don't worry about the mess, Mr Carter.  I'll see that it's taken care of."

The cuckold settled himself in the solitary chair opposite the bunk, moving with the caution of an arthritis sufferer.  Carter knew from Angelica that he was sixty-eight, that he had prostate trouble and an
angina spray, and that he gave her whatever she wanted.  Carter also knew that Angelica's husband was worth over a hundred million dollars, that he was a man who had bought or earned a great deal of respect.  And power.

The old man's tanned face creased pleasurably.  "It's good that you're alright.  I was beginning to worry that Santos had hit you too hard."  He looked towards the door.  One of the men nodded respectfully.

Carter said, "What do you want?"

"They told me you like to be direct.  I prefer the direct approach myself."  The smile evaporated from his face.  "As does my wife, it seems."

"This is about Angelica?"

The old man laughed.  "Of course.  Why else would I be interested in you?"

Carter strained against his bonds.  They were good knots.  Pity.  The old man's scrawny neck looked inviting.  "Angelica's a grown woman.  She doesn't do anything she doesn't want to."

"Oh, I'm aware of my wife's independent nature, Mr Carter.  Just as I'm aware that you were hired to teach her to scuba dive."  The cuckold's clear blue eyes locked icily on Carter's.  "And nothing more."

The old man clicked his fingers and Santos strode eagerly into the cabin.  Carter pressed back toward the bulkhead, but Santos ignored him.  He offered an 8mm video cassette to the cuckold.

"Put it on."

Santos opened a cupboard above the old man's head, revealing a small television and a video player.  He inserted the cassette and handed the remote handset to his master.

"Wait outside," the old man said.  He waited for the door to close before he spoke.

"You're an accomplished diver."

"I get by."

"Don't be modest.  I admire proficiency."

Carter stared sullenly at the cuckold.  The fragile skin over his wrists burned savagely as he twisted his hands against the rope.

The cuckold continued, his tone amiable.  "You have much passion for your sport, Mr Carter.  I've never understood the attraction, myself.  Surrendering to an alien environment, burdened by all that ridiculous equipment.  Life dependent on a fragile tank of air.  And for what?  To see some plants?  Some fish?"  His smile was a sneer.  "I see more in an aquarium."

"It isn't the same from behind plate glass."

"Ah!  Too remote?"

"Yes.  Watching isn't enough.  You need to touch it, to be part of it."

"Too . . . safe?"

Carter nodded carefully.  "That's right."

The old man narrowed his icy blue gaze.  "And you enjoy the danger, don't you Mr Carter?  Being somewhere you shouldn't be.  That's the biggest thrill, isn't it?"

The old man aimed the remote handset over his shoulder.  The television flickered.  The image was dark, heavily grained, but still discernible.  It was Angelica, sprawled across his hotel bed.  The high angle meant the camera must have been on the wardrobe.  Carter cursed himself for not seeing it.  But he kept lots of equipment there, and the noise of the ceiling fan would have masked the camera's soft whirr.  And there had been no time for lights.  Not with her.

Carter stared at the screen, feeling the old man's eyes piercing him.  Carter tried to ignore him.  This was not the first time a jealous husband had confronted him.  This was just a variant on familiar scare tactics.  The old man was trying to recapture his pride, his self-esteem.  Eventually he would have to release him.  What else could he do?

The cuckold's pleasant tone was gone now.  "How did you put it?  Watching isn't enough?"

Carter watched himself undress Angelica, taking his time, unveiling her like she was Ming porcelain.  He undressed them all that way the first time.  It made them feel beautiful, precious.  He watched as he
stretched out beside her, his fingers trailing over her, barely touching, not missing anything.  He remembered how soft and taut her skin felt against his palms, and his hands tingled.

The old man raised the remote again, and the volume of Angelica's moans doubled.  "My wife obviously admired your proficiency, Mr Carter."

The videoed Carter was sliding down Angelica's voluptuous form, pressing his lips against her, relishing everything.  Face, neck, shoulders, arms, hands.  He lingered for a time over the full breasts, the hard nipples.  Then downwards again, ever downwards, across the lightly swollen belly, the gentle sweep of her hips, the firmly muscled thighs.

"Oh yes," Angelica moaned for the camera.

Carter's mouth watered as his counterpart knelt between Angelica's outstretched legs, pressed his mouth to her sex, worshiping her with his lips and his tongue.

The old man parodied Carter venomously.  "You need to touch.  To be part of it."

Angelica writhed and plunged against the tangled sheets, her fingers entwined in Carter's hair, holding him to her ferociously.  Her moans became cries, and then she screamed, and Carter fancied he could
see the waves of pleasure rippling outwards from her core.

Angelica lifted Carter's face towards her.  "I love you going down on me."

"I love going down on you," Carter said.

And then he was moving back up her, his body aligning itself inside her thighs, his erection probing inevitably forwards.  Carter concentrated on the screen Angelica's expression as her flesh gave way to his, the mix of ache and lust that alternated across her features as he slipped inside her, moving ever deeper until he was finally immersed.  He listened to her recorded cries of pleasure as the screen Carter thrust back and forth, recalling the dark thrill that had coursed through him at the knowledge that she did not belong to him, and yet had given herself to him.  Like the sea.

The cuckold turned the volume still higher.  "The danger, Mr Carter.  Being somewhere you shouldn't be."
 
 

Carter watched himself turn Angelica over, his cock greedily piercing the forbidden darkness between her buttocks.  He watched the sweat flow over them as their flesh molded, blended, using and being used all at once.  He felt his loins stir before the images and the memories, and struggled to remember why he was there. "What's the point of this?" The television clicked off before their orgasms.  Carter looked back down at the old man's wrinkled face, saw his rage and his pain as a solitary tear trickled down his leathered cheek.  His voice was barely steady when he spoke. "I may be an old man, Mr Carter.  I may no longer possess the desires that consume you.  But I still need companionship.  And love."

He got up slowly.  "I loved my wife, despite the difference in our ages, in our philosophies.  She was gentle and pure, everything I needed.  She was essential to me."  The old man whipped his gnarled hand across Carter's face, knocking him back against the bulkhead.  "The point is you've ruined that!  You . . . defiled her!"

He stood up, wiping a silk handkerchief across his face.  "Santos!  Pedro!"

The door swung open.  The two men looked eager.

"Take him up on deck."

Carter pistoned his feet as they came for him, but soon they had him by the shoulders and the ankles, their hands biting like steel.  Carter could smell the clean scent of open ocean as they carried him upwards.  He saw the stars once more, saw the burgeoning whiteness against the eastern horizon.

Santos and Pedro dropped him to the smooth, wooden deck.  They were on a large yacht, its massive sails furled.  Carter rolled on his side, then got to his knees.  The blackness was everywhere.  He recognized the solid, oily feel of deep water.  His heart raced with the realization that they were well beyond land.

The old man stood before Carter.  "I know that Angelica's not the first woman you've tainted.  If she had been, maybe this wouldn't be necessary."

Carter tried to keep his voice even.  "What are you going to do to me?"

"Men like you exist to invade, to corrupt.  It's essential to you.  I could have had Santos and Pedro beat you until you promised to change.  But we both know that would never happen."  He smiled.  "You're too
passionate about your sport to ever give it up."

The old man nodded.  Carter heard footsteps receding behind him.  He spun around and saw Santos and Pedro carrying a covered form towards him.  They laid it on the deck and pulled back the cover.

"Oh, God," Carter whispered.

Angelica was lying on the deck, hands tied behind her, feet bound with coils of heavy rope.  A wide strip of material was stretched between her teeth.  Her jade eyes bulged maniacally as she watched Santos place a heavy chain on the deck beside her.  The clanking metal did little to mask her muffled cries.

Carter spun back towards the cuckold.  "Don't do this! Please!"

"My wife is soiled goods, Mr Carter.  I no longer have room for her in my heart.  Or my world."

Santos slid the chain under Angelica's back.  Carter screamed, and the old man laughed, then kicked him hard in the balls.  Carter collapsed, barely feeling the hands that lifted him and placed him on top of Angelica, inverted, so that his face nestled between her thighs, almost against her sex.  He groaned as Santos wrapped the chain tightly around them, using a padlock to lock it in place.

Carter turned his head, saw Pedro opening a nearby locker. Inside was a bright yellow air cylinder. Three litres, Carter estimated automatically. The first stage of a demand valve glinted in the moonlight. Pedro placed the cylinder beside Carter, used two pieces of rope to tie it to the chain. Then he raised the mouthpiece to Carter's face and forced it between his lips.

The old man's convivial tone had returned. "The water here is nearly five thousand feet deep, Mr Carter. I doubt even someone as adventurous as you has plumbed such depths. But the air in that cylinder should get you some of the way."

Carter spat the mouthpiece out, fighting vainly against the chain. "Bastard!"

"Don't be so ungrateful, Mr Carter. You like the sea and you like my wife. I'm giving you the opportunity to enjoy them simultaneously."

Santos removed some of the guard rails. Carter wanted to scream as they rolled towards the gap, the chains around them clanking against the deck. Angelica's muffled cries grew fainter.

A hand gripped Carter's shoulder, stopping them from rolling at the very edge of the deck. The dark waves lapped hungrily, mere feet below them. It was the first time Carter had ever seen the sea as anything but welcoming. The old man slowly knelt down, his face looming into Carter's vision. He retrieved the mouthpiece and offered it towards Carter's mouth. "You'll need this, I think. For a while, anyway" The old man's eyes twinkled.

"Why like this?" Carter said.

"Isn't it obvious?" The old man struggled to his feet. Carter felt a foot against his back, felt the leg behind it tense, ready to lash out. "My wife said she loved you going down on her. And I always give her whatever she wants."

++++

Harry Tasker is a writer fascinated by the darker shades of the human soul. He has been published by (amongst others) CleanSheets, Blue Food, Amoret, Blowfish, Blood Moon Zine, JaneZine and Ophelia's Muse. His story 'Nadir' opens 'Desires', an print anthology of erotica. Much of his work is available to read on his website 'Perdition's Flames'. He hails from Cornwall, in England.

(c) Harry Tasker 1999 - 2002. No unauthorised copying or reproduction of any kind.