Ramona sounds noncommittal but I can tell she knows more than she's admitting. 'It might be his crew carrying on behind his back. Or something less obvious.'
'Come on! If his sailors are kidnapping single females, you think he's not going to know about it'
Ramona turns her head to look me in the eye: 'I think you underestimate just how big this scheme is.'
'Then why won't you teil me?' I complain.
'Because I'm — ' She bites her tongue. 'Listen. It's a nice day. Let's go for a walk, huh'
'A walk — why?' I get the most peculiar sense that she's trying to tell me something without putting it into words.
'Let's just say I wanna see your boxers, okay'
She grins. Her good humor's more fragile than it looks, but just for a moment I like what I can see. 'Okay.' I yawn, the aftereffects of the chase catching up with me. 'Where do you want to go'
'There's a spot near Orient Bay.'
She drives past tourists and local traffic in silence. I keep my mouth shut. I'm not good at handling emotional stuff and Ramona confuses the hell out of me. It's almost enough to make me wish Mo was around; life would be a lot simpler.
We hit a side road and drive along it until we pass a bunch of the usual beach-side shops and restaurants and a car park. Ramona noses the Ferrari between a Land Rover and a rack of brightly painted boneshaker bicycles and kills the engine. 'C'mon,' she says, jumping out and popping open the trunk. 'I bought you a towel, trunks, and sandals.'
'Huh'
She prods me in the ribs. 'Strip off!' I look at her dubiously but her expression is mulish. There's a concrete convenience nearby so I wander over to it and go inside. I pull my polo shirt off, then lose the shoes, socks, and trousers before pulling on the swimming trunks. I have my limits: the smartphone I keep. I go back outside. Ramona is just about hopping up and down with impatience. 'What are you doing with that phone?' she asks. 'Come on, it'll be safe in the glove compartment.'
'Nope. Not doing.' I cross my arms defensively. The Treo doesn't fit nicely in the baggy boxer-style trunks' pocket, but I'm not handing it over. 'You want my wallet, you can have it, but not my Treo! It's already saved my life once today.'
'I see.' She stares at me, chewing her lip thoughtfully.
'Listen, will you turn it off?' f 'What? But it's in sleep mode — '
'No, I want you to switch it right off. No electronics is best, but if you insist on carrying — '
I raise an eyebrow and she shakes her head in warning. I look her in the eye. 'Are you sure this is necessary'
'Yes.'
My stomach flip-flops. No electronics? That's heavy. In fact it's more than heavy: to compute is to be, and all that. I don't mind going without clothes, but being without a microprocessor is truly stripping down. It's like asking a sorcerer to surrender his magic wand, or a politician to forswear his lies.
Haw far do I trust her? I wonder, then I remember last night, a moment of vulnerability on a balcony overlooking the sea.
'Okay.' I press and hold the power button until the phone chimes and the signal LED winks out. No electronics. 'What now'
'Follow me.' She picks up the towels, shuts the car trunk, and heads towards the beach. While I wasn't looking she's shed the sarong: I can't keep my eyes from tracking the hypnotic sway of her buttocks.
The sand is fine and white and the vegetation rapidly gives way to open beach. There's a rocky promontory ahead, and various sunbathers have set up their little patches; offshore, the sailboards are catching the breeze. The sea is a huge, warm presence, sighing as waves break across the reef offshore and subside before they reach us. Ramona stops and bends forwards, rolls her briefs down her legs, and shrugs out of her bikini top. Then she looks at me: 'Aren't you going to strip off'
'Hey, this is public — '
There's an impish gleam in her eyes. 'Are you?' She straightens up and deliberately turns to face me. 'You're cute when you blush!'
I glance at the nearest tourists. Middle-aged spread and a clear lack of concealing fabric drives the message home. 'Oh, so it's a nudist beach.'
'Naturist, please. C'mon, Bob. People will stare if you don't.'
Nobody taught me how to say no when a beautiful naked woman begs me to take my clothes off. I fumble my way out of my trunks and concentrate very hard on not concentrating on her very visible assets. Luckily, she's Ramona. She's strikingly beautiful — with or without the glamour, it doesn't matter — but I also find her intimidating. After a minute or so I figure out I'm not about to sprout a semaphore pole in public, so I begin to relax. When in Rome, et cetera.
Ramona picks her way past the clots of slowly basting sunseekers — I notice with displeasure a scattering of heads turning to track us — and detours around a battered hut selling ice cream and cold drinks. The beach is narrower at this end, and proportionately less populated as she veers towards the waterline. 'Okay, this'll do. Mark the spot, Bob.' She unrolls her towel and plants it on the sand. Then she holds out a waterproof baggie. 'For your phone — sling it around your neck, we're going swimming.'
'We're going swimming?' **Naked?** She looks at me and sighs. 'Yes Bob, we're going swimming in the sea, bare-ass naked. Sometimes I despair of you ...'
Oh boy. My head's spinning. I bag up my phone, make sure it's sealed, and walk into the sea until I'm up to my ankles, looking down at the surf swirling grains of sand between and over my toes. I can't remember when I last went swimming.
It's cool but not cold. Ramona wades into the waves until she's hip-deep then turns round and beckons to me. 'What are you waiting for'
I grit my teeth and plod forwards until the water's over my knees. There's an island in the distance, just a nub of trees waving slowly above a thin rind of sand. 'Are you planning on wading all the way out there'
'No, just a little farther.' She winks at me, then turns and wades out deeper. Soon those remarkable buttocks are just a pale gleam beneath the rippling waves.
I follow her in. She pitches forwards and starts swimming.
Swimming isn't something I've done much of lately, but it's like riding a bicycle — you'll remember how to do it and your muscles will make sure you don't forget the next morning. I splash around after her, trying to relearn my breast stroke by beating the waves into submission. Damn, but this is different from the old Moseley Road Swimming Baths.
**This way,** she tells me, using our speech-free intercom.
**Not too far. Can you manage ten minutes without a rest?**
**I hope so.** The waves aren't strong inside the barrier formed by the reef, and in any event they're driving us back onshore, but I hope she's not planning on going outside the protective boundary.
**Okay, follow me.** She strikes out away from the sunbathers and towards the outer reef, at an angle. Pretty soon I'm gasping for breath as I flail the water, trailing after her. Ramona is a very strong swimmer and I m out of practice, and my arms and thigh muscles are screaming for mercy within minutes. But we're approaching the reef, the waves are breaking over it — and to my surprise, when she stands up the water barely reaches her breasts.
'What the hell?' I flap towards her, then switch to treading water, feeling for the surface beneath my feet. I'm half-expecting to kick razor-sharp coral, but what I find myself standing on is smooth, slippery-slick concrete.
'No electronics, because someone might have tapped into it. No clothing because you might be bugged. Seawater because it's conductive; if they'd tattooed a capacitive chart on your scalp while you were asleep it'd be shorted out by now. No bugs because we've got a high-volume white noise source all around us.' She frowns at me, deadly serious.
'You're clean, monkey-boy, except for whatever compulsion filters they've dropped on you, and any supernatural monitors.'
'Shit.' Enlightenment dawns: Ramona has dragged me out here because she thinks I'm bugged. 'What's
