Leveled

Chapter 6

Julia

The next morning, I wake to Caspian’s hand between my legs.

“Wanna fuck?” he whispers.

“Mmm.” It’s an assent, but I’m still mostly asleep.

He pushes my dead-weight legs apart and fucks me awake. I’m not sure if the boat is rocking from the waves or the power of his thrusts. He fucks me as if he wants to crawl under my skin. As if he wants to consume me from the inside.

I was half asleep when we started. Maybe that’s why I feel as if I’m going to break. Maybe it’s his intensity, tapping on my shell as if what’s inside it isn’t hard-boiled.

What if it’s not? What if I spill out?

It’s not as if I’m thinking about any particular thing. Being trapped on an island. Having to run away. Seeing Tonya drugged. The precariousness of our situation hasn’t broken through, but he’s about to.

“Julia.” He whispers my name with a sense of awe. Like a child when they first understand the sky is inaccessible, then noticing clouds exist. How wonderful they are. How beautiful. How, when you hold up your hand, they seem to fit right in your palm.

If the cracks he’s tapping at finally open up, what happens? If I spill out, how will I clean up the mess? Will I be exposed every minute of every day? Just a mess no one knows how to contain?

I have to keep it together. I can’t let him do this. I spent too long building up this armor to let this man pull it open.

With a push of my hips, I signal a change in position. He submits and flips. I’m on top.

“Your cock”—I drive down, digging my fingers into his chest—“fits so good inside me.”

He cups my face and draws his thumb over my lips. I open them and suck it.

“Julia. Give it to me.”

He pulls me down and kisses me, saying my name against the corner of my mouth.

I put my hand on my clit and move fast, getting to orgasm just before I break.

He comes a few moments after, then it’s another condom in the trash.

God, that felt so close. Too close. I don’t even know what I’m relieved about. All I know is I was speeding toward the edge of a cliff. I knew it was there and I wanted to go over it. I wanted to fall forever. More than anything in the world, I wanted him to shatter me.

I’m both relieved and disappointed that I avoided obliteration.

Caspian meets me on the aft deck. Tonya’s letting the waves splash on her face. The engine hiccups more often than yesterday.

“What’s going on with that?” I point at the line of boats leading to land.

“The queue,” Tonya says.

“I’ve never seen shit like this.” I crane my neck toward the upper deck until I can see Dan, above us, in the captain’s chair. “We have to get in that line?”

He leans over the railing, hair flipping and flopping in the wind. “I’m trying to get my buddy on the phone.”

“Okay?”

“If I can’t, the line is our best shot at Newport Beach tonight.”

Caspian climbs the stairs. I can see his plan. He’s going to sit in the captain’s chair while Dan’s up.

“How long is the wait?”

“You can park for two hours, then you gotta move. Next one in line goes in. So, it depends how fast people get out.”

“How many spots are there?”

“Not enough.” Dan’s head pops back behind the railing and I hear him exclaim, “Come on, man.”

I look at the line, counting how many are in front of us, but Tonya’s faster and doesn’t lose track after seven.

“At least two to four hours,” she says.

“You know how many spots there are?” I ask.

Tonya shrugs and grabs the stair rail. “This boat sounds like shit.” Dan blows her a kiss. She sighs and shakes her head. “I hope he knows what he’s doing. A tow’s gonna be expensive.”

I drop into the L-shaped attached couch. It’s not soft enough to sink into or hard enough to complain about. “We’re on a boat. We should make frozen drinks and lounge or something.”

“Sure.” She agrees, but looks anything but relaxed enough to playact a permanent vacation. She’s lost in thought. Her body is twisted to look over the side at the boat’s wake.

“I wonder if Newport Beach is fun. I’ve never been.”

“It’s not,” she says.

“Oh, you’ve been?”

“Yes.”

“Okay. We should check it out anyway.”

“Maybe you should.”

“Tonya?”

She untwists herself and faces me. “I’m sorry. It’s not you. I’ll go to lunch, then I’m out.”

“Do you want to tell me what’s going on?”

She wrinkles her nose and gives her head a quick shake, minimizing the denial, then gets up to go up the metal stairs to the captain’s perch. She’s not telling me shit.

The line’s moving, but an hour later, we’re still waiting. I’m starting to doubt the boat’s gonna make it, and if it doesn’t, we can’t get out and push.

Dan teaches Tonya how to navigate. I can tell he’s letting her drive it by the way it jerks every time the queue inches forward.

Caspian and I stay in the shade of the back deck, on the L-couch.

He tells me about life in the 1900s when phones were in houses and offices.

The ones that weren’t were in the street and you had to put coins in them.

Buying music meant buying a physical thing at a store.

How Tony had to call his broker from the office phone and the news was on once a day.

He gets up and puts his elbows on the railing. The level sticks out of his pocket.

When I first accepted that my screwdriver was actually a real live man who lived in my toolbox with three of his best friends, I was still focused on Caspian.

Just that one tool and how to get clothes on him.

When we decided to bring Tony back first, my brain expanded to one more tool.

But there are four altogether. They’re all at least semi-aware of their surroundings.

Should I feel bad that two are in a dark box I stuck under the cabinet?

He catches me staring at his ass. “You wanna go inside?”

He’s not asking if I want to get out of the sun. He’s asking if I want to fuck, and if I’m being honest, I wouldn’t mind letting him bend me in half. But that’s not what I was thinking about.

“I was just wondering…” I turn toward the wind and let it blow my hair off my face. “Why is Tony in your back pocket?”

He pulls out the level and slaps it against his palm. And yes, it’s sexy because this man has hands like a sculpture in an Italian museum. “You want him?”

That’s not what I meant when I asked him why he had it in his pocket. I wasn’t asking why Tony was in his back pocket. I was asking why he was carrying his friend around.

“No pockets.” I stretch my arms over the back of the seat. My coverup opens, exposing my little red bikini.

He considers the tool, then my bikini, and says, “We could probably give it another shot before we get to the end of this line.”

“On the boat again?”

“It won’t be level, but you can get used to it. I’ll help you.”

The idea is appealing, but we just did it and I’m feeling like a tease.

“I can wait until we’re on land.”

He stands over me with the sun behind him, just a tall, perfectly formed shadow, and takes out the old phone I gave him. The glass is cracked. It’s not connected to cellular and the wifi is busted, but it plays music and takes pictures. He loves it.

“Hold still.” He crouches to get to my level and takes a picture.

“Are you the type that gets bored of new toys? I hope so.”

“You know you’re gorgeous, right?”

“And when we met, you hadn’t seen a woman in over thirty years.”

“None of us have. Got nothing to do with you.” He takes the level out of his pocket. “I think you’ll like him.”

“Really? Why?”

“He’s a funny guy. Real smart. Sensitive type. Likes everything even and fair.” He hands me the level. “You hang onto him. Get used to having him around.”

Gingerly, I wrap my hand around it. “This is weird.”

“Why?” Caspian sits next to me.

“You said you could kind of see and hear when you were a screwdriver.”

“Something like seeing and hearing.”

I lay the level on my arm, from fingertip to the inside of my wrist. Twenty centimeters exactly. Just shy of eight inches. I run a finger along the length of the tool.

Caspian sits next to me. “Say hello.”

“Hi, Tony,” I say. “We’re working on getting you out.”

He sits back, crossing ankle over knee. “He knows.”

“Does he know I’ll have to violate him again to do it?”

“I told him.”

“Did he answer? Please say no.”

He smiles. “He did not.”

“I don’t feel good about that.” I try to balance the level so that the bubbles are in the center. Supposedly, Tony likes that, and I want him to be happy.

God, this feels so ridiculous. I’d be embarrassed if I thought there was even the slightest possibility it wasn’t true.

“Once we’re settled,” I say, “we’re going to break this curse.”

Suddenly, the boat swings to the left. We’re speeding out of the line.

Dan really does have a buddy in Newport Beach. Tonya has pretty good judgment generally, but I had lingering doubts about a guy who owned half a business and could just take off with two strange women and a screwdriver. Turns out he has connections and friends, which is comforting.

I throw on a sun dress, and because I prefer functional clothing, there’s a pocket to stick the level in.

I join Dan and Tonya on the upper deck. From the water, the city seems very small, with boating-themed shops and restaurants everywhere.

Caspian’s got his music-camera phone out. He’s going at it like a scenic photographer.

The dock is wide enough for a few dozen families in sunglasses and flip-flops to walk along. A man with sun-dried skin that was probably once beige waves from the water. He’s in his forties and he’s holding the space with a JetSki.

“That’s Gerry.” Dan waves back.

Gerry zips out with a curve that blasts the dock with salt water. A little girl with a pink bucket cries when she’s soaked.

“Sorry!” Gerry waves and flashes a white smile that doesn’t exactly exude sincerity.

Mom picks up her kid, takes the hand of an older boy, and walks off without accepting the apology.

Dan parks the boat, letting Tonya steer around a couple of turns, while his friend ties the JetSki to a piling and gets on the dock. When the boat is close, Caspian throws him a rope, and Gerry ties it around a metal cleat.

“Are you coming?” I ask Tonya.

“Just to eat.”

Gerry helps Tonya and me off. Caspian gets off without help, then Dan leaps onto the dock and gives his friend a back-slapping hug.

“You’re looking good, big guy!” Gerry says. “You gonna eat?”

Dan looks at his watch. “We have time before Jacko opens.”

“Great. How’s that sister of yours?”

“She’s fine. Uh, so this is Caspian.” They shake hands. “And Tonya.” My partner politely waves when a handshake is offered. “And Julia.” We shake hands.

Gerry looks at me with one eye narrowed.

“Julia…?” Gerry makes my first name a question, with a leading turn of his finger, as if asking for my last name. “I feel like I know you.”

“Porter,” I say. “Julia Porter. I don’t think we’ve met.”

“Julia Porter?” A guy in a bike helmet and crotch-hugging shorts approaches.

“No,” Caspian says, but I don’t hear him in time to shut up.

“Yeah?”

I always suspected I might do something utterly idiotic one day.

I’ve managed to avoid it so adeptly, I even fooled myself into believing I could be careful enough to get through life mistake-free.

But when I take the manila envelope that Bike Helmet hands me, I know for sure just how capable I am of being an idiot.

“You’ve been served.”

Caspian wanted to chase down Bike Helmet, but Dan calmed him.

We decide to open the envelope when we’re all sitting.

We’re waiting for a table in some oversize restaurant pretending to be old-timey.

Gerry’s telling Dan how he’ll hook him up with a gas pump for the boat.

I’m annoyed at everything when Caspian takes me by the back of the neck and whispers in my ear.

“I don’t trust this guy.”

He means Gerry, because I don’t trust this fucker either.

He made sure my full name was said out loud.

Sure, I was the idiot who confirmed, but he was asking for no good reason, then he dropped the whole “I think I know you from somewhere” bit like a hot rock.

Now he’s trying to schmooze the hostess into giving us a table before it’s our turn.

She’s in her twenties and looks as if she’d very much prefer to be talking to a grizzly bear.

“Dan’s being a fucking doorknob.”

Tonya’s having words with her man, and it looks as though she’s not far from where Caspian and I stand on the whole Gerry issue.

The hostess pokes her screen, nods to Gerry, and grabs menus. He waves us on as if he’s personally responsible for us getting seated. I’m not so sure he did anything besides annoy her.

On the way there, Caspian pulls me into a short hallway with two bus carts and a fire extinguisher.

I’m already pinching the envelope clasp when he says, “Open it.”

I slide out the sheets.

“Summons,” I say. “Civil court. Fucking Jaeger Duke. Jesus fucking Christ.”

Caspian pulls a second stapled document from under the summons. The complaint. He flips pages too fast for me to keep up.

“Damages to the estate.” Flip, flip. “Stolen property. A golf cart?”

“Well, yeah.” I shrug like a kid who had nothing to do with the dog spilling the milk. “I left it right in Avalon. They could have picked it up.”

“They didn’t. It has $736 in parking tickets.”

“Wow. That’s a lot.”

He lets the pages fall flat. “Is that the golf cart you couldn’t start without me?”

By me, he means the screwdriver he used to inhabit.

The only golf cart the Duke estate would let a lowly woman use was the broken one with no ignition or key.

I used my trusty screwdriver in the ignition to connect to the solenoids, escaped a bad situation, parked the cart, and split for the SkrillaKilla’.

Caspian’s looking at me with suspicion I may have earned, but don’t accept.

“How is this my fault?” I ask with my palms up. “On the entire Duke family Catalina estate, there’s not one screwdriver?”

“Is there anyone there who’d know what to do with one?”

“Their incompetence is not my problem.” I take all the papers and jam them into the envelope. “Let this little bitch sue me. These colors don’t run. It’s not like anything in my life ever goes right anyway.” I fold the envelope closed. “And if you want to take his side—”

“Julia, come on.” He pulls the envelope away and tucks it under his arm so he can hold both my hands in both of his. “I will always take your side. Against anyone. Jesus fucking Christ can climb off the cross and tell me you’re a dick-biting bitch. I’m still on your side.”