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The Voyage Out: Part Two: Departure--A Sinister Surprise

munchausen

TMF Expert
Joined
Jul 5, 2001
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[This section has a lot of pure plot and character introduction. The ‘good stuff’ in this installment starts a little ways in; I’ve tried to make it worth the wait. There’s a little f/m in this one, but its relatively brief, and the /f definitely outweighs it. No sex, as usual, but hopefully still entertaining. Feedback is definitely appreciated (on the board).]

Seated in what she was certain must be among the five or six most comfortable deck chairs in the world, bathed in a soothing tropical breeze and surrounded by almost surreally blue water, Leah sipped a tropical drink so exotically (though pleasantly) flavored as to defy identification and regarded her notes through her sleek, stylish sunglasses.
The sun, though unfiltered by clouds, was a gentle, salutory presence in the azure sky, and lent a gentle cocoa butter sheen to her magnificent limbs as she reclined, clad in a pristine white one-piece, on the top deck of the small but absurdly luxurious ship. The greatest difficulty the article presented at this point was that describing the beauty, luxury, and indulgence all around her threatened to exhaust her supply of superlatives. Skipping down past her reviews of the gourmet cuisine, plush cabins, and countless amenities, Leah turned her attention to her thumbnail sketches of the crew and of her fellow passengers.

{The crew is surprisingly small–almost impossibly so, given the number of tasks that must be attended to on even a comparatively small ship like this one, and the impeccable attention each member seems to pay to his or her duties. The principal crew members, the ones with whom I’ve had the most contact and who have left the most profound impressions, are as follows:}

“Kind of stiff,” she thought, poising her pen for a moment in editorial indecision. “Oh, forget it. Just get the basics down, then have another swim and a massage.” She almost purred to herself as she stretched languorously, then snapped out of it and returned to work.


{The Captain, who seems to devote himself almost exclusively to maintaining the ship’s course and rarely mixes with the passengers, is a very dark-skinned Haitian who calls himself Caliban. Somehow I doubt the name is genuine, but it does add to the air of mystery and intrigue that seems to be one of this mind-bogglingly expensive trip’s selling points. A mountainous, taciturn figure, he is courteous enough, but clearly leaves most of the ship’s non-technical operations to the Director of Hospitality.
That would be Ms. Yelena Kant, an imposing, striking, and memorable character if ever I’ve encountered one. She is very beautiful, in a rather severe way: sharp features, with striking, long-lashed black eyes and a rather pale complexion that throws her dark crimson hair–which hangs in a single, lustrous braid well below her waist–and her similarly scarlet lips into sharp relief. While she is the epitome of grace and hospitality, she also exudes an air of strict command, most visible when she speaks with crew members. She is an ideal hostess, striking exactly the right balance between indulgent proprietor and humble servant. The prior role, though, seems more suited to her.
Aside from Dr. Mesani, whom I’ve already described at some length, there are two other crew members who seem particularly intriguing. One is Francesca Carlisi, an Italian (for all you rocket scientists out there) woman who serves as the ship’s “physical trainer,” and offers personal weight training, aerobics instruction, and diet counseling in addition to her service as chief lifeguard. Francesca has the kind of build that could make her a source of inspiration, an object of baser envy, or, most likely, a combination of the two. In any event, she does her job with a level of friendliness and professionalism that quickly negates any intimidation one might feel at her sculpted and curvaceous form. She has taken me through workouts I would not have imagined possible, and always with patience, good humor, and praise.
The final crew member with whom I’ve interacted over the first two days of the cruise is Ellefson, a shaven-headed giant of a man who performs many of the more physical tasks called for on the ship. He is massively built and incredibly strong, from what I’ve seen of him, but, as in Francesca’s case, his amiable air keeps him from becoming intimidating. Also, he provides this reporter with a welcome bit of eye candy–not for every taste, perhaps, but well-suited to mine.}


“Might take that out later,” Leah said to herself, then closed her notebook and smiled. “There are probably about three hundred billion jobs in the world that are nowhere near as good as this one.” Wrapping a towel around her slim waist and stepping into her flip-flops, she headed off toward the pool.
As Leah passed the few other privileged sunbathers who dotted the deck, she noticed that the door to the captain’s quarters, which was usually locked, stood open a crack. Investigative drive taking over, she slowly eased the door open and moved stealthily into the darkened corridor within. “What the hell–I can always claim I got lost,” she reassured herself.
After two steps down the silent, dim corridor, Leah realized she had a problem–the impact of her flip-flops hitting the soles of her feet seemed to sound like cannonfire in an echo chamber. Swiftly, she slipped them off and put them in her shoulderbag, then continued silent and barefoot. A few yards down the hallway, she came to a ‘T” intersection, with a door at either end of a fifteen-foot passageway to either side. “As the cliche goes, here goes nothing,” she told herself as she turned to the right, hurried to the door, and slowly eased it open.
Inside was a kind of library, very small, but stocked floor to ceiling with books and what looked like scrolls. “Nautical charts?” she thought aloud, taking one to examine. The crew had not yet revealed the ship’s specific destinations as yet–the itinerary she had been given at Dr. Mesani’s office only gave her the time and place of departure and return. These charts and scrolls might prove interesting, both to Leah and particularly to her magazine’s curious readership. Suddenly, she practically jumped out of her skin as hushed, angry voices sounded right outside the door! Grabbing a small book and a couple of scrolls and jamming them into her purse, she huddled behind a shelf and concentrated on breathing shallowly and silently.
The library door swung open to admit two people, obviously in a fairly heated argument. A stealthy peek over a row of books confirmed what the voices had already told her: it was Captain Caliban and Yelena Kant, and they seemed quite incensed indeed.
“Damn it, Yelena, we have a job to do. A specific job, for specific clients. That’s where the reward comes from, not from these fat cats and beautiful people. The longer we delay, the more dangerous this becomes. By taking this route instead of rounding up those less likely to be missed, we’ve already shot ourselves in the foot in terms of prolonged profit potential.”
“Precisely why we can’t go yet! We must maximize the opportunity we have before us. These are some of the wealthiest people in this world, and I, for one, intend to make the most of that before we deliver them to the clients. You and I both know that, realistically, we only have one sure, safe shot at this. And when I cross back over, as I fully intend to do in several years when even the nonexistent wisp of a trail we may have left is cold, I plan to live at least as well here as I would over there.”
Caliban sighed, toying idly with the books one shelf above Leah’s cowering head. “Of course, I understand that,” he said, his heavily accented voice softening. “But we already have enough financial information from each of them that accessing large amounts of their fortunes–even after their disappearance–will be simple. What more do you want?”
“I want absolute certainty. I want access codes, passwords. The interrogation and the forgetfulness charm are flawless in their effectiveness. I know we must hurry, but...”
“The risks, Yelena, the risks...”
Yelena turned to fix her gaze on him, her lithe, supple form taking on an air of command impressive even next to the hulking captain. “One more, tonight. The Tanakas. Then, I promise you, we go.”
“Very well, Yelena. One more. But we leave immediately upon completion. If our guests begin to suspect, there could be real trouble. What we’re intending to do to generate the energy to get a vessel of this size across the border will already be difficult to the point of impossibility. I have little desire to stretch our luck any further.”
With that, the two left the library, leaving a very puzzled Leah to stand up, wiggle the pins and needles out of her feet, and steal back to her cabin, her intended swim long forgotten.

[Here begins the more action-intensive section]

Leah sat at a corner table during that night’s banquet, so that she could watch everything and everyone. After her eavesdropping in the library that afternoon, she had returned to her room and pored over the charts and books she had liberated. None of them made any sense to her–they were in a language that she, a fairly erudite world traveler, had never seen before. One was full of sketches and blueprints of ships of various kinds, some boats, some what looked like exotic flying ships that reminded her of something out of DaVinci’s notebooks, some strange hybrids of the two. Pictures of large gems accompanied each drawing, with strange auras surrounding them. One had a chart with ships’ sizes on one axis, and what looked like faces contorted in hilarity on the other, with quantities on the chart expressed in gems. Another had charts of the human body, male and female, and what looked like circulatory maps or maps of the lymphatic system or something, with different parts of the body highlighted in different colors. Another page featured what looked like less detailed reflexology charts, with annotations and demarcations made on a schematic of the soles of two feet.
Leah had no idea what to make of her findings, but, alongside the vague and disturbing hints she had gleaned from the afternoon’s conversation, they left her with a sense of impalpable dread. For now, she could only watch and wait, and hope that in the event that something happened, her meager foreknowledge might be enough to make a difference.
She made small talk with her table mate, Courtney Frost, who happened to be the young pony-tailed student who had been in Dr. Mesani’s office with her on the day of the examination. Courtney was a delight–clever, down-to-earth, and full of youthful exuberance tempered by street smarts that Leah would not have expected from an 18-year-old of her clearly privileged background. She was doing this, she explained, in part to retaliate against her parents, who jetted off to Europe every summer and left her behind. Declaring her independence in the face of their mild disinterest and stifled yawns, she used her trust fund to pay her own way on this “adventure cruise.” Her impression thus far was that the cruise part was fine, but there wasn’t a hell of a lot of adventure at this point.
“Let’s hope there won’t be, kid,” Leah thought to herself.
The two of them talked about the strangeness of the application process, and commiserated about the ticklish physical exam, a topic that got Courtney off and running–“oh, my god, when she was all under my arms and like ‘release the energy’ and I’m like ‘I’m about to release pee all over this stupid toga if you keep tickling the shit out of me’...”

Half-listening, nodding and smiling, Leah scanned the room for Caliban and Yelena Kant. No sign of them yet...

“...and then she’s like scratching the bottoms of my feet which is like oh my god total torture for me and I’m wailing like some kind of howler monkey....”

Leah’s roving eyes spotted the Tanakas, supposedly the last element in whatever Yelena Kant had planned, seated at one of the more opulent tables in a banquet hall where all the tables were pretty damned opulent. They were Japanese, he an obscenely wealthy middle-aged businessman with a build like a sumo wrestler, and she, Rumiko Tanaka, about 20 years his junior in her late thirties, a vision of what was to Leah exotic grace and beauty, with long, shimmering, coal-black hair and a healthy but refined beauty that looked like a geisha had been given a limitless expense account, a hollywood makeup artist, and her own personal gym and tanning salon. Which may not have been too far from the truth.

“...and I swear by the time she was done with my feet I was laughing so hard I was like crying. Tears, streaming down my face. And I was all geared up to bitch her out, right, and be all, ‘what the hell did that teach you? That I hate being tickled?’ but she just hands me the ticket and is like so nice that I just left with this goofy smile on my face.”

Leah turned her attention back to Courtney and grinned. “Yeah, she tickled me pretty thoroughly, too. But I guess she had some kind of a system or something,” she said lamely, her attention again distracted as she noticed Ellefson, the mountainous deckhand, watching her with some interest from across the room.
After dessert was served, and Leah felt like she had been given a creme brulee IV, Yelena Kant came into the room with a bevy of sparkly beauties who made up part of the “entertainment team.” Yelena stood at the head table and tapped he edge of a champagne glass until the last contented murmurs had died down. “Ladies and gentlemen, we continue our tradition tonight of selecting a fortunate guest or guests to receive our “emperor treatment”–we cannot, of course, disclose the details, but you can probably imagine that whatever it is,” she paused to acknowledge, with a kind of sweeping gesture and a sly smile, the grandeur of the ship in general, “it’s pretty good. We do ask those guests who have won on past days not to disclose what the emperor treatment entails, and we appreciate your cooperation thus far. It just makes things so much nicer for the other guests if it remains a surprise.”
Each of the past two days, the winners had been chosen from the very wealthiest of the super-rich on board (big surprise, Leah had thought cynically, though now her perspective was somewhat less certain). Leah had tried, in the interest of her article, to discern what had happened to them through casual conversation, but one couple seemed to ignore her out of sheer snobbery and the other woman, a youngish widow of a media tycoon, put up such a convincing pretense that she honestly could not remember that Leah finally, smilingly let it go. Tonight, Leah paid particular attention to the selection, already fearing that she knew who it would be.
“Tonight’s winners,” Yelena announced, her commanding, silky voice commanding rapt attention, “Are Ataru and Rumiko Tanaka!” The band played a tastefully muted fanfare as Tanaka and his wife rose and acknowledged the general applause with waves and nods reminiscent of British royalty. Immediately, they were surrounded by the entertainment committee, followed closely by the imposing Ellefson, and ushered off down the hallway.
As dinner broke up, Leah said her goodbyes to Courtney, who tried to convince her to hang out by the pool and have a couple of drinks. “You’re the only person I’ve met who’s even half worth talking to,” she said. “There are like, no young single guys here except that computer CEO who keeps wiping his nose on his sleeve.”
“I’d love to,” Leah said, obviously distracted, “But I have some work I need to do tonight. See you tomorrow?”
“Sure,” Courtney assented, looking vaguely suspicious. “See you later, Brigitte.”
With Courtney out of the way, Leah raced back to her room, changed out of her dinner gown and into denim shorts, a dark t-shirt, a Yankees cap, and sandals, which for some reason seemed appropriate attire for a spy mission, and returned to the dining hall. A few crew members were milling around, cleaning and straightening and quietly bitching. The door through which the Tanakas had disappeared stood closed, and, a quick jiggle told her, locked. She dove under a heavy-clothed table as one of the cleaning men pushed his cart past. Watching his legs as he walked away, Leah peered out from under the cloth to see a pair of strong, deeply tanned female legs approach, dripping wet and barefoot. She heard a brief conversation in which she was able to recognize the voice of Francesca the lifeguard/physical trainer complaining about chlorine levels in the pool, and a muted apology from the cleaning worker. Suddenly, something dropped silently in front of Francesca’s bare toes–it looked like a key! Incredibly, as she turned to leave, Francesca gave it a subtle but definitely intentional kick under Leah’s table. Still muttering at the cleaning man, she stormed out of the room, leaving a yet more puzzled Leah clutching the key.
When the coast was clear, Leah darted out from under the table and tried the key in the door. It turned easily, she slipped through, and found herself once again in the off-limits part of the ship.
She traveled through opulently appointed, labyrinthine corridors for some time before she heard a commotion coming from a doorway at the end of a dark hall. Steeling herself, she crept to the door, took a deep breath, and put her eye to the large, stylized, faux-pirate keyhole.
Inside was one of the most bizarre scenes she had ever witnessed. The Tanakas were there, and so were Yelena Kant, Ellefson, and the entertainment committee, but if this was the emperor treatment, Leah saw little to recommend it.
Ataru Tanaka was tied at the wrists and ankles, seated in what looked like a dentist’s chair with his now-bare feet elevated in front of him. Smiling wickedly, Yelena Kant was tickling his massive, wiggling feet with devilish determination, scarlet nails scratching surprisingly sensitive soles as the red-faced power broker alternately roared, wheezed, and begged for mercy. Several girls from the entertainment committee cooed over him, stroked him, and touselled his hair with mockingly false concern as his torture continued.
Perhaps more dramatic, though, was the tableau on the other side of the room, which was responsible for most of the noise that had drawn Leah to the room. The lovely Rumiko Tanaka had been shackled standing, stripped to her underwear, with her arms over her head, and two members of the entertainment committee were methodically tickling her underarms, sides, and trim stomach with their fingers. She was screaming with laughter, her long, elegant hair flying as she shook her head in a vain effort to combat the sensations. Ellefson stood to the side, watching with furrowed brow and apparent discomfort.
“All we desire is the passcode to your chief account,” Yelena announced, unflagging in her torture of Tanaka’s toes. “Then, this will cease, and you will think no more of it.”
Tanaka gave a guttural grunt and heave, then passed out, his feet jumping reflexively as Yelena tickled his unconscious flesh.
“Damn it,” she hissed. “He wasn’t going to crack anyway. All right, Mrs. Tanaka. It appears that you will become our focus. Remove her shoes, please,” she said, almost offhandedly.
As exhausted as she was from the relentless upper-body tickling, Mrs Tanaka jolted and let out a shriek of horror as she processed what Yelena had said. The entertainment committee swarmed on her, unstrapping her delicate black dress sandals, leaving her barefoot and vulnerable. As Yelena approached, she managed to fire a fairly creditable kick at the crimson-haired tormentress’s head. “Ellefson!” Yelena barked, and the big man reluctantly but effortlessly gathered up the athletic woman’s flailing legs and locked them in an iron grip under his arm, straightening them so that her bare soles pointed directly at Yelena Kant.
“Last chance,” Yelena said, teasingly displaying her cruel fingernails while playing an offhand game of this little piggy with Rumiko Tanaka’s pedicured toes.
“Go to hell,” spat Rumiko.
“Damn, girl,” Leah thought, admiringly.
Rumiko’s resolve was a fading memory the moment Yelena began tickling the smooth, defenseless bottoms of her bare feet. If she had been loud before, now her shrieks of tortured laughter were like Yoko Ono on speed. Though perhaps that comparison smacks of a western bias, Leah reflected for a moment, before Yelena zeroed in expertly on a zone on the inside curve of each arch that made her victim scream bloody murder and made her desperately wiggling toes do a kind of high-speed wave.
“It is impossible for you to resist,” Yelena explained conversationally to her teary, disheveled, and violently writhing guest. We have detailed data on where you are most sensitive, and on what kinds of touches affect you most dramatically. I must say, it’s astounding how many people, whatever their power, wealth, or prestige, can be brought to heel, so to speak, by the simple touch of a fingernail on the sole of a bare foot. Don’t you agree, my lovely?”
Rumiko, her feet on fire with unbearable sensation, her lungs bursting, abdominal muscles aching, lovely face sore from unnaturally smiling, at last crumbled. Little hints of coherence began to sound through her helpless laughter. Yelena slowed–but did not stop–her torture of the Asian woman’s bare feet long enough to listen. “4....7...6....4...She’s giving the code! That’s it! Mina, verify!” A member of the entertainment committee rapidly keyed some numbers into her laptop, then looked up, smiling. “Jackpot.”
“We’ve done it!” Yelena cried, whirling away from Rumiko in triumph. “We’re all unbelievably rich!”
Behind her, Ellefson wiped Rumiko’s face gently with a cool washcloth, and held a cup of water to her lips. Crying, she drank thirstily. Watching him closely, Leah thought she could see him whispering “I’m sorry,”over and over again.
“Ellefson!” Yelena shouted. “Take them back to their suite via the secret way. Administer the amnesia treatment, then come back here to gather and store the energy crystals. They’ve been well charged tonight!”
Ellefson nodded, tossing the massive Ataru Tanaka over his shoulder as easily as he did the petite Rumiko. A door at the far end of the room opened, and the entire party went through. Their jubilant chatter vanished abruptly as the steel door slid shut once more.
And that’s when Leah felt the hand on her shoulder.
 
Wow!

Nice, nice story! And don't ever apologize for the build up or plot development. Would Star Wars have been as good if it was a twenty minute film of the destruction of the Death Star?
 
Thanks for the vote of confidence

I appreciate the endorsement, Dave--if that is your real name (pause for thunderclap and dramatic effect.) Seriously, its amazing how positive feedback, especially from an author one respects, can boost the creative energies. I really enjoy your stuff--some of it is a little hard core for me, but not so much so that I can't appreciate it, and it invariably shows humor and charm, which are an enormous plus for obvious reasons. So, thanks.

Now, what the hell is going to happen in part 3?
 
Satisfyingly snowballing...

Part two, with its welter of intriguing details, exceeded the impact
of your terrific first chapter. The intrigue actually had me as distracted as your protagonist, so when she stumbled upon the fate of
the Tanakas, I was as stunned as she. So, please, more misdirection.
It works on even the most jaded tickle fiction fan. I'm looking forward--impatiently--to your next chapter
And, oh, Dave... Yes, STAR WARS would have been better as a 20-minute
short depicting the Death Star gone blooey--cuz that would have spared
us the cardboard characters and the corny dialogue! (Well, what did you expect from someone whose favorite character in the series so far
has been that big toothy mouth in the sand in the third film!)
 
Thank you Captain Spalding, the African Explorer....

Speaking of awaiting impatiently, is there another Miranda Fortune or Hannah Davis adventure in the works? Or perhaps some other tale, beyond a layman's feeble imaginings?
 
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Cardboard characters? Corny dialogue? In <trumpet fanfare...> STAR WARS? Well...yah, the Captain's right, as usual.

Good story so far, Munchausen. I think I see where you're going with your sf/fantasy theme - if I'm right, it tracks with an idea I had years ago but had no outlet for (nor the talent to write it either, but that's another story.)

A philosopher among us (you know who you are) once compared writing stories with making sausage. There are a few tasty treats. Then there's bratwurst, satisfying but with little upscale appeal. Finally there's breakfast sausage, the ones that look like cat turds. Your story is in the first category, and I'd like to see more like it. Hope Chapter 3 isn't long in coming.

Strelnikov
 
bump

I really enjoyed the film "Forrest Bump."

(Borrowing a page from Dr. Evil)
 
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