Chapter 5: The Naked Dive
The rusty shackles clanked against the pole as Hugo worked the key, and Stacy nearly crumpled when her arms finally dropped free. Every muscle in her body screamed, her thighs slick with dried cum, pink bite marks blooming across her breasts and shoulders. Hugo tossed a rusted diving helmet at her feet, followed by a coil of frayed rope.
Stacy caught Tomas's eye and whispered, "Christ, my cunt's still throbbing from their enthusiasm. Fourteen men, Tomas. Fourteen."
He let out a dry, exhausted laugh. "Honestly? I'm impressed you took that pounding without breaking."
She grinned, patting her flat, semen-slicked belly. "Hell, with that much spunk inside me I'm probably pregnant by now. Maybe I'll name the kid Hugo. Or maybe Thorne, if he's feeling generous with child support."
Tomas shook his head, a tired smile tugging at his lips. Hugo grunted and shoved them both toward the ladder, and Stacy climbed into the grey morning light, completely naked, the flaking helmet cradled under one arm.
The deck crew turned as one, whistles and hoots cutting through the salt air at the sight of Stacy's bare breasts swinging as she climbed onto the planks. She waved the rusted helmet like a trophy. "Don't wear out your hands, boys, you'll need them for the treasure." Hugo shoved past her, pointing toward a dark smudge on the horizon. The smudge grew teeth as the boat pitched toward it, a jagged spear of rock jutting from the sea like a rotten tooth. Seagulls wheeled and shrieked above it, and behind it, barely visible against the murky water, a dark shape slumped beneath the surface, a ghost of ribs and timber.
Stacy squinted at it, shielding her eyes with the helmet. "Madre de Dios, I presume."
"You presume right," Hugo said, spitting over the rail. "Resting on a shelf about forty feet down. Captain wants the gold, the emeralds, and a full inventory of the hold before noon."
Stacy turned the helmet over in her hands. Rust flaked off her fingers, and the glass was cracked along one side. It looked like something a Victorian deep-sea diver would have drowned in.
"This is adorable," she said. "Does it come with a matching corset?"
Hugo's lip curled. "It keeps your head from cracking open on the rocks. That's all you need."
Tomas came up beside her, his lean body goosebumped in the cold wind. His briefs were the only clothing between him and the elements, and they weren't doing much. He looked at the wreck, then at the helmet, then at Stacy.
"Forty feet down, no suit, no regulator, one cracked helmet and a rope. The Spanish really knew how to salvage."
"They knew how to die," Stacy said. "We're going to do better."
She caught his eye and grinned, that old, wild grin that had carried them through shipwrecks and gunfights and fourteen-man gangbangs. The wind whipped her hair across her bare chest, and she didn't bother to move it. The crew had seen everything already. They were no longer a threat; they were an audience. She planned to give them a show.
Stacy stepped to the rail and peered down at the dark shape looming in the green water below, tracing its ribs with her eyes. "All right, Tomas. No air, no wetsuit, and a broken helmet between us and a sunken fortune." She turned to Hugo with a crooked grin. "Where's my rum, sailor? A lady doesn't dive on an empty promise." Hugo grunted and disappeared below, returning a moment later with a dusty bottle of rum. He tossed it to Stacy, who caught it one-handed, the cracked helmet wobbling under her other arm. She pulled the cork with her teeth, spat it over the rail, and took a long swallow that made her eyes water. "Christ. That's not rum, that's paint thinner with delusions of grandeur." She held it out to Tomas. "Medicinal. You've earned it."
Tomas took a sip and coughed, his eyes streaming. "Tastes like the bilge we spent the night in."
"Then it's got a familiar flavor. Drink up, partner. We've got a date with a three-hundred-year-old corpse and a fortune in gold." She handed the bottle back and looked at the wreck again, the black ribs of the Madre de Dios visible through the waves, a silent invitation. The crew had gathered at the rail, a dozen rough faces watching her bare body with hungry, expectant eyes. She let them look. She'd paid for their attention already.
"Right," she said, slinging the coil of rope over her shoulder. "Ladies first." She winked at Tomas, turned to the rail, and dove clean and naked into the grey-green water.
The cold water slammed against Stacy's bare skin, swallowing her in a rush of bubbles and silence. She kicked down hard, the rope trailing behind her like a lifeline, and the dark ribs of the Madre de Dios opened before her like a rotten jaw. Forty feet down, the wreck's cargo hold gaped wide, and something glinted gold through the murk. The water swallowed her, cold and murky, and the world narrowed to the thrum of her own pulse and the slow drift of silt. She kicked deeper, the rope trailing behind her like a silver thread, and the ribs of the Madre de Dios grew clearer with every stroke. The galleon lay on its side, half-collapsed into the seabed, bearded with barnacles and trailing veils of kelp. A jagged breach in the hull gaped open like a wound, and through it, something caught the faint green light and winked at her.
Gold. Actual gold.
Stacy's heart hammered in her chest, a wild surge of triumph cutting through the cold. She kicked to the opening, grabbed the rotten timber with both hands, and pulled herself into the shadow of the hold. The water inside was darker, thicker, choked with sediment that swirled around her bare legs. Coins scattered across the silt like a drunkard's spilled fortune, and beyond them, a tangle of rotted chests had burst open, spilling bars of bullion and a litter of green-tarnished emeralds that caught the light and burned like tiny eyes.
She grabbed a bar, heavy and real, and let the weight settle in her palm. The Madre de Dios. After everything, after the handcuffs and the mattress and fourteen men who had used her like a thing, she had found it.
Her lungs were starting to burn. She kicked back out through the breach, broke the surface with a gasp, and held the gold bar above her head like a prize. The crew roared, a ragged cheer that echoed off the rocks, and Stacy grinned through the water streaming down her face.
"Tomas!" she shouted, treading water. "Get your skinny ass down here! You won't believe what they left for us."
Tomas dropped the rope and followed, his lean body cutting into the grey-green water without hesitation. The cold hit him like a slap, and he kicked hard, the pressure building in his ears as he descended toward the dark shape Stacy had vanished into. He saw her silhouette at the breach, hair floating like a dark halo around her bare shoulders, one hand pressed against the rotted timber as she peered inside.
She saw him and beckoned, a grin visible even through the murk, and he swam to her side. They pulled themselves through the gap together, entering the belly of the Madre de Dios, a cathedral of silt and shadow where three centuries of darkness had settled like dust on a tomb. Coins glittered in the sedim, and the bullion bars lay in their shattered chests like blackened ingots waiting for a touch.
Tomas reached for a bar, his fingers closing around cold, heavy metal. He held it up to the faint green light filtering through a hole in the hull, and even underwater, he could see the gleam of gold beneath the tarnish. His heart pounded with a wild, primal joy, the same joy he'd felt when they'd found the doubloon off Galicia, but bigger. This was the score. This was the one that would set them free.
Stacy grabbed his arm and pointed. A chest, intact, its lid still sealed with a crust of oxidized iron. She kicked down to it, her toes sinking into the silt, and he followed. Together they worked at the clasp, their fingers clumsy in the cold, and when the lid finally creaked open, a cloud of sediment billowed out. Inside, nestled in a bed of rotted velvet, lay strings of emeralds so green they seemed to glow, their facets catching the light and scattering it like a handful of stars.
Stacy's eyes went wide above the cracked glass of the helmet, and she mouthed something he couldn't hear. He didn't need to hear it. He knew what she was saying. Holy shit.
They grabbed what they could. Stacy looped the emerald necklaces over her neck, four, five, six of them, the cold stones settling against her bare skin and swinging between her breasts like a jeweled bib. Tomas stuffed gold bars into the rope bag he'd brought, the coarse fibers biting into his shoulder as they ascended. The crew would want a full inventory, Thorne had said, but Stacy's eyes said something else entirely. Grab what matters. Get out.
They broke the surface together, gasping, and the crew's roar hit them like a wall of sound. Stacy climbed the rope ladder naked except for her jewels, her breasts swinging, emeralds clattering against her collarbone, and the men on deck went quiet for a moment, struck dumb by the sight of her rising from the sea like a drowned queen come back for her crown. Then the whistles and hoots started again, louder than before.
She reached the deck and stood there, dripping, the green stones winking in the grey morning light. She looked like a pagan idol, a thing of salt and gold and naked flesh, and she was grinning.
"Gentlemen," she announced, holding up the rope bag. "I give you the Madre de Dios. Minus a few souvenirs we've decided to keep as a finder's fee."
Captain Thorne stepped forward, his grey eyes moving from the gold in the bag to the emeralds around Stacy's neck. Something flickered in his face, a calculation, a decision.
"The deal," he said slowly, "was the treasure for your freedom. Full inventory."
"The treasure is right there," Stacy said, patting the bag. "And the inventory is in my head. Every chest, every bar, every emerald. I counted them down there. You want it, I'll tell you. But the ones I'm wearing?" She touched a strand of emeralds, letting them roll between her fingers. "These are my payment for services rendered. Consider it hazard pay."
Thorne stared at her for a long moment. Then, slowly, a smile spread across his face, a rare and unsettling sight. "You've got balls, woman. Size of grapefruits."
"I've got something even bigger," she said. "A memory. And the willingness to share it once we're safely ashore."
"Stacy," Tomas murmured, low and warning.
But Thorne laughed, a rough sound that startled the crew into silence. "Fine. Keep your baubles. The gold stays, the emeralds stay, and you two get a boat and a heading." He barked at Hugo, "Get them clothes. Real clothes. And food. They've earned it."
Hugo looked like he'd swallowed a fish whole, but he obeyed. He returned with two bundles, old pants and heavy wool sweaters. Stacy pulled the sweater over her head with a sound of pure bliss and let the emeralds clatter against the fabric, still glowing against her chest. Tomas dressed in the same, the coarse wool scratching his skin, but he didn't care. He felt alive for the first time in days.
A dinghy hung at the stern, old and patched but seaworthy. Stacy and Tomas climbed down into it, water sloshing around their ankles, and Hugo untied the lines with a scowl. He tossed the rope into the boat after them, a final bitter gift.
Thorne stood at the rail, watching them. "Head southeast. You'll reach the mainland by nightfall. If I ever see either of you again, I'll kill you."
"Noted," Stacy called up, settling onto the bench. "Try to keep the crew on their leash, won't you? They're sweet boys, but they have no idea what to do with a woman who talks back."
Hugo shoved the dinghy away from the hull, and the current caught it, carrying them out into open water. The pirate ship grew smaller behind them, a dark smudge against the horizon, and the grey morning opened up around them, vast and empty and free.
Stacy leaned back, the emeralds cold against her chest, and let out a long breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. "Well. That was the strangest dive of my life."
"Strange is a word for it," Tomas said. He was looking at the rope bag, at the glint of gold peeking through the weave. "We got out. We got something to show for it. We're alive."
"We're alive," she agreed. She looked at him, at the sharp line of his jaw and the tired set of his shoulders, and she felt a warmth that had nothing to do with the sun. "And we've got each other. That's the part that matters."
He looked at her, and for a moment, his serious face softened into something almost hopeful. "Yeah," he said. "I guess we do."
She reached out and took his hand, her fingers cold against his. "You know what, Tomas? I think this is going to be the start of something beautiful. Two treasure hunters, a boat, a bag of gold, and a woman wearing enough emeralds to buy a small country." She grinned, that old wild grin. "What do you say we make it official?"
"Official?"
"Partners," she said. "In every sense of the word. You confessed your love in a bilge. I think you deserve a chance to make good on it above the waterline."
He laughed, a full, bright sound that carried across the waves. "Stacy Halvorsen, are you asking me to be your boyfriend?"
"I'm asking you to be my everything, you skinny bastard. The treasure's just a fringe benefit."
The dinghy bobbed on the swell, the grey sea stretching out to meet the pale sky, and Tomas leaned over and kissed her, slow and warm, the taste of salt on both their lips. When he pulled back, she was smiling with her eyes closed, the emeralds catching the light.
"So," he said. "Mainland by nightfall?"
"Mainland by nightfall," she confirmed. "And then? The world. All of it. Every wreck, every sunken fortune, every crazy scheme we can cook up." She squeezed his hand. "As long as you're beside me, Tomas. I can survive anything."
He looked at her, the wind whipping her hair across her face, the emeralds glowing against the wool sweater, and he knew it was true. They had survived everything the world had thrown at them: pirates, chains, a fourteen-man gangbang, and the crushing weight of the sea. And they had come out the other side, battered but unbroken.
"Anything," he agreed. "Together."
The dinghy carried them southeast, away from the wreck and the ship and the men who had tried to break them. And in the grey embrace of the morning, Stacy Halvorsen and Tomas Rojas sailed toward their future, naked beneath their borrowed clothes, rich beyond their wildest dreams, and utterly, completely alive.