Spyder laughed. “I’m gonna be screwing all right, bro.” He looked at her with eyes that shone and pulled down the zipper on the front of his jumpsuit revealing a café-au-lait-colored concave chest with a small scraggly patch of hair between his nipples. “We gonna have us a good time, eh bitch?”

She let her eyes wander ever so slowly down the length of his body, then back up to his face. She held his gaze.

He nodded, his eyes growing brighter. “You like what you see, don’t you? Pinky, get down there inside her boat. Keep an eye on her. I don’t trust her. You let me know if she tries to grab anything down there. She’s tricky.”

The man called Pinky climbed down the steps into the main cabin and walked forward to the mast before he turned around.

“Now it’s your turn,” Spyder said. He waved the gun toward the companionway. “I don’t want to shoot you before we had a chance to party, so you don’t try nothing, hear? I’m right here with this gun.”

Even though it sickened her, Riley was prepared to use whatever tools were at her disposal to get rid of these two. “If you don’t mind, I’ll just take off this rain jacket,” she said. “It’s getting so hot.” She mirrored his action when she pulled down the zipper on her foul weather gear, then she pulled off the sleeves behind her back, thrusting her breasts toward him. She was braless under the damp teeshirt and Spyder wasn’t missing a minute of the show she was putting on for his benefit.

“Hurry up,” he said, his voice growing hoarse. “Git down in the cabin.”

 She gave him time to watch her as she rose and stepped up into the companionway. Her khaki shorts weren’t all that short, but there was still plenty of leg showing. The more she could arouse him, the less his brain would function. Because men always had a size advantage over her, she had learned to lull them into thinking her small stature meant she presented no threat.

She bent over and peered down into the cabin, then looked back at Spyder over her shoulder. “You’re not going to hurt me are you?” she asked in a small voice.

He sat up straighter and moved his torso toward her as he spoke. “I said git down there.”

She hopped down to the top step, then held the edge of the hatch and swung down into the cabin.

Pinky jumped back like he was afraid she was going to kick him in the nuts, and he almost tripped over the threshold of the doorway to her forward stateroom.

She turned to face Spyder as he came down the steps. He had stripped out of the jumpsuit, and he was wearing threadbare jeans cut off at the knees.

“I’ve been alone on this boat for a long time,” she said, her eyes wandering over his skinny bare chest. “I almost forgot what it was like to have men aboard.” She glanced over her shoulder at Pinky. He was standing directly behind her, watching.

“Don’t pay him no mind,” Spyder said. “Pretend he ain’t there. It’s just you and me.”

“And your gun,” she said.

“What’s that line? You know, from that old movie?”

She leaned back and looked down at the bulge in his jeans. “I can tell that’s not a gun in your pocket.” He smiled and she took a step toward him.

“Hey, watch that,” Spyder said, lifting the gun and extending his arm. “Stay back.”

She drew in her breath and froze. “It’s okay,” she said raising her hands in the air. “I’ll do whatever you tell me to do,” she said, but she had closed the gap between them by one step.

“Okay, then, take off them shorts.”

She breathed in, held her breath for a few seconds and ran the tip of her tongue around her lips. Then looking down she popped the button and eased the zipper down revealing her suntanned belly and the dark purple nylon of her bikini panties. She eased the khaki shorts past her thighs and all the way down to her calves. She stepped out of them by stepping forward and then tossed the shorts through the doorway into the aft stateroom. The gap between her and Spyder had closed by a few more inches.

“I’ve never undressed with someone pointing a gun at me before,” she said, trying to smile at him. “It’s kind of exciting.”

He waved the gun at her chest. “Now take off your shirt.”

She looked down at his crotch. “I think I should take your shorts off first.” She took another step toward him and now the barrel of the gun was no more then ten inches from her breastbone.

“Bitch, you gonna git naked and do everything I tell you to do – but don’t do nothin’ stupid,” he said.

She kept her eyes on his and thought that this whole idea might turn out to be one of the stupidest things she’d ever done, but she knew she had to get close enough to get control of the gun. “You’re the one with his finger on the trigger. Seems to me I should be the one worrying.” She took another step forward and brushed the fingers of her right hand across the front of his jeans.

He moaned and his eyes rolled out of focus.

She raised her left hand and let it rest on his right shoulder at the same time her fingers danced up and unbuttoned the top button of his jeans. As she lowered the zipper with her right hand, her left hand slid down his right arm. Riley could tell from his breathing which hand he was focusing on. When her right hand reached his wrist, she made her move.

It was only a matter of seconds, but to Riley, it seemed that the world had slowed and the three of them moved like dancers through that small space in her cabin. Riley thrust her left hand down over his gun hand at the exact same instant she pivoted her right shoulder backwards, around and away from the front of the barrel so that in an instant she was standing next to him, no longer between the two men.

Spyder’s surprise at her movement caused his reflexes to pull the trigger, but because his reactions were slowed by her distractions, she was out of the way when the gun went off. It sounded as though the pop of the gunshot and Pinky’s high-pitched scream occurred at exactly the same moment. The pudgy man, who had been standing behind her, crumpled to the floor, both hands gripping his left knee, a red stain growing on his white pants. She heard Spyder cry out his brother’s name, but without stopping the fluid movement she had started, Riley guided the forward momentum of Spyder’s gun hand down, then she bent his wrist around in an upward curve until the barrel pointed at the man’s own chin. He was still screaming and struggling to get the gun away from his head when it went off. Riley let go of his hand and jumped back in surprise.

There was a second of silence after the shot, then Pinky screamed “Spyder!” when his brother toppled sideways against the door to the aft head. The man’s eyes were open, but unseeing. His mouth continued to open and close like that of a gaffed fish gasping for air on deck. Blood seeped from the ragged hole in the soft tissue under his chin and trickled from the corner of his mouth, but she saw no evidence of an exit wound. In straining to get his hand free, Spyder had pulled the trigger himself.

She stood in the galley, backed up against the stove, and she felt her body trembling. Spyder’s sprawled legs twitched and blocked the bottom of the stairs. Though it would be easy enough to step over the legs, it meant she would have to approach him, and she was certain that if she had to get closer to that gasping thing on the floor right now, she would be sick.

She wished the other one would stop his wailing. She craned her neck to see past the galley counter. Pinky had crabbed his way across the cabin sole by pulling his useless leg with one hand, while he pushed his hefty body forward with his good leg. She looked at Spyder. His mouth had stopped moving. Pinky got a hand on his brother’s shoe and pulled. Both men slid across the floor toward each other.

The gun. Where was it? It had to be under Spyder. That was what Pinky was after: the gun.