Slither (5 page)

"Whatever."

She was sitting on him, looking down. Beads of
sweat glittered on her skin, like jewels. At one point
she arched her back to gaze upward at the trees, and
her head disappeared in the cusp of her considerable
cleavage. "That's a neat trick," Alan said.

`What?'

'Nothin', babe."

Their lovemaking had put him to the test, but he
couldn't let her know that. Jesus. A steamroller. Her
tanlines raved: the Cool Whip-white pubis-hair-freesitting in the middle of all that peanut butter brown.
Alan marveled. She didn't keep shaved for all the other
guys, he knew. Guys always talked. I guess I'm special!
The tan lines of her breasts were even more pronounced when she looked back down at him and
grinned. "'T'hat was great, Alan."

"Oh yeah?-

She jumped off him and scampered away, nude as a wood sprite. Her carbon-black hair danced around her
head. "Come on!"

Shit, I'm too tired to get up! "I'll be in. Gonna lie
here for a few, grab some TM."

"Whatever." The chirpy giggle faded.

Man...

The island was great. Alan had partied out here
about a year ago. Waiting for the high tide had been a
bitch, but once they'd found the inlet, the rest was a
breeze. At first he'd' feared that all Leona saw him as
was a rich kid with a nice boat. Called that one wrong,
he thought to himself. Guess I'm more of a package
than I thought. It was a gratifying revelation.

Eventually he dragged himself up. He hobbled barefoot over twigs and dead palm branches, and made his
way back to the shed. "What are you doing?" he yelled
in the doorway

Leona paused midcut. Still naked, she stood with a
pair of scissors at her jeans. "I'm turning these into cutoffs. Didn't know it would be this hot."

Alan was outraged. "I got you those for your birthday!
That's a hundred-and-fifty-dollar pair of Sevens jeans!"

Her bare shoulders shrugged as she snipped off the
last leg. "Now they're a hundred-and-fifty-dollar pair of
Seven-brand cutoffs." She squeezed into them, fastened the button below the slitlike navel, then stood up
on her tiptoes and raised her arms. "There. Now you
can see more of my legs. What, you don't approve?"

Alan gulped. A topless Leona in cutoffs not much
bigger than a pair of panties? "I approve."

"Thought you would."

Alan stepped into his trunks and looked around. This
old shack was ramshackle but it would do. They'd
brought summer-weight sleeping bags, plus the Coleman to cook on. And a big cooler of booze, he reminded
himself.

"Look what I found," she said, handing him something.

An embroidered patch. A gold-rimmed shield with
three arrows and a lightning bolt. Letters read: u.s.
ARMY MISSILE COMMAND. "Where'd you find this?"

"The shelf."

"This place was a missile base a long time ago," Alan
recalled, "but the missiles are long gone. The old station is on the other side of the island."

Her eyes widened with a question. "There are army
people on the island?"

"No, no. It's all closed down. I'm sure this shack is
where they stored stuff. It was ages ago, back when
guys like Ford and Carter were in office."

"Who?"

When nature passed out the brains, it gave her tits
instead, Alan mused. Now she was puttering with
things in her bag, breasts roving. The pose, bent over
like that, gave him butterflies.

"So you're sure there's no one else on the island?"

"I'm sure. No one comes here," he said. "Why would
they?"

"To party! Like us!"

Alan shook his head. "It's too hard to dock. The only
reason I did it is 'cause I'm experienced."

She wriggled her butt in the cutoffs. "You're experienced, all right. I hate to think how much."

"Let's not even go there," he suggested. He'd heard
plenty about her, and Carol, too, and plenty about
Leona and Carol together, and much else. Christ, she's
only nineteen .. .

"Fine. I mean, it's normal to be curious," she said,
still busying herself and looking spectacular while doing so. "I'd tell you my number if you told me yours."

At first he thought she meant phone numbers, but he
already had hers. She meant sexual partners. "Leona," he said, "I'm not that insecure that I have to know how
many men you've been with."

"Okay. I'm cool with that." She stood back up, erect
nipples pointing. She looked out the frameless window.
"I wonder where Carol and Howie are ..."

"Out in the woods doing what we were doing for the
last hour."

"I hope it works out with them. They'll make a great
couple, don't you think?"

"Uh, sure." But he could scarcely concentrate on the
question. Holy SHIT, she's good-looking ... Her nipples stuck out like dark pink rivets set into the untanned and flawlessly white breasts. Teepees of more
white skin pointed to her collarbones: the marks left by
her bikini top. She was every college boy's dream, and
Alan was very much a college boy. Thank you, God, he
thought dumbly.

"Come on, let's go look for them."

Alan frowned. "Let's leave them be. They didn't interrupt us, did they?"

"But they've been gone a long time, Alan." She kept
rising on the balls of her feet to peer out the window.
The gesture tightened her calves and rump in a way
that made Alan grind his teeth. "I'm starting to get a
little worried," she said.

Chicks. "There's nothing to get worried about. Let
me fire up the Coleman. I guarantee you the minute we
get some brats and burgers on the grill, they'll be
back."

She spun, grinning the way a woman always grins
when she wants something. "That's a great idea, but
I've got an even greater one. I'll fire up the Coleman
while you go look for Carol and Howie!" And then she
shuffled right up and gave him a kiss. Alan grew dizzy
from the scent of her hair and the sensation of her tongue finicking in his mouth. Her breasts flattened
against his chest, radiating heat, and when her hand
momentarily cupped his crotch, he almost fell over.

"Isn't that a better idea?" she breathed into his
mouth.

"Um-hmm," he breathed back.

"And when you come back, I'll get some food in you
'cause you're definitely going to need your energy for
tonight." And with a parting caress, she scampered
outside.

Alan got his breath back and left the shack. Leona
was already hunched over the Coleman.

"You're gonna cook burgers topless?"

"Can you think of a reason why I shouldn't?"

His eyes remained stuck on her breasts. "Uh ... no."

"Good. So how come you're still standing there? Go
find Carol and Howie!"

Alan moseyed off, hands in the pockets of his swim
trunks. I wonder, he thought. Just how many guys HAS
she gotten it on with? Insecurity. He told himself it
didn't matter, because: The only guy she's getting it on
with now is me. The placation worked, for a while.

"Where the hell are they?" he muttered aloud.
"Howie! Carol! Soup's on!" His voice trumpeted, but
the woods swallowed the sound. He corkscrewed
around the campsite but found no evidence of them.
Maybe they went back to the boat. Carol was a
fussbudget. A little too prim and proper to fuck in the
woods. She'd be too worried about bugs crawling on
her, a real crisis.

The trail narrowed; the woods grew more dense. Jesus. I practically need a machete ... He stopped to
rest a minute, leaned against a tree.

What the ...

Something had poked into his back. Feels like a nail. He examined the palm tree's trunk and, sure enough,
sticking out of a seam in the bark was something that
looked like a nail or a wood screw. Fatter, though, the
width of a cigarette, and maybe a half inch sticking out.
But when he squinted closer he thought he saw-

Glass?

A bead of something clear in the center of the nail
head. He ran his fingertip over it. Indeed, it felt
smooth, like glass.

Glass as might be found in a tiny lens-.-. .

That's not a camera lens, is it? It couldn't be.

Why? What purpose?

Then it dawned on him: It's a hidden surveillance
camera from the old missile site, he reasoned. And obviously not operational anymore. The missile site was
emptied out, abandoned.

Strange, though.

The most paranoid part of him had to wonder.
Maybe it still is operational. He looked directly at the
small studlike protrusion. Maybe some army security
guy is looking at me right now ...

"Naw," he muttered and laughed. Impossible. The
lens hadn't been hooked up to anything for twenty
years.

Snap!

Alan twirled.

Fear surged for a second, but he knew he'd simply
been spooked by the camera. Either an animal had
snapped a twig, or it had been Howie and Carol ...

"Hey, you guys! Where are ya?"

The woods sucked up the call. He wended farther
out, toward the sound. Then-

What the fuck?

At his feet lay a bikini top. A chartreuse bikini top.
Can't be Leona 's. Hers was back at the shack, and it wasn't this color, and it couldn't be Carol's either because she'd been wearing a bright floral-patterned
bikini. Had it fallen out of their bags? Impossible, he
was sure. When they'd walked to the shack, they came
from the other direction. Alan picked up the top. The
tag read 32 B. Definitely not Carol or Leona's. The top
felt damp, and was flecked with bits of dirt and leaves.
Been here a while ...

But so what?

Some chick was probably partying out here months
ago, and left her top. That had to be it.

Alan grew frustrated. He called out some more, received no response. Overhead, the palm branches were
so dense they melded into one another, darkening the
forest.

Snap!

"Hey! Come on, you guys! This is a pain in the ass!
Where are you?"

This was pissing him off. He stalked forward, peering deeper. Then, for a split second, he saw a girl disappear between some trees about thirty yards away.

A naked girl.

Carol, he knew The shape of the body looked right,
and it was her same long, shiny auburn hair. A second
flash of her confirmed it: she was naked save for the
hot-pink tennis shoes. Alan dashed clumsily ahead,
crunching branches and dried palm fronds. "What the
fuck are you two up to?"

When he got to where he'd seen her: silence.

Then a jolt shot through him and he almost
screamed.

"No peeking," Carol whispered. She stood behind
him and-covered-his eyes with her hands.

"Carol! Jesus Chr-"

"Shhhhhhhhh!"

He stood stock-still, could feel her bare breasts and
belly pressing his back. "Keep your eyes closed," came
her next whisper. Her voice sounded parched, in need.
Her hands slipped down to his crotch.

Well, now, this is very interesting, Alan thought.

"You know what they say," she cooed in his ear. "If you
keep your eyes closed, it's not cheating ..." Her hand
worked into his trunks; her hips squirmed against him.

"And who was it that said that?" he asked.

"My uncle."

Alan pondered the whispered response, then thought,
Gross.

"No talking. And keep your eyes closed," she insisted.

Alan couldn't find much of a reason to disobey. He
remained standing, and let her continue with her
hands...

"I ... I don't even know what they are," she said
next. Her voice seemed to flow, like some hot, dark liquid. "But it's so wonderful. I feel like I'm coming ...
all ... the time ..."

Alan didn't know what she was talking about, and
scarcely cared. He felt her move around him now and
lower herself to her knees. Her fingers dragged his
trunks down.

I am having one HELL of a good day, Alan thought.

"If you open your eyes, I won't do it."

Alan wouldn't think of it.

Her mouth felt so hot on him. The slick friction of
what she was doing wound Alan up like a steel spring.
What had she just said? I don't even know what they
are ... I feel like I'm coming all the time. What did
that mean? The only thing Alan figured was that she
must be on drugs, X or Oxycontin or something. Her
mouth tended him so precisely that he was climaxing
himself a minute later ...

Holy shit ...

He almost fell over. But now that the fun was done,
his fears swooped down. Christ! Leona might come out
here! She might see!

Alan wouldn't have guessed that this was the least of
his fears, when she said, "My turn now," and next thing
he knew, they'd traded positions, Alan kneeling before
her, his face in her groin, and then he opened his eyes
and saw her fingers splaying over the hairless pubis to
bare the tip of her sex-and the strange, pus-colored
ticks stuck to her clitoris.

Pulsing.

Alan was too revolted to shriek. He tried to pull his
face away but couldn't, for her hand clamped to the
back of his head, pushing. When she dragged him
down and straddled his face, all he could do was
squirm beneath her. Her thighs vised his face. Alan
could barely breathe.

"Get with it, lover," she cooed.

More horror flowed over him when he managed to
glimpse upward. My God, her skin! Her skin!

Carol's skin seemed to be patched with rashes, her
suntan ruined by large splotches of the same sickly yellowish white hue of the ticks he'd seen. Worse, somehow, were the red spots speckling the patches. A skin
disease or something ... He could see her breasts
now, and noticed with heightened disgust that two
more of the ticks had fixed themselves to the ends of
her nipples.

She twisted his hair till his scalp barked in pain. "Put
your tongue in, motherfucker," she insisted, then vised
her crotch down tighter, threatening to smother him if
he didn't obey.

Alan tremored beneath her, and did as instructed.

He passed out from the sheer revulsion when his
tongue slid over still more of the ticks that lined the inside of her vagina ...