Tipsy on champagne, again, we scurried hand-in-hand to the lower level of our small, rented yacht unable to keep our hands off each other.
I fell back onto a small couch, pulling Andrea with me. My hands held my wife’s slender waist and only her cascading brown hair kept her lips from mine. She laid on top of me, I brushed the hair from her face, and kissed her. She giggled as she writhed in her small, black bikini.
We'd been out on the water for three days now with another couple, all of us friends from college in the late 1990s. Middle-class IT slaves for years, we didn't have any experience with boats. But then we finally sold our app to Facebook. (It's like Uber for Instagram posts. Cool, I know.) Now millions of dollars richer, a celebration was in order.
Andrea’s lips trailed down my bare torso, and her fingers curled into the waist of my shorts, pulling them down, then off. I watched her eyes the whole time, my heart pounding. The boat was bobbing not far from shore, but not close to any other boats, a town, anything. Mary and Bill were probably drunk and fooling around on the main deck above us.
“Oh God,” I whispered. “A special treat.”
“What, Mike?” She asked playfully, her lips dragging across my cock as she spoke. “I can leave you alone.”
“No, no. Now is fine.”
I closed my eyes. Felt her lips take me inside. Her hair draped over my thighs. Her tiny body wedged between my legs.
We'd been drinking nonstop since we shoved off, having the time of our lives. About eight hours ago, the boat lost all power. Some kind of user error, surely. We were adrift, but didn't care. Adrift, rich, drunk and in love.
I opened my eyes to watch Andrea. My pleasure building. Then she opened hers and looked right at me. I lost it, and she sucked me dry as I squirmed on the couch.
She nonchalantly stood up and headed back above board. I pulled my shorts back on and followed, a little weak in the knees.
We found Bill and Mary looking over the side of the boat.
“What's up?” I asked, joining them, putting a hand on the small of Andrea’s back.
Bill pointed down. “Appears we’re stuck. Drifted into the mud.”
We looked around. The shore was swampy, and there was about 40 feet of mud between us and the reed-covered shoreline. The wind must have pushed us onto this large, thick patch of wet mud that extended far along the shore in either direction. There were no other boats or people anywhere to be seen.
I walked over to the yacht’s controls. Fiddled with them. Pushed some buttons.
“Still nothing,” I said. “So now we’re stuck.”
Andrea settled into one of my arms and rested her head on my shoulder as the cool ocean breeze tossed her hair.
“I knew we shouldn't have come out here,” Mary said, frustrated. Bill held her to try to calm her.
The truth was she was right. The four of us didn’t know anything about yachts or the ocean. We had no idea how to fix this boat, which now wouldn't even charge our cell phones.
We’d worked so hard in obscurity for a long time. It felt right to do something spontaneous, and now we were stuck in some mud far from home.
Mary was clearly starting to get upset, her lips quivering as she tried to keep her cool, leaning against the side of the boat in her blue bikini. She had been married to Bill for a long time, and he could sense her distress.
“Give me a water bottle,” he said. “I'll crawl over to dry land and hike around to try to find us some help.”
“Are you sure?” Mary asked him.
“Yeah, Bill, I bet someone will find us,” I said. “Let’s just wait it out.”
“It's fine,” he said. “I won't go far. If I can't find anyone in an hour, I'll come right back.”
I tossed him a couple water bottles, which he slid into the cargo pockets of his shorts. Bill is rich now, but he’s still a cargo-shorts-wearing computer programmer. He’s not the adventurous type, but he'd do anything for his wife. Plus, we were running low on food, water and the booze that was helping fuel this sex-crazed long weekend. Run out of any of those things, and this trip would be a lot less fun.
Mary stood on her toes and reached up to give him a tender, lingering kiss. One of his hands held her body close, her breasts pressed against him. My shorts stirred. I’d always had a thing for Bill’s stunning wife. Andrea noticed, and gently dragged her fingers along my back, a signal to calm down. She’d take care of me later.
They broke the kiss. “See you soon,” he whispered.
I tied a rope to the yacht’s railing so he could safely slide down the six or so feet to the muddy ground.
We watched as Bill took a few steps through the thick mud. “My beautiful shoes!” he shouted.
“We will buy you new crocs,” Mary shouted back, giggling, watching her husband slowly slip and struggle away from us.
“They’re gone now!” he yelled, losing his footwear to the mud. He was about half way between the boat and solid land, when he took a step, and his leg disappeared to his knee. “Whoa. Deep,” he said.
Bill trudged a bit farther. His legs sunk down a bit more each time. In no time, he was hip deep.
“Whoa, hey, everything ok?” Mary yelled to him.
“Deep out here,” Bill called back, his back to us. He wiggled. “I...I think I’m stuck.”
“Why don’t you come on back,” Mary yelled.
“I can’t, Mary. I’m stuck” Bill said, sounding annoyed.
I looked at Andrea. “Now what?” I asked. “The boat is stuck AND Bill is stuck.” I made a few more jokes under my breath as I tried to untie the rope I used to help him get down, hoping to throw it to him.
“Mary...Mary…” Bill started to say, sounding more urgent. I looked out to him. “Mary, I’m getting deeper. I’m getting deeper. I’m sinking in.”
He clearly was. The thick mud climbed up to his ribs and sucked on his body. Mary started to panic. Andrea moved to put her hands on Mary’s bare shoulders as I more quickly worked on the knot. “We’ll get him out,” Andrea told her quietly. “Don’t worry.”
As I freed the rope and looked up to him, he was sinking fast. He was facing away from us, but I tried to toss him the rope. It landed about a foot behind him. “Can you turn around and grab it?” I asked. “It’s right behind you.”
“Grab it!” Mary called out. “Grab the rope.”
Bill reached behind himself. He barely could, he was so far deep, and he couldn’t reach the rope. I pulled it in. Tried to throw it to him twice more. He was up to his armpits, and Mary was leaning over the side, fully in tears, as Andrea tried to hold her back.
“Hurry up, please,” Bill said, voice sounding shaky. “Mary? Mike? Please!”
Mary rushed below deck, finding a flowy yellow sundress she wore our first day out. We quickly tied it to the end of the rope. “Hold on, honey!” he yelled to him. “We’ll get you!”
I tried to throw him the rope. The dress just fluttered through the air, falling limply far short of Bill. “No!” Mary screamed. The mud started to claim Bill’s shoulders. I tried again, throwing as hard as I could. Sweating hard. This time, the dress landed closer, but I lost my grip on the rope, and the whole thing fell to the mud.
“No! No!” Mary yelled, bending over the railing, watching her husband struggle. The mud climbing his neck.
“You...you guys almost have that rope to me, right?” Bill shouted as the mud touched his chin. Andrea held onto Mary’s body tightly, trying to keep her from jumping overboard into the mud, too.
The mud kept sucking on Bill, and he had to tilt his head back to keep his face free of the mud, if only for another moment or two. He craned his neck so far back that he could look behind him, seeing Mary reaching her arms in his direction, even as the mud plugged his ears and blocked out her screams.
I frantically looked around the boat for anything to throw him. But I knew it was too late when I heard Mary break down in cries and screams, collapsing to the deck in Mary’s arms.
No one knew what to say. Cries turned to stunned silence. Mary’s body shook like a leaf. Her husband had disappeared, and there was nothing she could do, not even go home.
Quiet moments turned to quiet days.
We were using up our food and water on the yacht. I tried to work on the boat, but the truth was, I had no idea what I was doing. I hoped to find some way to get some electrical charge out of the boat, even if it was clear we were out of fuel and the engines wouldn't fire up. Maybe get a cell phone going and call for help. Andrea came to put a cool towel on my neck as I worked and rubbed my aching shoulders at the end of the day. Mary hadn't said a word since Bill sank out of sight.
After a week, we ran out of bottled water, and it didn’t rain for days. As Andrea and I looked through the boat's storage and hoping we had stashed some water somewhere, we heard Mary's faint voice.
"It's dry."
Andrea walked over to her and put a hand on her shoulder. "What, honey?"
"The mud," Mary said. "It's dry." She tossed one of our dead phones out onto the mud patch, and it bounced as if it landed on an asphalt parking lot.
Sure enough, the wet mud that had swallowed Bill looked dried and cracked. It was a pale color compared to when we first got stuck. "I'll go down there," Mary said. "Walk across it. Look for help."
"Like hell you are," Andrea said, grabbing her arm. I just watched, unsure that was a good idea. But also knowing we'd have to abandon the boat at some point or else die of thirst as newly minted millionaires on their first yacht ride. I didn’t love the idea of that headline.
"We'll die on this boat," Mary said. Her eyes didn’t really focus on anything. Just kind of staring forward. She started to climb over the side.
"Wait," I called to her. "Let us at least tie this around you." I held up a rope, one I found while working on the yacht. One that would have been long enough to at least giving us a shot at saving Bill. I hadn’t brought up that point. I walked over to Mary, and carefully cinched a loop snugly around her taut, bare waist. I looked into her eyes as I finished the knot. "This way if things go sideways, we'll pull you back."
"Are you sure about this?" Andrea asked.
Mary's eyes welled up a bit. "We're out of water," she replied. Then she climbed over the side of the yacht. My hands gripped the rope tightly, lowering her down slowly. Andrea grabbed the rope to help.
“Go slow,” Andrea said, watching her bikini-clad friend’s feet touch the hardened mud.
“Not too slow,” I warned.
Mary started to slowly, carefully, tiptoe across the hardened mud. Before taking each step, she tests the surface, putting a little weight on it, making sure it will hold her. She takes a deep breath, and keeps going. Andrea and I keep a grip on the rope, letting out slack as she goes.
Her chest heaving, mind racing. She gets to a small indentation. She knows it immediately. It’s where Bill went under. She freezes, too scared to move.
At first, Andrea whispers. “Come on, Mary. Keep going.”
She doesn’t move. All her weight focused on one spot of the mud’s crust. From our spot on the boat, Andrea and I could see small cracks start to form under her bare feet. Her eyes trained on where her husband is buried, taken away from her so suddenly.
“Come on, Mary!” she shouts, trying to sound calm. “You need to keep moving.”
She kneels down to touch the dip, dragging her fingers across where Bill lies, maybe inches under the surface. Then, Mary stands up quickly, the motion disrupting the crust, her feet starting to feel slimy. She quickly turns around to face us, and her terrified eyes look deep into mine. Her lips part. “Pull me ba…”
Andrea and I grip the rope hard, just as the crust gives way, and Mary plunges into the mud, all the up to her waist. “No!” Andrea screams. We’re stunned, and it takes us a moment to react. That’s no help to Mary, who is sinking fast. She’s down to her ribs when Andrea and I start our tug of war with the bog.
Mary is thrashing, holding onto the rope as the loop cinches tightly around her waist. “Get me out! Pull me up!” Her screaming is desperate, and her hair bounces as she struggles. The rope is taut as Andrea and I pull hard from the yacht deck. We stumble over each other, trying to get leverage. When I plant my feet, Andrea grabs onto my body, trying to steady herself as she pulls. When my feet slip a bit, my hands grope her, desperately trying to make progress.
But Mary keeps sinking. The surface of the mud pushes up her breasts. Her arms burning as she pulls on the rope, trying to at least slow her descent. But it’s no use. The mud oozes up between her breasts, covering them, as Andrea and I struggle to keep a grip on the rope. In no time, the muck has reached the base of Mary’s long, slender neck.
She looks at us. Stops screaming. And calmly pleads. “Please. You two can’t let me sink. You have to pull me out.” Her words get faster and faster. “You can’t let me drown here. Please pull me out. Don’t leave me here. Please!”
My wife and I plant our feet against the base of the yacht railing for leverage, just as Mary tilts her head up. “No, no. No!” she chants as the mud teases the edges of her lips.
In an instant, the rope slips in my hands, and she disappears.
“No! Mary!” Andrea screams.
I stop. I take a deep breath. Try to give my pained arms, shoulders and back a couple seconds rest. Then wrap one hand in the rope and start to pull. Andrea helps. If we can get her back above the surface soon, she might live.
I cry out in pain, pulling back, giving everything I can. After maybe 90 seconds, Mary’s lips surface. She takes in the deepest, most terrified breath you’ve ever heard, filling her burning lungs with as much air as she can gasp.
Her screams are horrifying. She knows now what it’s like to be buried alive, and she doesn’t want to go back. Andrea and I strain hard to keep her lips just above the surface, sucking for air. Breathing. Living. It’s so hard to hold her up. Her face thrashes from side to side, trying to keep the mud from covering her face again.
“PULL!” she yells to us “PLEASE!”
In a last, desperate bid to survive, Mary yanks hard on the rope. Andrea is caught off guard, and it sends her tumbling over the side of the boat. She manages to grab the railing with her hands and dangles there just above the mud. Her feet kicking. Her bikini-clad body taut from the effort.
“No!”
I look out at Mary as she desperately struggles to keep her widely parted lips above the mud. Only my grip on the rope keeping her up. But Andrea’s eyes connect with mine, and she calls for me, her toned arms flexing as her tenuous grip slides.
So I let go of the rope. Mary is instantly silenced, her face disappearing under the mud, its undulating surface the last evidence of her life.
I dive and grab Andrea’s hand just as she slips, summoning all of my strength to pull her back onto the deck. She collapses onto me, our bodies pressed together so closely and hearts beating so hard that we can feel each others’ chests pulsing.
She kisses me hard, her lips salty from tears. My fingers dig into her skin, holding her tight, thinking I had lost her. She breaks the kiss for just a moment and looks into my eyes. Everything is silent again.
To be continued
Startup sinkers
- DJlurker
- Posts: 1445
- Joined: Sun Apr 19, 2009 12:29 pm
Re: Startup sinkers
Nicely written so far... 

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