I drove the angels down the eastern seaboard in my Ferrari. Well, it was actually my late uncles Ferrari, but since he was dead and had left everything to me it was now mine. We stopped in Miami and took a puddle jumper across the Key Islands.
Early the next day, the angels and I made our way down a crowded beach toward a small dock. We had all four just returned from a nude beach in southern France. The beach we were currently on was much smaller, much more crowded, and the sand not as white. We were in Key West Florida back in the USA. One of my favorite spots in the world, and one I never got to visit enough in my old life.
The Florida sun was out bright in a cloudless blue sky over head. Sabrina had on a big sun hat and a white bikini with lots of sun tan lotion. Jill had on a California Angels baseball cap and a blue bikini and lots of sun tan lotion. Emmanuelle had no hat or lotion, but was wearing a black thong bikini. I had on – oh who cares what I had on anyway.
“Hey, Nick!” I greeted my old college roommate as the four of us came up onto the dock and headed to Nick’s boat.
“Well Charlie, it certainly has been a long time,” Nick said hopping off his boat and shaking my hand.
Nick was two years older than I was. He was shorter than I was, and rather of a short stature in general, but worked out and had a chest and forearms ripped with muscle. He had a beard and long hair, being rather on the dark side and from an Italian heritage. The beard, I think, was more in keeping with his college professor image that he had going for him now days.
“It’s been three years,” I told him. “But somehow it seems like it’s been much longer.”
“I know what you mean,” Nick said. “School seems like ages ago.” Then he suddenly caught sight of the three beautiful women behind me.
“Nick, remember I told you I was bringing three friends down with me? Well here they are.”
“Man, you told me three friends! I thought you meant three friends. These beautiful young ladies can’t be your friends?”
I laughed as I saw the angels transfixed Nick. They were really more than I can describe. They were beautiful.
“Angels, allow me to introduce, Nick. My first two years in college this guy was my roommate.”
“Hello, Nick,” the angels all shook hands with him.
“Nick, this is Sabrina, Jill, and Emmanuelle. They… work for me,” I said and I’m sure there was more than a little pride in my voice.
“Ladies it’s a pleasure to meet you,” Nick said immediately trying to turn up the charm. “I can see you are doing all right for yourself, Charlie.”
“Yes, I’ve had a change of luck in the past couple of months. It’s kind of a long story.”
“Well, why don’t you all come on aboard? We’ve got the next two days to catch up.”
I patted Nick on the back. “It’s really good seeing you again, man.”
“Same here,” Nick said honestly. “I’m going to put you all to work, so I hope you came ready for a good time.”
The girls all jumped across from the dock to the bow of the Santa Maria. They were all excited to be taking an ocean voyage, and so was I.
Nick got Jill and me a beer. Sabrina stuck with an orange juice, and Emmanuelle went with a Diet Coke. We set out on the deck of the thirty-one foot schooner and soaked up the Florida sun while we talked about our times in college together.
“You and Sally aren’t together anymore?” I approached a potentially sensitive subject with Nick.
“She left about a year ago. She took our son. I still fly up to see him occasionally, but that’s about all.”
“Man I remember the two of you going out in school.”
“Just didn’t work out, Charlie.”
“I’m really sorry to hear that, Nick.”
“Well how about another beer, huh?” Nick said walking back to a cooler he had on the deck and dragging out three more beers. “You ladies enjoying my boat,” he asked them, and I could see he was really distracted by the three nearly nude girls sitting on the deck with us. I was distracted also, even though I lived with the girls and knew them all very well. The sight of their bodies all lined up together like this never failed to bring a stirring under my shorts.
“I really like your boat, Nick. What kind is it?” Jill asked him eagerly.
“It’s a schooner, and it’s not really my boat. It belongs to the university I work for.”
“It’s beautiful!” Jill exclaimed. “You must be an important person at the university for them to give you charge of a boat like this.” I could tell by the way Jill was so ready to talk with Nick and compliment him that she liked him.
My friend and my angel? I would have to think that one over for a while. Though I had never been jealous of one of my angels before, I was starting to feel that way as Jill looked across the deck to Nick with her beautiful blue eyes seeing only him. I immediately hated myself for feeling that way and tried to push the thought out of my mind.
“So what about you, Charlie?” Nick asked me. “How’s your love life these days?”
I looked around me at the three girls sitting on the deck with us. The girls were all laughing. I think I may have even been blushing. “Well,” I said stupidly, not knowing how much of an explanation was needed with my friend.
“Oh, I think I get the picture. Say no more,” Nick said and laughed with the girls, catching my meaning. “God man you must be the luckiest guy on the planet.”
“So what can the four of us do for you, Nick?” I asked, changing the subject.
“I’m going to be laying sonar submersibles out in the Gulf of Mexico. The university gave me the use of the Santa Maria for the week, but only under the condition that I could get my own crew. When you called me, Charlie and said you had some free time and might be interested in taking a cruise, I knew I had found my crew. Only I didn’t realize what a beautiful crew you’d be bringing me.” He looked across at my angels and paid particular attention to Jill.
“What will these sonar submersibles do?” Jill asked him with a flirtatious smile.
“Help the university and me to track the migration of large fish in the Gulf of Mexico and out into the Caribbean. It’s kind of like the US Navy’s SOSUS project, except instead of tracking Russian submarines we’re tracking dolphins and tunas.“
“So are you a professor at the university?” Jill asked as she sipped her beer.
I had not seen her this interested in a guy… well frankly not ever. Not since she had met me, which had only been about six weeks before. But we had come to know each other well in those six weeks. And I had fallen in love with Jill in that time. The problem was I had also fallen in love with Sabrina and Emmanuelle. I had also been in love with an old angel, Kelly who had just left my employment two weeks prior to this trip, to get married.
“Yeah. I’m an oceanographer,” Nick answered her with his most charming smile. Of all of my angels Nick had started to focus on Jill, the petite southern California valley girl.
“That sounds like an interesting line of work,” Jill told him. “I don’t think I’ve ever known one before.”
“Well you do now,” Nick said giving her a wink.
“You still working on finding all those dolphins, old buddy,” I asked.
“I sure am. Dolphins are my specialty. I love to go out to the Gulf and listen to them singing at night. If we’re lucky we’ll come across a school of them one night when we’re out and be able to listen to them and maybe even go swimming with them.”
“Oh that sounds wonderful,” Jill squealed.
“What about sharks and things like that if we go swimming?” Sabrina asked.
“We don’t have to worry about sharks in the waters we’re headed for. We might have to worry about this tropical storm that’s brewing off of Cuba. But the Santa Maria has radar aboard and we can track it. If it gets too close or changes course we might have to cut the trip short.”
The Santa Maria set off into the Gulf of Mexico with Nick and me and of course the angels as the crew.
*****
I sat with Nick in the cabin and he taught me how to steer the Santa Maria. I found it easier than a car to handle and after we got out into the Gulf a few miles there was no other boat traffic. The angels had been instructed by Nick to stand watch on deck for the sonar submersibles. They were being trailed along behind the Santa Maria on a little deck and if they got tangled, which they frequently did, the angels would yell back for Nick to cut the engine, and they would jump down in the water and untangle the long cords.
The high tech gadgets up in the cabin with Nick were kind of interesting, but I was still trying to forget about my former high tech career in computers and just relax. All of the flashing lights from the radar and sonar rather reminded me of my old job because they were all run by computers. But the radar was very interesting and I found myself gazing at the big red blob on the screen that represented the tropical storm some two hundred nautical miles south of our position.
We sped along through the white-capped waves. After a couple of hours we caught up with a school of dolphins, and Nick stopped the Santa Maria so the angels could jump in the water and go swimming with the big friendly fish. The dolphins gladly played with the angels and made friends with them.
“I’m really glad to see you doing so well, Charlie,” Nick told me as we watched the angels swimming.
