“Knowing my clients, I could be at the bottom of the bay if it’s back an hour late,” Billy answered. “Anyway, I’m reformed.”
Mark pointed to the red cooler sitting in the rear of the craft and grinned. “And I suppose you’ll tell me that there’s no secret compartment filled with Mexico’s finest beneath the false floor right about there?”
“I said reformed, not no fun,” Billy said. “And how do you know so much about drug smuggling, hmmm?”
“Well for starters, I’ve been your friend since Freshman year.”
Casey laughed and ran her hand up Mark’s shoulder. “Hey that’s right…You know, I bet you could give me a lot of good dirt on our friend here. For instance, that girl he was seeing last semester, Beth? Did he ever…”
Just then, the slim blur of a brunette came running down the dock yelling, “OK, OK, I’m late! You can make me walk the plank later. But look what I got!”
From a bulging canvass bag, Jess pulled out a few scraps of tan fabric, cut with irregular triangles. One piece was clearly meant as a loincloth, the other could have been a bikini top. Both looked like stage costumes meant for extremely scantily clad prehistoric island dwellers.
“I am not wearing
that
,” Billy proclaimed, as Mark reached out an arm and helped her climb into the boat.
“Of course not, silly! That’s for Casey.” She reached into her sack and pulled an almost equally small loincloth and tossed it in his lap. “This one’s for you.”
Mark cocked an eyebrow and looked skeptically at her. “I know we said ‘Blue Lagoon’ and all, but do you really think we’re all going to parade around in these?”
“Well not
here
,” she grinned, waving at the dock, crowded with sailboats and speedboats and people milling about. It was a gorgeous summer Friday morning, and plenty of people were playing hooky and heading out to sea. On many of the decks, small groups of people were kicked back in easy chairs, taking in the sun, drinking beer for brunch and talking with friends. “But Billy promised that nobody goes to this island, it’s off the map. Totally empty. So if we’re going to ‘get away from it all’ and play Blue Lagoon for the weekend, let’s
do
it. We can change once we’re out near the island.”
“I don’t think you girls will stay in those outfits for long, anyway,” Billy said with an evil grin. Then he turned the key in the ignition and the motor sputtered to life. “All hands on deck,” he called, and after releasing the dock ties, they slowly began to move out into the crystal blue ocean.
The Island
Billy McAllister drove the boat borrowed from one of his former “customers” due south, navigating between various small keys, some of which were barely larger than a dune of sand with a frosting of scrub grass. He was really looking forward to this weekend, and not just for the obvious, expected benefits. After being busted for drug peddling and spending a couple years out of circulation, he’d decided to clean up his act and go back to the U of Miami to earn his botany degree. He wanted to erase all of the black marks of his last couple years of high school, and aborted first couple years of college from his mind. This Blue Lagoon trip celebrated the end of his first term back, and things were really starting to look up. He still had some connections with the people of his past, hence the boat, but he didn’t deal. And people had finally stopped asking him to. Now he had Casey, who he liked to say, put the blo in blonde (though he never said it to her face). And more importantly, semester finals had ended for all of them yesterday afternoon, and Billy felt good about his scores. This weekend, he really had a good reason to party. While it had played him poorly in the end, his checkered past had given him the ability to play tour guide for his friends. If he got nothing else out of three years of serving as the pickup man for shipments of pot, he now had a cartographer’s knowledge of all the lesser known keys south of Florida. And the one they were heading to had once been a favorite spot, since it was large enough to boast trees and an expansive beach, but remote enough to be unfrequented. In all the times he’d stopped there, he’d never seen evidence of another human being. He and his connection may have been the only two ever to set foot on the island, for all he knew.
“Are we there yet?” Mark whined.
Billy turned to look at his friend and saw that Mark was busy staring at the girls, who’d stripped down to bikinis to lounge on the deck. “Like you care right now,” he answered, laughing. “But yeah, actually, we’re just about there. See that?”
He pointed to long strip of sand just to their right. It was one of the larger keys they’d seen in the past half hour; its center held a thick copse of palms and other trees, and while areas of the shore were obscured by scrub grass and silver-green bushes, there were long strips of the beach that looked white and inviting.
“This is the place?” Casey asked. “It looks perfect! Do you think we can find some coconut shells? Jess’s costumes would be better with coconuts…”
“I don’t do coconuts,” Jess answered. “Too heavy.”
“Actually, I was thinking for the guys.”
“Like a codpiece?”
“Dream on,” Billy interrupted the girls’ musings. “But you might want to get off the deck while you’re doing it. I’m pulling us in to shore.”
“Where do we tie up?” Mark asked.
“There should still be a portable dock over there,” Billy answered. “We drop anchor and roll it out. If it’s not there anymore… then we all swim!”
A few minutes later, Billy dove into the water and in just a few powerful strokes was into the shallow water near the beach. He disappeared around a copse of bushes, reappearing a few minutes later with a thumbs-up signal and a rope in hand. The thin wooden slat dock rolled out into the water on large rusted metal wheels. The piece that stayed on the island was anchored by chains to two shafts of metal buried deep in the ground. Billy maneuvered the dock to the deepest part of the beach drop off, and then swam back to the boat to guide them in.
Minutes later, and they were all standing on the beach. Casey surveyed the shore, hands on her hips, the posture making her well-tanned cleavage more than obvious as she slowly turned a 360. “Nice place, Billy,” she finally said.
“That’s what I was thinking,” he answered, his eyes fixed obviously on her breasts.
A tan sliver of fabric hit him in the chest. “Suit up, horndog,” Jess said. She tossed another at Mark.
“You first,” Billy dared, and Jess shrugged. “All talk, no action,” she laughed, and without pause, turned her back to the guys and untied her store bought bikini, let it drop to the sand and then slipped on the scanty homemade bikini top. Then she dropped her bottoms, giving them all a clear view of the white triangle that remained untanned on her ass, as she pulled up the thin triangles attached to a leather string. When she tied it tight, her tan lines were still clearly revealed.
“You’re gonna burn your butt,” Mark warned.
“I brought lotion,” Jess answered. “I might even let you put it on me.”
“I won’t need any,” Casey taunted, and performed the same quick change routine as Jess, her bronze back and ass clearly demonstrating that she spent a lot of time in the sun. And apparently most of it in the nude.
“You ever study with a tan like that?” Mark asked.
Jess put a finger to her boyfriend’s chin and turned his eyes to meet hers. “Watch this way,” she warned.
“Sure,” Casey laughed. “What do you think I do while I’m tanning?”
“Boy’s turn,” Jess announced as Casey turned around, now displaying even more bare skin than her previous bikini had allowed.
Billy shrugged at Mark and the two turned away and dropped their shorts, quickly stepping into costume.
“Aw, look Jess,” Casey taunted. “They’re shy.”
“You two are asking for it,” Mark said, turned back to them. He shifted a little uncomfortably in his new island g-string. It hung loosely between his legs, and didn’t hide the fact that he was more than a little aroused by the situation.
“And they’ll get it. Plenty,” Billy promised. “But first we need to pick a camp site and get setup.”
“Let’s stay near the boat,” Casey suggested. “We could setup right over there at the tree line?”
“Works for me,” Billy said, and Mark shrugged acceptance. Jess hopped back into the boat and tossed her heavy pack to Mark. Billy stepped past her and grabbed a tent bag, and the two walked up the shifting sand to a spot sheltered between two huge palm trees. “Wish I had a hammock,” Mark observed.
They got to work setting up the first tent, while the girls brought some of the smaller gear from the boat and piled it nearby.
Mark popped in the main pole at the same moment as Jess screamed.
“What?” he jumped out from the midst of the green fabric to see her standing on one foot just a couple meters away. Her hand massaged the top of one foot while her eyes stared at the beach in horror.
Casey held her shoulder. “Did it bite?”
“Did what bite?” Billy demanded, and Jess pointed at a spot on the sand. Billy knelt in front of her and stared at the thing she pointed at.
“What is it?” Mark asked, joining him.
“A spider of some kind,” Billy answered, leaning closer to stare at its thin but spiny legs, and oval, violet back.
“Looks like a small crab,” Mark said. “Never seen a purple spider.”
Billy shook his head. “You’d think so, but that’s not a shell. Those legs are insectoid.”
“Is it poisonous?” Jess cried.
“I don’t know,” Billy said. “Did it bite you?”
Jess shook her head. “I was just standing there and I felt something tickle my foot. I looked down and there it was, standing on me. I kicked it off right away.”
Billy stood, and the spider began to run across the sand. But Billy didn’t let it go. He stepped to the left and ground the heel of his sandal on the thing, leaving a glimmering mess of violet film and yellowish mush in his wake.
“It won’t bother you again,” he promised.
Jess hugged herself. “I hate spiders,” she said. “And where there’s one, there are always more.”
“I’ve got bug spray,” Casey announced, and pulled a can from her bag.
“Does it keep away spiders?”
Casey began spraying it all over her friends’ feet and legs. “Guess we’ll see.”
Billy held his nose at the poison sweet smell. “Might keep away boyfriends,” he suggested.
“Really?” Casey asked, and then made a show of slowly spraying her arms, legs and bare midriff. Then she tossed the can to Mark.
“Naw, I guess not,” Billy admitted, and slipped his arm around her back to pull her close.
“Camp first, cum second,” Mark announced.
“Niceeeeee,” Casey rolled her eyes. “Your momma would be so proud.”
“Bet your mom would love to see a picture of that getup you’re almost wearing,” Billy laughed.
“Come and get it,” she taunted, and ran behind the palms and into the foliage beyond. She raised a hand from behind a tall green frond, and dangled the top half of her costume. “No?” she asked, with mock innocence.
Billy looked at Mark, who shrugged and changed his direction. “Cum first, camp second.” Billy grinned, and followed Casey into the jungle.
Mark turned to Jess for a kiss, but she put her hands on his shoulders and pressed him away. “Not right now,” she pleaded. “I’m still a little creeped out.”
A Path Through The Shadows
Later, after Billy and Casey finished their task while Mark and Jess handled setting up camp, they all wolfed down a lunch of ham sandwiches Casey had packed. Mark leaned back against the trunk of a palm, and belched, loudly.
“Truly a well-mannered boy,” Jess observed.
“A compliment to the cook?” he offered.
“Nice try.”
Billy stood up and stretched. “Anyone want to take a hike, see what’s around?”
Jess and Casey jumped up. “Sure,” they said in unison.
Mark moaned and rubbed his bare belly. “But I’m all full and comfy.”
“You’re coming,” Billy demanded. “I’m not leaving you here to drink all the beer. Grab the machete from the boat? We might need to cut a path if it’s really thick.”
They filed beneath the palms in the same direction that Casey had led Billy earlier, and in moments the rich blue sky was replaced by a canopy of deep green. The steamy summer heat dropped by 10 degrees almost instantly. They walked through the bushes and trees, Billy periodically slashing away a few branches, though none really blocked their path. “Breadcrumbs,” he explained. “We can follow the branches back if we get turned around.”
There seemed to be an almost natural path into the center of the island. After walking for just a few minutes, they saw why.
“Check this out,” Billy stopped and pointed to their left. Sheltered behind a stand of thin trees and brush, they could just make out the corner of a silver-topped roof.
“What is it?” Jess asked.
“Looks like a Quonset hut,” Billy said, stepping closer.
“I thought you said nobody ever came to this island,” Casey accused.
Mark stepped past Billy and walked up to the door of the small building.
“Um, I don’t think we should be seen right now,” Jess suggested, wrapping her arms around her chest to hide her cleavage.
“You were the one who made us wear them,” Mark reminded. “But I don’t think you have anything to worry about. I don’t think anybody’s home.”
Billy joined him at the door, a simple metal rectangle with a nameplate in the center, just above the knob.
Innovative Industries
, it read.
“I didn’t leave the beach much when I came here before,” Billy said. “But I don’t think this was here two years ago.”
Mark turned the knob and the door opened, easily. “Hello?” he called, sticking his neck inside. Then his feet followed.
“All clear,” he declared, and the girls gingerly stepped to follow Billy inside.
The door opened on a long thin room, about 10 feet wide and 20 across. Two doors interrupted the back wall, and Mark and Billy quickly opened and shut those, pronouncing “empty.”
Casey walked along a counter that was attached to the inner wall. It appeared to be made of stainless steel and extended out about three feet from the wall. Above it on the wall were three shelves, littered with vials, steel containers, a shortwave radio, something that looked like an oven, and several other unrecognizable pieces of electronic equipment. The counter itself was empty, except for two steel canisters at the end of the room.