Belly Chains

     On one particular picture-perfect morning in paradise, a woman in her mid-30s came aboard wearing a belly chain. She was moderately pretty and sexy in a funny valentine and slutty D-list porn actress kind of way, with a nice figure showing only a few extra pounds of flab on her tummy.

     On a scale of 1-to-10 scale she was at least a six, but the sleaziness she exuded made her a seven, and she caught the eye of every male on the boat that day. The vivacious lady was obviously looking for some deep diving.

     As a 40-year-old chronic masturbator my days as a player were all but over, but Miss Belly Chain made me want to give it the old college try. On the dive trip that morning only me and another fellow were in the running; his name was Mike, an American scuba instructor in his early 40s who'd been diving for a decade.

     Mike and I became fast friends. We were nearly the same age and our personalities clicked right away, which gave me the feeling I'd known him a lot longer than I actually had. We started hanging out together, eating loco moco at a restaurant near the warehouse and killing time in the seaside shopping villages and paradisial promenades of Kona Town.

     Later that day, after the morning dive, we ended up in a tourist shop that sold funny hats with faux hair sticking out of them. Mike tried on a hat with fake shoulder-length hair matching his jet-black locks and Grecian facial tone to a tee. The wiglet looked totally real, making him seem more like a chain-smoking, beer-guzzling trucker than and a scuba diving instructor. We laughed like two best friends in a fun house.

     "I should get this," said Mike.

     "No, let me buy it for you at Christmas," I promised.

     "Really?" Mike answered. "Are you sure?"

     "Yeah, I'll have it wrapped and bring it to you when we have dinner at Dave and Elsa's on Christmas Eve," I said.

     "Okay, cool bro, thanks." Mike replied, his eyes shining with comradely gratitude.

     On the boat that morning, Mike looked like he'd been hit by a rogue wave of pheromones. He set his laser sights on Miss Belly Chain from the get-go, for no sooner had the horny little mermaid scrabbled up the bite-size ship's ladder to the top deck Mike was there to greet her, giving her his best big pukka grin and escorting her accessorized midsection to an open spot along the rectangular bench seating ringing the outer edge of the sundeck on all sides.

     I have to admit I felt jealous of Mike's sexual prowess. The dude was smooth, which meant he was just being himself and interacting without fear, something most women can smell from a mile away. I was trying to be smooth, which of course meant I was being just the opposite. I was a bumbling, fumbling salty dog up horndog creek without a paddle. Luckily, or so I thought, Miss Belly Chain saved a little demure kittenishness for me.

     Mike and I were still in the gift shop, looking at the hats.

     "You ready for loco moco?" Mike asked, with a smirk on his face that told me he already knew the answer.

     "You read my mind, buddy." I mused.

     Loco moco is a Hawaiian dish of white rice topped with ground beef, a fried egg, and brown gravy. It's the simplest of cuisines done to the purest of perfection. Savoring one delightfully yolky mushy beefy bite at a time, I asked Mike about Miss Belly Chain.

     "She's staying at the King's," said Mike, which was short for the King Kamehameha's Kona Beach Resort.

     "Are you gonna see her tonight?" I asked, wiping my yolk-covered chin with a cloth napkin.

     "Not sure yet," Mike said. He scooped a man-size bite of loco moco into his mouth and chewed it ferociously. "But the door's definitely open," he added.

     After lunch we went our separate ways. As it happened, a month later we'd be roommates living in a sublime 4-bedroom ocean view estate high up in the plush hillsides above Kona Town. Casey would give up his place on Palani Road to move in with us, and one more diver named Doug would take the last bedroom. At certain points in my life, land-on-your-feet luck had put me on top of the world.

     The next morning, Miss Belly Chain returned for her second and final day of diving. She had on a different bikini but was wearing the same belly chain from the day before. Maybe it was the only one she owned.

     As soon I got the chance, I asked Mike if he'd knocked on that open door he'd been talking about.

     "Two drinks at Sam's (Sam's Hideaway, a popular local watering hole) and it was straight back to her room at the King's." said Mike.

     "And...?"

     "Banged her twice, bud. First in the ass and then in the puss."

     "Was she wearing that belly chain?" I asked, glancing around to make sure we weren't being watched.

     "Yup," Mike replied.

     "How was it?" I asked.

     "Not bad," said Mike. "I didn't kick her out of bed, but it's a one and done. She's all yours if you want her."

     "Really? You sure?"

     "Yup. Like I said, one and done."

     "I think you mean two and through."

     We both laughed and started putting on our wetsuits. The rest of the crew and paying customers quickly joined us in the predive ritual of suiting and gearing up for the first descent of the morning.

     It was another perfect day in paradise, warm and sunny with a coolish ocean breeze and the water temperature around 80 degrees Fahrenheit. The sun was still low on the eastern horizon, creeping brilliantly skyward as a majestic fireball of melioristic hope gloriously trumpeting the next hot and muggy early fall day in the Hawiian Islands.

     Miss Belly Chain flirted uncomfortably with Mike for most of the trip. He gave her the cold shoulder, which seemed to make her draw back and seek comradery with other divers on the tour. She eventually gave up on Mike and became more interested in what I might have to offer. At some point I invited her out to dinner. She accepted, which made my dick a little hard. I was hornier than a jailbird fresh out of the slammer.

     After the first dive, I unzipped the top half of my full wetsuit and pulled the foam neoprene down inside out around my waist. This was customary for most male crew members and patrons because it was considered the coolest way to hangout between dives.

     I glanced at my belly. It had a few extra pounds on it but still looked attractively surferish enough for a middle-aged exjock. The training was getting me into even better from when I arrived, and although I was still overeating on a semiregular basis, I was staying fairly fit and maintaining a healthy body mass index.

     As a food addict, the complimentary Hawiian buns and snack plates of fresh veggies and thinly sliced roast beef, turkey, and pastrami, along with mouthwatering mounds of Swiss, Jack, and cheddar cheeses, were always the first thing on my mind when coming out of the water.

     While rinsing and sorting the masks, weight belts, and any other out-of-place gear, I tried to look as unhurried and nonchalant as possible, but all I could think about was the savory deliciousness of the perfectly seasoned deli meat and moist creaminess of the well-aged deli cheese slices stuffed inside the sweet and fluffy doughiness of those Hawiian rolls.

     The boat usually had plenty of food to go around. Crew members waited until the last of the paying customers had grazed the food trays before divvying up the leftovers. On any given day the trays offered either a bounty or slim pickings. On this particular day, I stepped in line as politely as possible alongside Miss Belly Chain and a husband-and-wife couple from Norway whom she'd made friends with.

      To avoid any chance of being rude by interrupting their conversation, I kept my mouth shut and simply smiled and nodded at the chatting trio while stepping in line behind them.

     After loading up my 6-inch paper dessert plate with two turkey, Swiss cheese and mayo sandwiches, along with an ample assortment of raw broccoli and cauliflower florets, sliced carrot and celery sticks, and orange and yellow cherry tomatoes, I gingerly followed Miss Belly Chain and the Norwegian couple up to their place on the top deck and asked if I could join them.

     We chugged luxuriantly to the next dive spot, blue water surging and sparkling all around us, the deep-sea swells gently rocking the flush decked dive boat up and down as the rollers lumbered shoreward. The great mass of seawater tossing and turning beneath us, the epipelagic zone, held the whale-sized pleasure craft in her saltwater grips, magically transporting all souls on board to a perfectly unparalleled storm of stalwart adventure.

     After popping several of the sweet and slightly acidic tomatoes into my mouth, I saw an opening in the conversation and asked all three of them at once, "So how was the first dive?"

     Their eyes lit up like Alaskan fireflies. Miss Belly Chain's name turned out to be Laurel, and she had lots to say about her first dive. She seemed to be warming up to the idea that her naughty tryst with Mike had been a one-night stand. All three divers, including Norwegians Bjorn and Astrid, kept our conversation going for nearly 20 minutes.

     When the dive boat anchored, Bjorn and Astrid excused themselves and made their way down to the main deck. That's when I made my move.

     "Would you like to have dinner with me tonight?" I asked as nonchalantly as I could. "There's a great Mexican restaurant we could go to."

     Laurel looked at me with pretty green eyes and said, "Sure, I'd love to."