The Brothel Creeper: Stories of Sexual and Spiritual Tension (7 page)

“I lied about that,” confessed Jason, after he had finished resuscitating the new arrival, who recovered rapidly and now floated next to her rescuer with a wide smile, holding his hand.

“
Your
secret lover, I take it?” snapped Henrietta.

“That’s correct,” said Jason.

“You miserable little hypocrite!”

Jason chuckled. “Clearly you’re not the only one who knows how to play the game of deceit. I told you I like to take risks but that hint was too obtuse for you. Allow me to introduce you to Isabel. All the time you assumed I was busy with my navigational aids, I was actually enjoying fleshy delights with this young beautiful damsel.”

Isabel seemed on the verge of apologising.

But Carlos forestalled her. “Good afternoon,” he said politely. He even bowed, his head dipping under.

Isabel acknowledged his courtesy. Then she said frantically, “You won’t believe what I saw down there…”

“A ghost ship?” prompted Jason.

“No, a ruined city on the seabed far below!”

Henrietta narrowed her eyes. “How could you possibly discern anything at such a depth, especially from the inside of a sealed barrel? I think you are trying to engineer a distraction.”

“She sometimes tells white lies,” admitted Jason.

“Perhaps she hallucinated from lack of oxygen. That’s a more plausible explanation, I think,” said Carlos.

“How gallant,” mocked Jason.

“Don’t forget whose secret lover you are!” warned Henrietta.

“Are you talking to me or him?”

“That’s your choice, you fickle beast…”

Jason was at a loss for words.

But Isabel announced, “I like your dress!”

“Thank you,” replied Henrietta warily. The opposing couples floated now like two knots in a rope made of words, a rope that would never haul them to the safety of any shore. So they drifted hopelessly, almost as far apart as the bow and stern of the original vessel.

To communicate they didn’t need to shout. The afternoon air was still too serene. Not a single cloud existed anywhere, no stormy seas were promised. They were destined to drown gently.

“I love satin too,” declared Carlos.

Jason nodded. “She bought it while I was negotiating for my yacht. If we go shopping together we argue, so I always let her wander off while I focus on my own business. The São Tomé markets sell anything now, a far cry from the days under the Da Costa government. The boat was a bargain, but I don’t know how much the dress cost.”

“I didn’t buy it there,” retorted Henrietta.

Jason was about to question her on this discrepancy when Isabel shrieked. A large suitcase had bobbed to the surface near her and it was emitting faint cries for help. Carlos disengaged himself from Henrietta, reached the item of luggage and deftly opened it. A slim dark girl leapt safely into the sea while the suitcase sank back down.

“Like an elevator service,” muttered Jason.

The dark girl smiled sweetly.

“Who on earth are you?” blurted Henrietta.

“This is Luana, my mistress. I smuggled her aboard because I can’t live without her,” replied Carlos bravely.

“But you love my wife, don’t you?” asked Jason.

Carlos nodded. “Of course. But as she was so unfaithful to you, I worried whether I could trust her. I didn’t want to get hurt and I decided to betray her before she could betray me.”

Faced with this twisted logic, Henrietta trembled.

And Jason roared with laughter.

But his triumph was short lived. A new object was rising rapidly beneath him, an outline too elongated to be anything other than a mythic sea serpent or severed elephant’s trunk. But in fact it was the rolled-up carpet that he had found under the bed in his cabin. During the short voyage he assumed it had belonged to the vessel’s previous owner. Now he knew differently, because Isabel splashed over to it anxiously.

She rapidly unrolled it. The man inside fell out.

Isabel caught and caressed him.

Jason glared in his direction. “It’s difficult to judge height when we’re all treading water,” he observed sourly.

“True,” said Isabel, “but he’s considerably taller than you.”

“Your secret lover, I presume?”

“Naturally. If you are allowed to have one, so am I.”

“That’s symmetry,” said Luana.

“It is,” agreed Isabel, “and his name is Pedro.”

“Hello Pedro,” said Henrietta.

“Pleased to meet you,” replied the newcomer.

Jason shuddered, then spoke with admirable restraint. “This is ridiculous. I’ve never heard of anything like it before! But we’ve more important things to worry about. We’re drifting south and that’s the wrong direction. The next southern landmass is Antarctica.”

“Very cold all the way down there,” said Carlos.

“And it’s many thousands of miles away. I’m not dressed for those kinds of conditions,” complained Pedro.

“None of us are, not even myself,” added Henrietta.

“But it
is
a nice dress!” said Isabel.

These trite comments were interrupted by another surfacing object. It was a sack this time, supposedly filled with coffee beans but actually containing a man by the name of Fábio who was quickly retrieved by Luana. As if the situation couldn’t get any worse, it soon emerged that the lovers of the lovers were also allowed illicit lovers. Luana had anticipated the cynical attitude of Carlos and neatly pre-empted him. She kissed Fábio tenderly and stroked him intimately while her first lover fumed and slowly opened and closed his mouth like a sunfish in moonlight.

“Now you know how it feels,” smirked Henrietta.

“I do,” conceded Carlos sadly.

“Fábio is more trustworthy,” explained Luana.

“Actually I’m not,” said Fábio.

“Who is?” grumbled Jason.

Then he lowered his gaze and barely recoiled at the no longer unexpected surfacing of yet another piece of submerged flotsam, a wicker basket stuffed with a green eyed woman called Elena who seemed to rouse the chivalrous instinct in Pedro. She was
his
secret lover, it turned out, but she was only the centre of attention for half a minute or so, before that special honour went to the occupant of the next rising capsule, an old tea chest that contained a man by the name of Sergio, who was followed by Giovana, who was followed by Joaquim, who was followed by…

Thrust up from the uterus of the deep ocean, birthed out into the golden glow of the waning day, new lovers kept arriving like the breaking bubbles of a drowning mother goddess, her divine breath seeding the sultry world above with fully grown children.

Luiza came up next, followed by Roberto, Flora, Filipe, Eunice, Rynaldo and the aptly named Marina. Then there was Caetano and Jussara, Nilo and Alda, Bruno and Cristina. They arrived in a variety of mundane wombs that returned to the unknown deeps the instant the passengers were disgorged, in much the same way that highly polished and enduring ideas are delivered by offhand remarks that fade back into silence. But in fact the idea that entered Jason’s mind now wasn’t propagated by any words. It came unbidden, out of nowhere, that favourite destination of nobody, and it began fermenting until he was drunk on its odd promise.

He regarded the growing collection of floating bodies that were forming a rough circle around him and realised that the current had rotated him until he was no longer facing west but south. They were all facing south in fact. Yet he waited in silence, nervously.

They all waited, but the surface of the sea remained unbroken. Clearly the final lover had been disgorged…

Jason continued to say nothing. He hadn’t finished thinking, drinking the brew of his idea. The others grew less restrained, babbling nonsense, trying fretfully to distract themselves.

“What were you discussing before my arrival?” asked Elena.

“About drifting south,” said Pedro.

“To an entirely frozen continent,” explained Carlos.

“I’ve never seen ice,” lamented Luana.

“I did once,” insisted Isabel.

Henrietta sniggered. “But you’re a liar. Even Jason admits that. How can a ghost ship be found under the sea? Phantoms vessels don’t sink! They float on the surface like normal ships.”

“Global warming,” said Fábio. “Rising sea levels.”

“How does that help?” asked Giovana.

It was Sergio who answered. “Maybe in the past the ghost ship sailed on the surface but over time the water has gone higher while the ship stayed on its original level, so it only seems to be travelling beneath the waves. That’s the most
watertight
explanation.”

“Have sea levels risen so much?”

“He doesn’t know what he’s talking about!”

“How dare you disparage me?”

“But I never even said that I saw a ghost ship! I said that I saw a sunken lost continent on the seabed.”

“Like Atlantis, you mean?”

“Not
like
Atlantis. I believe that it
was
Atlantis!”

“From the inside of a barrel!”

“You’re just jealous…”

It was time for him to reveal his idea, Jason decided, before the moment was buried alive under the weight of petty recriminations. So he clapped his hands, his peeling palms attracting more attention with the resultant spray than with the pitifully thin sound.

“Listen to me! We need to change our direction fast, but as the current is against us, we should huddle close and paddle all together. If we drift too far apart we’ll drown one at a time.”

“He still wants to build a raft,” confided Henrietta.

“Out of bodies?” gasped Pedro.

“Why not?” blurted Jason. “It’s our only hope!”

“All of us?” asked Elena.

“I like the concept,” said Carlos.

“Won’t it feel like an orgy?” wondered Isabel.

“This is scarcely a time for prudishness! You must understand that we’re in a terrible situation,” said Jason.

“So that’s your solution!” smirked Sergio.

“Only firm leadership can possibly save us now. I was the captain of the boat when it was intact, so it’s obvious I’m the best qualified to take charge again. Will you obey my orders?”

“Why should we listen to anything you say?” hissed Henrietta. “After all, you were the one stupid enough to buy a useless yacht. How can we elect as captain a man who does that?”

“It was a bargain,” cried Jason, “and with so many people hidden inside, I’m surprised it floated at all!”

“Why
did
it break so rapidly?” asked Isabel.

“Rotten timbers,” said Carlos.

“It has always seemed weird to me,” mused Luana, “that sailors stand on wooden boats but never take into account the feelings of the trees that were killed to make the planks.”

“That’s not weird,” objected Fábio.

“The opposite is unthinkable!” laughed Pedro. “Would you prefer trees to stand on boats made out of people?”

“Bones are strong enough to suit admirably as a construction material, as a matter of fact,” said Roberto.

“What a grotesque idea!” chided Elena.

“Please stop squabbling!” shouted Jason. “This banter won’t help us! Will you accept me as your captain?”

“Depends on where you will take us.”

“To São Tomé. Where else? I want to have severe words with the rascal who sold me that floating coffin, that deathtrap! The island is the only solid ground remotely attainable.”