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Lost at Sea

Carl wanted him before he even knew why. There were plenty of sailors in the bars of New York each night, and there was a lot to be said about the appeal of a man in uniform. Even just the appeal of the uniform itself had been enough to tempt Carl into some bad decisions over the years, but none of that mattered compared to the confident smirk and the cocky stroll that he spotted across the room. This little bastard thought he was the king of the world. He thought that his pressed uniform and cleft chin gave him the run of the place, that he was going to live forever and feature as the highlight in the daydreams of every man, woman and child he crossed paths with. Carl had met plenty of men like that over the years, and given enough time, he had broken every single one of them.
There was no sweeter sound in all of the world than the little animal moan they made when all their illusions about the world fell away. When they realised that the thin veneer of civilisation could be stripped back so easily to reveal the savage truth beneath it. Carl loved to educate them. All these young, strutting, upstanding citizens who thought that the world owed them something more than pain. He loved to be there when they realised there was a power in this world greater than their own. That power wanted them to suffer.
Of course, he was too well-practiced to make his interest in this new boy known. If he came on too strong, they’d get threatened and scurry back to their barracks with their tails between their legs. Carl had to tease them along, wait until they were well into their drinks and work out just what kind of pressure he needed to apply to get them to come away with him. If they’d grown up poor like him, it was a simple matter of flashing some cash and making them an offer for their help on his boat. The poor boys were the easiest to spot, always paying too much attention to keeping their shoes so they could dance properly.
Once you moved beyond those that could be had for a flash of green, there were sodomites aplenty in the navy who could be persuaded to join him for no price at all beyond the promise of his predatory grin. He liked them the best because they had the most to lose if even a whisper of what he planned on doing to them got out. Of course, he would have had no shame tarring all the other men that he raped on his boat with the same brush, but these ones couldn’t even pretend it was a lie. They’d rather deny that they had gone with him at all than admit that they liked it up the ass. He could turn them loose after he was done with them, if he so desired. Not that he ever desired that.
The last lot were harder to pin down, but were all the more satisfying to Carl when he got them; the cocky boys like the one who had just strolled in. You had to ply them with liquor, bolster their ego, wheedle them a little. It was all one great, grand balancing act to convince them that it was somehow in their best interests to come do a day’s sailing. A day on a privately owned yacht during their leave, to earn enough walking around money to make the rest of their shore leave enjoyable. Carl talked it up like it was a party more often than not, that they’d barely be doing any of the sailing at all, that there would be loose women and booze flowing freely. There would be booze on his ship, but the only women were the ones he made out of those fresh-faced boys when he pinned their faces down to the hard cabin benches and made them squeal for their mothers.
As badly as Carl wanted that new sailor, he was a creature of opportunity more than desire. When the band stopped playing and the barflies started to pair off, he’d make his play for the sailor, and if luck went his way, he’d get the boy back onto the Akista under the usual lies about needing it refitted, or needing a hand with sailing and partying at the same time. If the boy seemed resistant to the idea—or if it seemed like he was going to be more trouble than he was worth—then Carl would just move right along to the next one. He could barely move in these bars for all of the off-duty sailors. It wasn’t like he was going to struggle to find at least one to his liking who was dumb enough to fall for the spiel.
The night rolled on and the liquor flowed freely. There were very few things in his life that Carl had ever truly enjoyed rather than endured, but whiskey numbered second amongst them. And on that night, as on most nights, he went out of his way to enjoy it as much as was physically possible without it interfering in his other plans. If anything, the slur in his voice would just add credence to the idea that he was a fool with too much money to throw around, intent on partying his life away. Nobody expected to be outsmarted by a drunk man. Underestimation had always been one of the things Carl relied on. If he seemed like a stupid man, people would overlook the moments when he had outsmarted them as coincidences.
He had spent his whole life making sure to be overlooked just like that. Hunching his shoulders to look smaller. Keeping a blank smile plastered on his face when he was being insulted by people who thought they were talking over his head. He knew the secret behind the veil of the world. He didn’t feel any need to draw attention to himself—aggrandisement like that just invited trouble. If it was up to Carl, he would cut through life like a shark through water, leaving not a single ripple behind.
It all paid off when the boy came and parked himself on a stool beside Carl without so much as an invitation. In between glasses, Carl had been putting his feelers out with some of the softer looking sailors, one who’d given him the predatory up and down glance and another who took such care of his uniform that it was starting to fray at the cuffs. Both, easy marks whom he would have settled for quite gladly if luck didn’t go his way, but it seemed that tonight of all nights, the random forces of chaos behind the scenes were completely on his side.
‘I heard you’re looking for somebody to sail for you tomorrow. Somebody with a bit of experience.’ It was all that Carl could do to restrain himself from laughing as this bald-chinned twerp tried to pass himself off as a wise old sailor. ‘Now those two over there, they’re good fellas, and God knows Tony could use the money. But from what I’m hearing, you need a touch of class. Got yourself a yacht, not some little dinghy, and you want somebody who not only knows how to run the rigging but can comport themselves properly in front of your guests. Those boys, I love them, and they could get your yacht running at a fair clip, no doubt about it. But, the minute you show them somebody from high society, they get themselves tongue-tied. They’d embarrass you in front of your fancy friends.’
Carl gave a sigh and masked the smile, fighting to get on his face with another sip of whiskey. ‘Thanks for the warning, kid. Guess I’ll keep looking.’
‘No need for that, pal. I’ve got just the sailor for you, sitting right here.’
Carl made a point of looking past the boy, just to see how riled he could make him, but once again, the assumption was that Carl was the idiot, not him. ‘No, buddy. Me. You want to hire me to run your boat for you.’
It wasn’t often Carl got one so desperate to die. ‘I’m not sure. Those other boys look like they’ve been out at sea a lot more than you.’
‘That’s the truth of it, pal, but all they’ve got is time on the steamers. They wouldn’t know a mainsail from a rudder if you put them out on a yacht. Me? I’ve been sailing real ships since I was too young to piss over the side.’
Carl let a ghost of a smile through to dance over his face. ‘Is that so?’
‘It is. I’ve had more rope burns than those boys have had hot dinners, and if you want a real sailor on your yacht with you, I’m your man.’
Carl knocked back the rest of his whiskey and grinned as it burned its way down his gullet. ‘All right then, boy, get your coat.’
‘You mean it, mister?’ Delight lit up the arrogant little bastard’s face.
Carl shivered. He was going to love every moment of this. He was going to wring the happiness right out of that boy until there was nothing left but pain. Then he was going to make that pain look like a slap on the wrist. He smiled. ‘I’ve got a bottle of the good stuff back on the ship, and I’ve got a spare cabin for you to sleep it off, too. Then you’ll be all set for tomorrow. What do you say?’
‘Sounds great, mister. Let me just get my stuff.’
Carl stopped him with an iron grip on the back of his neck. When he saw the first flicker of confusion behind the drunken stupor, he drew the boy in closer to whisper in his ear. ‘Best you don’t tell your little friends about this. Wouldn’t want them getting their noses out of joint just because I picked you over them.’
‘Right you are, mister. Don’t want no ruffled feathers.’
Carl let his hand loosen, then slip down to pat the sailor’s back. ‘See you out front, then.’
Down on the pitch-black street, music could still be heard echoing out of a dozen bars and clubs along the way. Carl drifted along, trying to pick out a single tune in the pandemonium and coming up with nothing. Light streamed out from between badly fitted shutters, highlighting him for only a moment as he passed by, his haggard cold face showing no emotion whatsoever. The boy from the bar caught up to him at a run. ‘Hey, wait up there.’
‘Wasn’t going to leave without you, kid. Don’t worry.’
The boy was fumbling in his pocket for a hand-rolled cigarette, and Carl took no small pleasure in blinding him with the flare of a readily offered match. The kid looked so young and innocent in that startled moment that Carl almost threw him down in the gutter and had his way with him then and there, tossing all his careful plotting and planning out the window just to get to that perfect moment of despair sooner. He didn’t do it, because being impetuous had landed him in more than enough trouble in his time, but the temptation was real.
He slung an arm around the sailor’s shoulders and guided him carefully along the cobbles, steering him away from any prying eyes or distractions. There was more whiskey waiting for the boy on the boat, better stuff than the rotgut they sold back in that bar. That was entertainment enough to get the little bastard on the hook. Then, once he was nice and floppy, Carl would do unto him the one thing in the world that he loved more than whiskey, with his fingers locked tight around the worthless little bastard’s throat.
Come morning, the Akista would set sail, just as Carl had said in the bar. There was no lie in that. The only deception was in who would be at the helm, and what kind of cruise they would be taking. This little sailor boy would be down in the hold so that his smell couldn’t offend Carl’s nose, and their destination would be his favourite dumping ground for all the sailors he’d raped and robbed before. He never bothered to learn their names. It wasn’t like any one of them ever lasted out the first night.

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