Reginald Brisbane

The weekend captive

CHAPTER ONE

The Spender house was spacious, painted white with colored awnings over the windows, the long marble-flagged terrace led down to a swimming pool, the neighbors were hidden by rows of flowering eucalyptus and the wide garage held three cars. Arnold Spender was rich had always been rich as his father before him and his father before him. Beyond that generation the tracing was lost, as his wife Susannah too often mentioned during rounds of family-tree accounting. Nevertheless he belonged – she always conceded – since his ancestors on his mother's side were pioneers like her own, one of whom crossed the Delaware with George Washington and another died as a young lieutenant at Valley Forge. They should be living in Boston or New York, Susannah constantly complained, instead of being surrounded by the nouveaux rich of Long Beach. She was all snob whereas Arnold was only part snob, a bright and successful petroleum engineer who still retained the flavor of his Ivy League days at Harvard.

Who they were and what they were, these were the ever repeated legends of themselves instilled in their daughter, their own little Princess as they called her. They scoffed at the idea of a generation gap in their closely united family, forgetting that the younger generation that lived at Long Beach was beyond their comprehension. Their friends were older or seemed older than themselves, but were usually as rich, belonging to the same clubs and having much the same interests. In this circle the young Linda was nurtured and brought up in the belief that she had inherited the earth.

The Spenders had good cause to be proud of Linda. Bright at school, popular with all their friends and their children, never complaining about going to church, she never gave her parents any anxious moments – except for her daring in the surf. The California beaches and the beaches on Hawaii where they often vacationed were an irresistible magnet to their beautiful, sun-blonde daughter. Her mother claimed to have passed on to Linda a perfect figure, an open, nicely rounded face with a slightly pointed chin, big hazel eyes and a soft, velvety skin that never tanned deeply, retaining under the hottest sun a honey brown that sometimes disturbed her father with its sheen of sensuality, giving him feelings to which he would never admit, even to himself.

Linda was not yet fully developed. She would grow taller and the small excess of baby fat around her high, perfectly rounded bottom would go. Once in a party frock the bodice pushed up her breasts so that they formed two little mounds above it, causing Arnold to remark that their little girl was a big girl now. Naked, as her parents sometimes saw her running from a shower, her breasts showed like two firm oranges, her thighs and calves like a graceful athlete in a Cretan painting. Linda was their proudest possession; she was a precious jewel. Yet they realized that she would one day live her own life and must prepare for it, therefore she was allowed complete freedom to stay out alone with a boy, as long as he was as well bred as Tom Blackwell – and as long as she was home before midnight. The Spenders enjoyed a lot of night life themselves, always feeling secure in their belief that their Princess would never stray from the straight and narrow path laid out for her.

Arnold's professional and investment interests in oil extended to Australia where new oil field discoveries were extending his own little empire. As vice-president of a California company he was invited to sit as a director on the board of its Australian associate company, a position which would mean occasional journeys out to Sydney. He and Susannah were both looking forward to a holiday in the antipodean sunshine in the near future, where the summer was at its highest and where Linda could enjoy a surfing break from her high school studies.

Earlier that evening when Linda had gone to a drive-in with Tom, Arnold and Susannah had visited a friend's house for a champagne supper. As usual, they left early, intending to be home long before Linda arrived back. They had celebrated somewhat more alcoholically than usual, mixing too many cocktails with too much champagne, but nevertheless they were home and undressed before eleven. Susannah, an older, taller and well preserved replica of her daughter, wanted to dance so Arnold turned out the lights, put on a record and, blithely naked, they danced slowly across the living room floor toward the long settee. Warmed by the drinks and the central heating, their bodies slightly perspiring, they began to feel one another, Susannah squeezing his slowly hardening cock while Arnold slid his hand down the cleft of her ass-cheeks, down until he could stretch a finger to the back of her slippery cunt. Susannah suddenly broke away from him. Surprised, he asked her what was wrong.

"I don't suppose it's anything," she replied. "Perhaps it's just that I've had too much to drink. I had a sudden thought that something might happen to Linda in Australia. You know, something with men. Some people say the Australians are uncouth."

"At least, honey, they don't go around shooting each other as often as Americans do. All the ones I've met were nice. They drink a lot and play a lot but they are very respectful towards women. As a matter of fact I've heard it said that they would rather soak than poke."

Susannah gave him a sour look. Vulgarities were rarely well received by Susannah, except when they were making love. Tonight he was sure not in a mood for soaking up booze, he was all for a good long fuck. He pulled his wife down on the settee, his cock still erected to half-ready hardness. Her mood was inhibiting him.

"Look, baby, we'll be there to look after her," he cajoled.

"Yes, of course, sweetheart. It's just that I have a kind of premonition. Perhaps we shouldn't go. It may be something to do with the jet. It's a long flight out to Sydney." The more she talked the softer grew his prick. There was only one sure way of getting her to shut up, and he pushed her back against the cushions and opened her legs.

In the dim light, Arnold could make out the pale sheen of her soft skin, and his eyes traveled greedily over her still firm breasts with their dark, mouth-watering nipples. From there, he glanced down to her trim waist with its softly rounded stomach, and his breath quickened as his eyes came to the dark patch of curling hair which drifted down and around the rosy lips of her cunt. Arnold held her legs apart for several minutes, staring hungrily at the exposed area. Then, unable to restrain himself any longer, he plunged his head down between her widespread legs and buried his face in her hotly pulsating pubic area.

Susannah's little clitoris was already erect when his darting tongue found it and frantically began to lick at it, his lips closed around the tip of it lovingly as he tried to suck it into his mouth. Then he licked sloppily down to her hotly pulsating cunt, and he jabbed in and out as if he were fucking her with his tongue, running it hungrily around her wetly steaming cunt and sucking the oozing juices into his mouth.

Already, he could feel her cunt throbbing madly toward her climax. This was always the best way… when he could bring her to a quick orgasm with his mouth. But that was only the beginning; that first climax got them both so hot that whatever they did after that was always far more exciting to both of them. Arnold extended his tongue to its fullest length and rammed it as far as it would go into the hot tunnel of her vibrating cunt, and she began to moan as he licked and prodded at the soft tender flesh of her dripping pussy.

His tongue flicked in and out in a furious staccato rhythm as her juices flowed in a hotly excited stream, and he sucked them into his open mouth. Now her thighs were starting to twist and jerk, and she clamped her hands down on his head, crushing his lips into her steaming cuntal area, and she opened her mouth in a long agonizing wail as her orgasm exploded. They were both so intensely involved in their love-making that they were totally unaware that they were not alone.

CHAPTER TWO

The moonlight shimmered on the dark Pacific, and the wind sighed in the pines but Linda cared nothing for the beauty of the surroundings or the pungent aroma of the pines as her swirling emotions churned inside her. The tortured girl leaned her blonde head forward on the dashboard of the convertible, her lithesome young body shaking with sobs, her stomach muscles contracted in spasms of hurt and humiliation. Slowly she wiped the sticky fluid from her cheek and neck as Tom lay back in the seat, pale and aghast. Oh God, what have I done, he said to himself, closing his eyes and wishing himself a thousand miles away.

It was their last night together before Linda and her family were to leave for Australia – a night that the blonde teenager had hoped would become a beautiful, romantic memory during the two weeks she would be away from her young boyfriend. And now this had happened to ruin everything! She knew about the human body from her biology classes and sex instruction, but to experience what she had just gone through was shattering. It had begun as their petting so often did, with kissing and fondling, with Tom's hand sometimes feeling up between her thighs, sending thrilling tremors through her ripe body as it slowly passed over the panty-covered mound of her sensitive triangle. This time she had let him tenderly kiss one of her small pink nipples, although she pushed him away when he began to suck and nibble in eagerly abandoned passion.

"Please Linda, let's do it right," he had begged, breathing hotly against her ear while he began to feel his way surreptitiously along the inside of her thigh. He had almost reached the warmth of her pussy, had almost touched the sparse tangle of pubic curls through her flimsy panties when she roughly pushed his hand away.

"Tom Blackwell the Third, don't you know how much I want to?" she asked. "I wish we were naked together, and some day we will be, but I intend to remain a virgin until we are properly married. Supposing we never married… supposing you were to fall in love with someone else… wouldn't I be ruined for some other man who might want to marry me? Besides, I'm much too young to marry, and we'll just have to wait. My parents didn't bring me up to become a loose woman."

Tom was forced to think rationally. Linda was only fifteen, and at seventeen he himself was too young to marry. He felt depressed at the prospect of having to wait two, three, maybe more years before he could take that delicious young body naked into his arms. He had known Linda since they were both small children. They were together every summer, usually spent on the beach where he had observed her lithe sun-browned body begin to fill out into adolescent womanhood, to change from a wild tomboy who surfed and rode a board as well as any of them, into a lovely golden creature who verged on being a Goddess.

Now, on this important night, the girl he adored was weeping and showing every indication of being revolted by him. It had been an ungovernable urge that had apparently wrecked their friendship, and there was no doubt that Linda would share the blame. When their petting had reached a stage where it seemed that both of them would lose all restraint, he had unzipped his fly to expose his rock-hard cock, and Linda had gazed at it as though entranced, slowly moving her hand to stroke it when Tom had impulsively implored her, "Oh please kiss it. Please kiss it!" She had leaned down, gently drawing back the foreskin and had kissed the blood-filled head with a long, wantonly sensual kiss, her mouth half-open so that her teeth pressed into the rigid flesh. And no sooner had she lifted her mouth from the throbbing member than she felt Tom begin to quiver violently.

Suddenly, he cried out.

"Aaaaggghh, Linda, Linda, Linda! Jeez Linda. I'm cummmiinngg!" With that he'd exploded into orgasm, his hot white sperm flying onto Linda's shocked face, to dribble wetly down her neck and chin onto her firm young breasts.

Linda's first reaction was blind shock – then something her mother had told her flashed unbidden into her mind. Men are filthy beasts at times, her mother had said, adding that her lovely little Princess would find out all about them when she married. The older woman had always warned her about men wanting to rape every young girl they could lay their grasping hands on, although she'd encouraged Linda's association with Tom, for – after all – Tom had gone to the right school, and he could trace his family back as far as their own. He was well-mannered, a cut above the rest of his friends at Long Beach High. Now, as tears flooded her eyes and shame colored her lewdly defiled cheeks, she realized that Tom was as evil, as crude and horrible as the creeps who took those cheap working girls down to the beach at night for depraved orgies.

It was partly her own fault, the sobbing young blonde told herself. She should never have allowed their petting to go so far. He had become so passionate, and because of her love for him, the poignancy of their last night together and the sensual intimacy of the convertible, she had lost all control when she sympathetically kissed his thick pulsating penis. She had only intended giving it a quick kiss, something they would both remember as being part of their own private love, a little secret between them while she was away in Australia. Sometimes she had wondered if her mother's talks had warped her natural tendencies away from sex, if perhaps she might never be capable of wanting a man inside her, and she'd wanted to prove her fears wrong. Would she grow up to become a sexless "female eunuch" incapable of allowing a male organ to pierce her virginal vagina? She had wondered about that until now, this night that had brought a torment of desire followed by shame and loathing.

She hated him; she despised him as she felt him beside her, doing up his fly while she wiped away her tears and stray flecks of his sticky cum. What a vulgar word! How dare he use such foul language in front of her! How frightening and awful men were.

"Drive me home," she ordered, unable or not wanting to pronounce his name, "Immediately!"

At home she would find a sane refuge from the turmoil that raged inside her, from the fear and a sickening kind of loneliness building up insidiously in her being. Silently, Tom drove out of the dark lane which led to the beach where they had parked, back to the large house where Linda's parents had left the terrace lights on to welcome their daughter home. Usually Tom would be invited in for a late supper before he left, but tonight his world was shattered as Linda hurried out of the car, not even turning her head when he called out his farewell.

"Good night, Linda – I'm sorry."

***

When Linda got out of Tom's car, she slowly mounted the steps to the terrace. The night air felt chilly, and she pulled her sweater tighter around her shoulders. Tears swelled unrestrained in her eyes, her tormented body felt empty and numb, her legs slightly trembling. As she heard Tom's car drive away, she almost turned to call after him. She had lost him, her first true love, the boy to whom she had always felt as close as a sister to a brother with that something extra that belonged to future lovers. She had admired others, especially some of the handsome young men she saw on the beaches, sometimes almost wanting them with a physical ache, a feeling she always quickly dispelled. She did not want to become like the common "whores", as her mother called them, who slept around. She knew Tom and his friends despised girls like that. But isn't that what he must think of her now? Oh God! Why did her animal want dissolve all the caution that had been instilled in her? She could never face Tom again. Never, never, never. When she returned from Australia, she would try to persuade her parents to move to Boston, where they belonged. She knew they stayed in California so that she could enjoy the best climate in the world, to have the sea to swim in and the surf to ride. None of that mattered now.

Mortified, filled with the shame of having committed a sexually obscene act, she wished she were dead. Perhaps she would never be able to face any boy again, let alone sit with one in a car or on the beach.

She stopped crying and was calmer, trying to rationalize from her small experience of life how, in a few minutes, her happiness had been completely destroyed. It could not have been all Tom's fault, she supposed, remembering how she had occasionally stared furtively at the swellings in the front of the boys' pants. Had she always wanted to place her lips against a boy's cock? Penis, she corrected herself. Oh heavens, the thought of it was bringing to life a strange feeling inside her. Did she want to kiss, to open her mouth and wetly kiss the pulsating flesh of an erected penis – did she really want to do that? She brushed the thought aside. I'm just being adolescent, she told herself, and thought of going inside to greet her parents. Should she tell her mother of her humiliating experience? Gosh! What would she say? How could she explain it anyway – that she had voluntarily leaned down and given Tom a passionate kiss on his cock? Penis. Linda Spender! You're becoming as vulgar as the beach girls! she remonstrated with herself. They used the most awful words. Like "fuck". And Tom had called out that he was cumming. She began to cry again, the shame of it all causing her to feel faint. She buried her head in her arms, sobbing until the tears could flow no longer.

The house was strangely silent; it was usual for her parents to leave the lights on in the living room and to be there when she returned. The curtains hadn't been drawn across the glass doors leading out onto the terrace, and now she became aware of music playing – a record, one of their favorites. She supposed they were sitting quietly in the dark, listening to it. The thought of being with them cheered her. She would open the terrace door quietly and surprise them. She had made up her mind not to mention the incident in Tom's convertible, putting aside the inevitable explanation why she didn't ever want to see him again.

She turned the door handle gently so there was no hinge squeak as she pushed the door open a few inches. She looked about the large, semi-darkened room, her gaze riveting on the two entwined figures on the settee. She was transfixed, unable to move or turn her eyes from the scene of utter debauchery. Her father and mother! Naked! Her father's head was buried down between her mother's widespread legs – she couldn't quite see what he was doing but a shaft of light from outside illuminated her mother's head to reveal the older woman's face contorted into a terrifying grimace. Obviously they must be drunk, or even drugged with pot! she thought crazily. At first the horrified teenager didn't believe that the couple on the settee were her parents, hoping against hope that they might be some outrageous overnight guests, but she was soon disillusioned.

She saw her mother pull the head up from between her legs, and she caught a glimpse of her father's face. His chin and cheeks were glistening from her mother's secretions.

"Let me…" her mother murmured, then broke off, not completing her request. But long association made words unnecessary; her father understood what she wanted. He got up from his position and climbed on top of her… but not the way he should, Linda realized with horror. He was backwards, his knees on either side of her mother's head, and his cock – Linda couldn't stop the word from jumping into her mind – his cock was long and hard looking, and it was poised directly above the older woman's face.

Instead of trying to avoid it, Linda's mother opened her mouth and moved it directly below the jutting member, and the girl watched in shock as her father slowly lowered his hips, pushing his pulsating cock between her waiting lips. At the same time, the young blonde's father buried his face once more between her mother's legs.

Linda stayed at her position by the door, unable to move, terrified her parents would see her but unable to tear herself away from the lewdly hypnotic spectacle. They are out of their minds, completely insane, she almost screamed aloud as she watched her wantonly sucking mother now caressing her father's balls. Testicles, the young girl's mind automatically corrected itself. The older woman was moving her husband's cock around in her mouth, the changing bulges in her obscenely working cheeks quite visible to her daughter watching from the door.

Soon her father began to moan quietly, his head still buried down between her mother's legs, his buttocks quickening in their rise and tall as he thrust his swollen member wildly in and out of her contorting mouth. He was beginning to gasp for air, and he was forced to raise his head, crying out as he did so.

"I'm cumming, Susannah! Oh you wonderful girl; I'm cumming! I'm cccuummmmiiiinnnggg…"

Linda expected her mother – drunk as she must surely be – to actually choke in her desperate fight for air, or certainly to tear herself away from that thickly jerking penis, but incredibly, she stayed there with the impaling hardness in her mouth and swallowing, actually swallowing the surging load of semen. Linda continued to stare as though hypnotized by the debauched sight of her own mother behaving like a degraded whore. And her father! His cock was still hard and seemed frighteningly long as he drew it from her mother's mouth.

With the feeling that her parents had deserted her, that her world had finally crumbled to ashes, Linda managed to shake herself from her state of numbed shock and leave the depraved spectacle behind her. Silently, she closed the door and went to the main entrance of the house where she carefully let herself in, turning off the terrace lights before creeping softly up the stairs to her room. The desolate blonde teenager removed her clothes in the dark and sank back onto the bed to stare blankly up at the shadowed ceiling in a state of shock and incomprehension, until at last blessed sleep came to carry her off into forgetfulness.

CHAPTER THREE

The early morning rush to complete packing, take showers, eat breakfast and get to the airport precluded any discussion about the previous night. Linda's mother did manage to ask after Tom, and her father wondered how Linda had got into the house and into bed without anyone hearing. Linda was trying to avoid her parents, an intention that went unnoticed in the scramble to catch the Queensland and Northern Territory Aerial Service – Qantas – airliner. Linda made a half-hearted attempt to scribble a note to Tom before she left, but it was no use. She was weighed down with an overwhelming sense of guilt, at the same time feeling shocked and disappointed with him. Each time the incident came into her mind she pushed it away, only to be haunted again and again by the scene in the convertible as well as the low depths to which her parents had sunk.

She didn't ask them about their farewell parties, the only thing said being her mother's comment.

"I swear I'll never mix cocktails and champagne again as long as I live. I don't even remember going to bed last night."

Neither the mother nor daughter noticed the smile on Arnold Spender's face. He was quite used to her pretense that she didn't remember a thing… especially after they had enjoyed a particularly wanton session of lovemaking… and the more uninhibited she had been the night before, the less she pretended to remember.

Linda, however, wondered if her father had also suffered a blackout, if what she had witnessed had been performed while they were both semiconscious under the influence of alcohol. She felt a little relieved at this thought then paled at the remembrance that she, herself, when she kissed Tom's penis, was perfectly sober. She could not lay the blame on drink or drugs, and she was beginning to realize that she couldn't really blame Tom.

They arrived at Honolulu in the early afternoon, allowing time for the three of them to go to the beach before dinner. Linda's parents were pleased to see that she was getting over her dark mood. The poor girl was missing Tom quite badly, they both thought, and went out of their way to indulge her with little gifts, including a color Polaroid land camera. They dined late, taking a long while over the meal, since they were to change to a different flight after midnight. There was plenty of time, explained Arnold Spender, as he didn't have to be in Sydney until Sunday.

"Well, this is only Friday," said Linda. "Why don't we stay in Honolulu another day?"

"Because, Princess, we lose a day when we cross the International Date Line. We leave here early on Saturday morning, and a few hours later we land at Sydney on Sunday morning. Then, on Sunday afternoon we're invited to tea with the Dowlings. He's chairman of the Australian company."

"I don't think I'd want to go visiting, Daddy. Couldn't I just go surfing… we're staying at Bondi Beach, aren't we?"

"Sure you can," her mother said. "Do whatever you please. This is a vacation for you, and we want you to make the most of it. You're only young once, Princess."

Her father called for the check and they left the restaurant to catch a taxi out to the airport. "I think you'll be surprised when we get to Bondi Beach, Linda. The apartment looks right over the beach, and on Sunday they've got a spectacular surf carnival that will be more fun for you than having tea with these dull old business associates of mine."

The plane took off on schedule and landed, after a little over six hours, at Sydney's Kingsford Smith Airport. An hour later, the Spenders entered their luxurious apartment overlooking Bondi Beach with the blue Pacific stretching out to the horizon.

Early as it was, the morning sun was already hot, its rays burning down on a crowd of people already swimming in the surf or lying on the beach. It was all so inviting, so temptingly cool, and the surf was just right for shooting; Linda could hardly wait to slip into a bikini. During the long flight she had made up her mind to forgive Tom, a decision that eased some of the shameful guilt nagging her for so long that she'd felt she was on the edge of a nervous breakdown. Having made that decision and having slept soundly on the plane, she now felt exhilarated, as though she were about to enter a wonderful adventure.

"When do we go to church, Daddy?" she called out.

"Guess we'll skip it this Sunday, Princess. Perhaps we'll go twice next Sunday, to make up," he said teasingly.

Hundreds of cars were moving in to park along the beach front as Linda walked across the broad boulevard to the beach. She copied the local girls who wore nothing except bikini and sandals, noting that there didn't seem to be any obvious difference between Americans and Australians, as far as looks were concerned. Suntanned youths earned boards across clean golden sand down to the surf where the breakers were rolling in. The sights and smell of the sand and sea reminded her more of Hawaii's Waikiki than of Long Beach. At this hour of the morning there were long patches of empty spaces. She dropped her towel and ran into the sea, diving under a breaker then swimming out against the rollers to wait for a big one that would bring her back to shore. The cool salt water washing over her body brought on the animal sensations that always flooded tingling through her body when she lay flat on a board, her pelvis pushing hard down to hold her balance.

If only she had a surfboard to ride these superb waves! After shooting several breakers, she was about to leave the water when an empty board came tumbling towards her and she automatically grabbed it, knowing that its owner would be saved an extra swim from the beach to retrieve it. She was looking around for someone to claim it when suddenly a head popped up beside her, a slightly freckled face under a strange looking red and green cap. A lean and bronzed arm reached over the board and the young man's pleasant voice said, "Thanks, Miss, that's very kind of you to catch it for me."

Linda stared at this handsome apparition, this smiling young man with twinkling blue eyes and the funny cap.

"Hi. Do all Australians wear bathing caps?" she asked laughingly. "Or have you got your curlers in?"

The young man threw back his head and laughed. "Hell no! You must be a stranger not to recognize a life saver's cap. Where do you come from?"

"Actually, I only arrived a couple of hours ago," Linda explained. "I'm from California. You know where that is, don't you?"

"Sure thing. It's where they grow oranges and beautiful girls. I bet they don't have beaches like Bondi over there."

"Of course we do. Maybe better than this, though it's hard to imagine a more perfect day than this. Anyway. I do like your cap. It's kinda cute."

Linda was attracted to him despite the fact that he obviously worked as some sort of lifeguard. She was in a mood to flirt, at least to meet some young people, to get away from the presence of her parents for awhile. These was still that disturbing image of them lingering in the back of her mind.

"Is that all you do, save lives?" she asked.

"Hell no! It's only a voluntary job. By the way," he said, lifting his body onto the board, "My name's Hugh. Hugh Watson."

"Hello Hugh. I'm Linda."

"Can you ride a board, Linda?"

"Certainly. Are you offering me yours?"

Hugh smiled. He was offering her his all right. He'd give it to her right up the ass! he chuckled to himself. So far, he'd only been able to see the long blonde hair falling down into the blue-green water and two nice little rounded breasts cupped in a narrow black bikini top.

"Climb aboard and take it away, Linda. It's all yours. I'll wait for you on the beach."

He slid off the board, treading water while she pulled herself up to lie flat and paddle out into the oncoming breakers. Phew! He said to himself, what a luscious piece of ass. Hope she's sixteen or it could mean jail for me. Floating on his back, he watched Linda's ass-cheeks tightening and relaxing as she pushed the board out, noticing that, when she knelt up on it, her golden tan went all the way down to the small cleft between her well-rounded buttocks showing temptingly above the brief bikini pants. He smiled luxuriously to himself, closed his eyes and let the waves float him back towards the beach. He was going to get inside those pants if it was the last thing he did.

Hugh was captain of a life saving team from Brisbane competing in the national championships being held at the carnival that Sunday. He was, in fact, a professional, working as an inspector on the beach at Surfer's Paradise in Queensland. It was the only life he knew, having left school early, and now, at the age of twenty-one, he wasn't interested in doing anything else. He'd tried various jobs, driving trucks on the Brisbane-Sydney run and working as a builder's laborer, work that took him away too long from the lazy days on beaches and pleasant nights with girls so easily picked up. At Surfer's Paradise it was holiday time all year round. For Hugh, that was what life was all about – sun, sea and girls – a life his police sergeant father constantly complained about, always unavailingly. Typically Australian, the young surfer detested snobbery and resented being looked down on for his coarse accent – he considered himself as good as anyone.

Hugh eased his six foot frame out of the sea and strolled along the beach to a small group of friends from his team. They all wore the little red and green caps tied with tape under their chins. Their carnival swimsuits were also green with a band of red zigzagged from chest to crotch. The "crooked phallic symbol", they called it. He lowered himself down onto the sand beside Tiger Kelly.

"Just picked up a snooty little American broad, Tiger," he said, cocking his eyes out to where Linda was sliding his board down a wave. "There she goes."