Sun on the Rocks - The Sugar Baby Read online

  Chapter Seven

  The next day, the ‘Lady Moura’ set course towards the island of Virgin Gorda, tracing its west coast. Bartleby wasn´t paying attention to Flower or the women around him. He kept looking at the sky, although the weather was sunny, and not a cloud hovered above the fishing boat. He spent a few minutes relaxing near the pussy liners and Tiffany, by teasing Flower to go topless, until he pulled on Flower´s top to get a glimpse of her breasts. Flower got angry and told him she wanted to leave the boat but Bartleby refused, while Anton kept staring at Flower, blocking access to the stern of the boat. They were stuck on the ‘Lady Moura’ for now, thought Clarity. Flower and Clarity reached the laundry room and Clarity suggested to Flower that she call Oleanne.

  “I´m not a nymphe de pave,” said Flower.

  “Call,” said Clarity, “we want to know why Bartleby´s keeping us on this boat.”

  “Because he likes me as a Sugar Baby,” said Flower.

  “He likes your cleavage and what lies beneath and below.” Flower nodded, somewhat reluctantly.

  Flower dialed the number of Oleanne, and was able to reach one of its departments, the ‘gift and accessories suggestions service for a better dating experience’. The menu prompted her to leave a comment or suggestion. Flower suggested offering Gucci bags and platforms matching her own, and she went on for five minutes explaining that the Sugar Daddy was the one who needed to show he was serious about paying some expense of the Sugar Baby to be and that a Sugar Baby had only so much patience, even with a Sugar Daddy who was a prominent executive from a company well known such as Tambrera, even though the company sold something which was not necessarily good, such as alcohol. After five minutes, an operator surfaced on the line, a woman with a pleasant voice.

  “Your name please.” Flower placed the phone under a towel and reached towards Clarity.

  “My name?”

  “Just say you´re part of the ‘Lady Moura’ cruise and you want to know more about the sort-of-flying-seagull transaction.” Flower followed Clarity´s instructions, and the operator insisted.

  “Are you the one who sent the selfie?”

  “Yes,” said Flower, thrown off slightly. The woman told Flower that the transaction included her as nymphe de pave, and that she was a ‘very important’ part of the transaction. Flower pressed the off button to end the call.

  “I´m part of the transaction,” she said.

  “You´re part of a delicate fibre of this business, very delicate,” said Clarity. “I just would like to know the nature of the fibre.”

  “Are we telling Bartleby about the call this time?” asked Flower, “they know I sent the selfie.”

  “No, we want to test whether there´s a good line of communication between Oleanne and Bartleby.”

  Bartleby apologized to Flower for seeing her topless. He offered a list by Oleanne with gifts to choose, flowers, decorative shells, an endless list of clothes, fashionable shoes, and an Oleanne gift card that was filled with two hundred dollars. He showed her a document, claiming it was the Oleanne gift card request admission sheet, and Flower signed the papers, which said that she was entitled to two shopping sprees in Tortola and Virgin Gorda, and acknowledging in the small print that she was the owner of the fishing boat and of the proceeds and transactions derived from it, including those derived from the bar shelf, insured for a large amount, all of which Oleanne could claim as gifts. Clarity caught a glimpse of the contract and complained about the small print on behalf of her friend. But Flower kept her silent, because she told her that she liked to be involved in Bartleby´s business.

  “This is part of being a Sugar Baby,” she said. A large seagull, sort of flying towards the boat, drifting off the coast of Virgin Gorda, landed on the shoulders of Flower. Bartleby reached for it and took off a message from its legs. They were close to meeting Chubby Caddy, who was heading towards the ‘Lady Moura’, on a boat, coming from the Panama Canal. They were standing at the stern of the boat and they heard the sound of a plane flying low. Behind the seagull, a vending machine held by a large square parachute, launched from the plane, made its way to the back platform of the ‘Lady Moura’. It carried mostly beer inside, and some spirits, all of them sold and distributed by Cobbler to retailers of the British Virgin Islands. This was the package that Cobbler had spoken to, to Clarity the previous night.

  “It´s Cobbler,” said Bartleby. The vending machine landed vertically and Bartleby pressed on a button to get a fresh Budweiser. He took the can of beer and with it, a recording with the voice of Cobbler spoke out of the vending machine´s small speakers. Cobbler´s voice was telling Bartleby that he was using the vending machine instead of coming to see him, because he disliked his face. In addition, Cobbler was telling Bartleby to sell him a share of Oleanne, to get a liquor distribution registration form from the Caribbean Bureau of alcohol to sell liquor in the Caribbean, not to shag any more pussy liners, marrying the woman he´d introduced to him, Tiffany, instead of being a Sugar Daddy, and returning a woman called Optesia to him.

  “Cobbler´s crazy,” said Bartleby, tapping on the vending machine, “I don´t know any woman named Optesia”. Clive kept pounding on the vending machine to get a wine cooler, but the device required twenty quarters, five dollars, to churn out the drink. Only the first beer was free.

  “Do you have a license to carry alcohol on the boat?” asked Clarity. Bartleby ignored the question, and Flower raised her index, asking him a more pertinent question.

  “What I want to know is why you´re on this boat. Why exactly did you become a Sugar Daddy?” asked Flower.

  Bartleby played with Flower´s top, without undoing it, saying that he became a Sugar Daddy because he was extremely cautious about commitment with a woman, and he was cautious because Brandi Acosta, a woman at Tambrera with whom he had been sentimentally involved, including making love to her on her desk, used him to get promoted in the company, leaving him in a job without possibilities to get promoted, leaving him in the corporate kitchen with a mug and his name on it, a mug offered by her. To make things worse, Brandi had modified his version of the Tambrera Marmora drink without telling him, and went on to propose a different idea which had finally been accepted by the rum company drink committee, a drink labeled Tambrera Lime Demerara, which used lime instead of lemon, and demerara sugar syrup instead of orgeat syrup.

  He glanced at Tiffany, saying that he preferred the no strings attached lifestyle of the Sugar Daddy, although it left him with the impression that there was a way to bring some intimacy into the relationship with Flower, or with Tiffany. Tiffany ignored Bartleby, but Clive suggested that Bartleby consider seriously the serious proposition of committing to going out with Tiffany instead of adopting five Sugar Babies, three pussy liners, Tiffany, and Flower.

  “I´m the only Sugar Baby,” said Flower, “I even have a contract, sort of, the gift card contract by Oleanne.”

  Everyone started playing with the vending machine, prompting Tiffany about how it worked. Bartleby disappeared in the lower deck, heading towards his cabin. He stepped inside his private suite, followed by Ribalaigua and Clarity. Ribalaigua placed an ear on the door´s cabin and told Clarity to hush.

  “Sshh, he´s speaking, I can hear him.”

  Bartleby was speaking with the logistics area of Oleanne, explaining that Cobbler knew about the transaction, a large scale simultaneous delivery of liquor to retailers and resorts in the British Virgin Islands, all of it done without a license and involving Chubby Caddy. The operator told him to leave Tortola´s bars for last, altering the ‘baby shower’ schedule slightly. After a few more minutes of listening, Ribalaigua gave Clarity a thumbs up sign and they walked back to the stern of the boat.

  “Got it, Cobbler is vying with Bartleby for control of liquor distribution, and Cobbler wants to be a part of this transaction to ensure he gets his share,” said Clarity.

  “Almost, the Shawab wants to control alcohol distribution in the British Virgin Islands, and h
e´s been pulling business away from Cobbler, a lot of it. Bartleby has sided with the Shawab, who has the connections with most customers, bar owners, resorts and spirit retailers, where he sells the alcohol, and he works with Chubby Caddy, a provider of high quality, illegal alcohol for the Shawab. Bartleby is the arranger of the transaction, he ensures everything is ready on both sides and he´s sort of the independent party that both parties trust, I´m sure he´s getting money off of it.”

  “And Flower?”

  “She´s basically being used by Bartleby in case there´s a problem with authorities with the liquor license.”

  They stepped out onto the rear deck platform, and Clarity pulled Flower, who was covered in wine cooler from Clive´s bottle, by the arm. Her friend was carrying massage oil, some nail polish, and a woodden massage ‘invigorator’ to straighten vertebrae, all sold as Sugar Baby accessories by the vending machine. Her line of reasoning was reaching new proportions.

  “I´ve decided I want to be a Sugar Baby among Sugar Babies.”

  “You mean you want to be a pussy liner.” Flower put some nail polish in front of Clarity, following instructions of Sandy, who was becoming a subtle Sugar Baby mentor.

  “Well, yes, that way, I´ll work less as Sugar Baby, and get the same perks.”