Sun on the Rocks - The Sugar Baby Read online

  Chapter Five

  The word Mysteries, derived from the word mysteria, meaning ‘that which was reserved for initiates.’ Initiation, according to Tiffany, meant a new beginning, away from the mundane, for mundane affairs kept the spirit from shining. The notion of spirit was complex and certainly involved many words Clarity had never heard, terms associated with alchemy and alchemical processes, necessary to extract the pure gold of spiritual attainment. This, according to Tiffany, was initiation, and Clarity deduced that it was no coincidence that Lady Fortuna was made of 99.999% gold. Spiritual attainment, spirit even, was a lot more specific for initiates than the term indicated to everyday people, it was actually associated with gold, and obtaining its essence, the physical essence of spirit, was the goal of the esoteric tradition embodied by the roman goddess of prosperity, Lady Fortuna.

  “What does the word esoteric mean?” asked Clarity.

  “It means intended for those with special knowledge,” said Tiffany.

  Initiation also brought status, which sounded surprisingly close to what marketing said when attempting to sell a product or service. It meant one was accepted into an inner circle of teachings and rituals meaningful only to members of the group. The initiate had to prove himsef or herself worthy of becoming a part of that tradition, in order to receive its secrets, that most people were not ready to receive. There were nine initiations of minor mysteries and five important initiations of major mysteries. It was possible to go through the nine initiations without working with the arcanum A.Z.F., another name for sexual magic, but the major mysteries all required working with sexual magic. All of this required work on the personality, which somehow, was at odds with the real spiritual essence of a person, less preocupied with day to day affairs.

  “I like the notion of initiation, but my personality is fine,” said Clarity, ‘and I like self initiation, initiating my spirit on my own.”

  “That´s possible,” she said, “although you won´t meet many people who tell you it is.” Bartleby walked towards her asking Tiffany about the exact place where they´d bought the bottles of rum, and that stopped their private conversation. Flower kept staring at a bottle of Tambrera 151 lit up in dim light in the back shelf of the bar. Sandy was telling her the differences between the various brands, and Clarity´s friend started thinking that a Sugar Baby needed to know the different types of liquor. Clarity saw Flower walk towards Bartleby, who was looking at his Armana liquor bar shelf, testing fading and flashing effects, which illuminated bottles, glassware and a piece of artwork above the bottles.

  Clarity noticed that he was doing all of this with a remote control, and he used it to highlight a bottle of Tambrera 151. Clarity could sense that he wanted to bed Flower, and Flower had told her that she wanted to make love to him in front of the fountain which was on repair. According to Ribalaigua, Bartleby kept the fountain for show for his girlfriends, and Flower ranked a reasonable twenty nine among them, when the ranking was done in chronological order. Tiffany had walked away from Bartleby and was mingling with the pussy liners, talking about bikini tops with Belina and Virgy.

  “I´d like to try Tambrera 151, over there in the back shelf,” said Flower.

  “No,” said Bartleby.

  Flower stepped forward.

  “That bottle,” she insisted.

  “No, you can´t open any of those bottles, the bar shelf is used only for special occasions, today is a normal day, there´s plenty of bottles by the fountain on the upper deck. Ask Glev, he´ll be happy to serve you a drink.”

  “You don´t want your Sugar Baby to be an expert on liquor and spirits?” asked Flower, her eyes wide opened.

  “I´ll teach you all you need to know, but we need to solve the problem with Cobbler´s yacht first. I´ll see you this evening.”

  Flower nodded, and sort of pouted. Tiffany spoke to Bartleby, telling him that Cobbler was back on their yacht, fixing the problem with the engine. Judging at the way Bartleby kept staring at her, she was the only reason that Bartleby had accepted Cobbler´s liquor on his boat. Clarity and Flower walked into their cabin to take a shower. Flower took off her clothes and folded her dress on the bed. She had perky breasts, not as large as Clarity, but allowing a sexy look, when combined with her round bum. Clarity told her that her Sugar Daddy was a hoax, because he wasn´t providing many perks. Travel was limited and he did not mention anything about Oleanne, nor was he sharing any information on it with Flower.

  “He wants to see me this evening,” said Flower.

  “He wants to bed you, and I don´t think he is an authentic millionaire, because this is not an authentic yacht, it is an almost-yacht.”

  “An almost-yacht is some-kind-of-yacht, it´s better than a no-yacht. Besides, the bar´s not bad,” said Flower.

  Clarity heard a noise behind their door. She looked through the door´s keyhole and saw Ribalaigua walking briskly away from their cabin, peeking to see Flower naked. After they both got dressed, they went to see Ribalaigua, for they needed towels for the shower. The bartender wasn´t comfortable working for Bartleby anymore. There were corporate rumours that the employer of Bartleby was cutting costs and thinking of selling the boat. That would put him out of a job.

  “Bartleby never shares anything regarding business with me,” he said, “but I keep track of what he does.”

  According to the bartender, Bartleby needed Flower as Sugar Baby to turn her into the official perpetrator of the transaction with Chubby Caddy. Bartleby liked to be a Sugar Daddy, and he liked Flower as Sugar Baby because she was smart, good looking, well educated, neat and prepossessing in appearance, with engaging manners, all according to a book on Sugar Daddy etiquette that Bartleby was using, called the Gentleman´s companion. He stared at Flower.

  “You´re a nymphe de pave to him,” he said. The notion was new to Flower.

  “I´m not a nymphe, I´m a Sugar Baby, and I think the benefits are good, I´m getting travel experience and financial stability for a few days.” said Flower. Ribalaigua disagreed, saying that Bartleby was involved in some type of shady business, saying Bartleby had changed in the past few days. The bar, he assured both of them, was the heart of the operation Bartleby was setting up, but even he, as barman, was only allowed to open specific bottles in the bar rail, leaving the bottles of the bar shelf intact. The pussy liners, on the other hand, Sandy in particular, had used their time to fill the bar shelf with their own bottles brought onboard by Anton. Clarity moved towards the barman.

  “What do you know about Cobbler?” asked Clarity.

  “Cobbler is well known in Tortola, he´s a merchant getting by on whatever he can get his hands on. He´s not on good terms with Bartleby because Bartleby gets his liquor from a man known as the Shawab instead of him. Cobbler resents having lost a woman with whom he was sentimentally involved to the Shawab, a woman who became known as Optesia, who disappeared after she became a pussy liner.” Clarity remembered her stay at the Hexas Style resort in the Bahamas and her mission in Abu Dhabi. There was a woman she had met called Optesia, a woman who was looking for perfection, or more exactly, a woman trying to catch flaw.

  “A pussy liner working for Oleanne?”

  “Yes. I guess Cobbler wants to become official liquor supplier of Bartleby´s boat now, he still thinks that Bartleby can lead him to find that woman, because of his links to the Shawab.”

  “When is a good time to take a closer look at the bar shelf?” asked Clarity.

  “Do it before dinner, while Sam spends some time with the ladies by the pool, I´ve just fixed the fountain and he loves to boast about it.”

  Around seven PM that evening, Clarity brought Tiffany with her to the bar. She left Flower with Bartleby by the pool, where Ribalaigua was serving appetizers before dinner. Belina´s friends were entertaining Anton, flirting with him. Clarity stepped behind the counter of the bar and examined several bottles of whisky, gin and rum placed by Sandy. She lifted one of them and was surprised by how light it was. The reason st
ruck her immediately. The bottle was empty. She checked several bottles besides the one she had lifted, and found out they were also empty. One bottle struck her attention, a warped bottle of Dewar´s whisky, also empty. She lifted the bottle and the bar shelf pivoted ninety degrees, revealing another bar shelf in the back wall of the front shelf, symmetric to it, and a small study behind.

  Clarity chose bottles of the same brand from the hidden bar shelf, bottles that were also empty, and replaced the empty bottles of the front bar shelf with those of the back bar shelf. Tiffany took two bottles of whisky with her and left the bar area to board the yacht in distress.

  “Cobbler is back, he´s on the boat now, I´ll let him and his crew take a closer look at these two empty bottles. Check the Tambrera 151 bottle,” she added, “the one Bartleby didn´t want Flower to touch or open.” Clarity opened the bottle and found a folded piece of paper inside, a message coming from Oleanne Delivery Service, with Flower´s selfie and instructions on what to do with her. According to the message, she was assigned to Chubby Caddy as his personal Sugar Baby for an indefinite amount of time. He was to perform a personality test on her to assess her latent possibilities, in order to understand whether she was ready to assume a wider role within Oleanne.