Invincible

1.

Liberty. Finally, a night off. Fuck yeah!

Petty Officer 2nd Class Victor Gonzales slicked some gel into his dark brown hair and slathered on some after-shave. “Hey, Walsh—you wanna go to that club tonight? Near the plaza?”

Another tourist hotspot in picturesque Curaçao—drunken college girls on spring break, wayward daughters escaping their parents on family cruises. I had no desire to spend my first night on land in seven months making small talk, hoping to get lucky. I wanted a sure thing, with no strings.

“No thanks, man. I’m just going to head on into town and get a bite to eat.”

Petty Officer 2nd Class Kyle Lawson trimmed his short black beard and nodded toward me. “You sure? You’re my wingman, bro. Vic over here can never close the deal.”

Vic threw the bottle of hair gel at Kyle. “Fuck you, Kyle. I have standards—I just don’t sleep with every girl who blinks my way.”

Yeah, I definitely needed to go solo tonight, even though the three of us always made our mark when we hit the town. Three United States Navy SEALs didn’t exactly blend in with the local tourists. We were all ripped, especially since on deployment we spent all our free time in the ship’s gym. Vic’s huge arms were decorated with tattoos. Stupid motherfucker, identifying markers weren’t a plus in the Teams. He’d never make SEAL Team Six. And at six feet five inches tall, former NFL linebacker Kyle towered over Vic and me, though we could hardly be considered short since we both measured in at over six feet. People would stop Kyle all the time and ask him for an autograph, thinking that he was a Hollywood movie star or a rapper. Not to mention, the two of them looked like a walking Navy SEAL diversity outreach recruitment poster, with me standing out as the blonde-haired, blue-eyed white boy.

“I’ll meet up with you two fools later.” For the past seven months, I’d spent every waking minute with my Team—SEAL Team Seven to be precise. We’d been circling the Caribbean Islands, working our asses off, patrolling and hunting “go-fast” boats run by South American drug cartels. Tomorrow, I planned to snorkel, relax on the beach, and rest before our next mission. And later tonight I’d meet up with Kyle and Vic and get hammered.

But first things first—I needed some pussy.

I pulled on my civilian clothes, which felt foreign to my body. Sandals and shorts instead of boots and “utes.” I glanced in the mirror and debated whether to shave off my full beard. No point. One benefit of being a SEAL was our relaxed grooming standards. The Marines on our carrier still had to shave daily and cut their hair within regulation. We SEALs could grow full beards and keep our hair longer, to blend in undercover. I certainly wasn’t trying to impress anyone tonight, so I grabbed my wallet and headed out.

Where the fuck was that brothel again? I’d visited it last time we were here. Some of the Team guys refused to pay for sex—they’d rather cheat on their wives or girlfriends with unsuspecting coeds or stay on ship all night reading the Bible. Fuck that. I didn’t have a wife, or a girlfriend. Some woman back home to screw around on me while I was deployed nine months out of the year? No, thanks. I’d tried that once—I don’t think our ship had even left the dock before she already had another guy’s cock in her mouth. Never again. At least I wasn’t one of those guys slipping in and out of women’s lives, filling them with empty promises. I’d seen enough of those men growing up—assholes taking me to baseball games, vowing to be my new dad, fucking my mom and then vanishing. I never made any commitments—except to my country and to my men. Sleeping with a prostitute was the definition of safe sex to me.

Neon-colored buildings lined the streets, some marked with graffiti. A dark-skinned Columbian man with a visible gun in a holster approached me. “Hey, sailor, looking for a good time?”

Damn straight. I hadn’t laid eyes on a woman in seven months. I said no words, just nodded my head and followed him into an alley, where he frisked me for a gun. I was all clear. The sun beat down on the broken pavement and I realized what a dumbass I was for going to a brothel in daylight. But I didn’t give a fuck.

The multi-colored beaded curtain crashed in the wind and I heard some Caribbean music in the background. The man rang a bell, and at least a dozen women ran from the back of the ramshackle house. They were dressed in cheap heels and trashy nighties; this wasn’t no high-class joint. But that was fine by me.

One brunette caught my eye. Her black thong was hiked high up on her hips, like she was stuck in some eighties music video. Light-skinned, long legs, small breasts. She seemed older and more withdrawn than the others—and she was the only one who didn’t make eye contact with me.

I pointed. “Her.”

The other girls dispersed, probably grateful to get a small break from being forced to fuck a stranger.

But I didn’t want to think about their pathetic lives. There was nothing I could do to improve their existences. My conscience was already filled with guilt—I didn’t need to add their sob stories to my burden.

The whore led me down a hallway into a tiny room. The place reeked of cum and sweat, covered by some sort of coconut spritz. What did I expect for twenty dollars?

A tiny cot was pushed up to the left side of the room; a plastic end table filled the other corner. Was this where she lived? There were a few needles lying haphazardly in the trashcan. Of course she was a heroin addict—how else could she live this life? I was a SEAL—I knew that these women were probably all forced into prostitution at a young age. They had once been little girls playing make believe, dreaming of princes and castles. But I was no prince. I’d done enough life saving in my time and I’d learned the hard way that I couldn’t save them all.

“What’s your name?” I didn’t really care but I felt that since she’d be sucking my dick, I should at least know her name.

She pursed her lips, as if she was trying to say something but couldn’t get the words out. Her face looked vaguely familiar but I knew I hadn’t fucked her before. My last whore was Dominican: dark, curvy, black eyes. This chick seemed different, more tragic.

“Fine, we don’t have to talk. Blow me.” I took twenty dollars out of my pocket. If she did a good job, I’d give her a tip.

Over the years, I’d learned that blowjobs were the best way to go with a whore. They always gave amazing ones, and you never felt the guilt that you did taking extra long to come as you would with your girlfriend. Plus, there was less chance for a disease, especially since I always wore a condom. The Navy tested me every month so I figured there was minimal risk.

“Take your panties off.”

Her panties dropped to the floor, revealing a nicely trimmed triangle. I loved it. Why did all those American bitches wax everything off? I was a man; I didn’t want a little girl.

I sat on the edge of the cot. She knelt in front of me, pulled off my belt, and glanced up at me, taking a moment to stare. There were drug tracks on her forearms and a deep scar on her right shoulder. Her eyes were hazel, deep set, and disturbed. I closed mine; I couldn’t deal with her pain.

She rolled on the condom I’d handed her and took my cock in her mouth, slowly. I felt her warm tongue dance around me. Flicking, teasing, sucking. Damn, this bitch was good. Sometimes, when I was getting a blowjob, I would imagine that the whore was my girlfriend, or even my wife. That she loved me, was faithful to me, lived for pleasing me, and that being with me even for just a few months out of the year was worth enduring the loneliness when I was gone. That she respected that I saw being a SEAL as more than a job—it was my calling.

I opened my eyes and placed my hand on the back of her head, her dark, wiry hair bobbing up and down. She stopped for a second, looked me dead in the eyes, and shifted from kneeling to sitting on her left side, exposing her right ankle. It had a tattoo of an alien from a Saturday morning animated show that I used to watch when I was a kid—did women in the Caribbean watch American cartoons? Weird.

She got back down to business.

I didn’t want to come, for this moment to be over. But fuck, it had been so damn long. I mean, I barely even jerked off in my rack because my buddies were in the ones right next to mine.

Her mouth sucked on me hard, pulling and pushing. Man, why did this feel so good even with the latex barrier between us? I couldn’t hold back any longer—I exploded into the condom.

She handed me a towel. I took off the condom, threw it in the trash, cleaned myself up and then pulled on my shorts. This part was awkward, always was. But at least she hadn’t spoken yet, so her voice wouldn’t haunt my dreams or my conscience.

Her lashes blinked twice, as if she was deep in thought and wanted to tell me something. But I didn’t want to know her problems—I just wanted to get the fuck out of there.

I threw down five twenties and pushed myself off the cot. But she stood up, took my hand, and her lips grazed my ear, making sure to shield her hair over her mouth.

“My name is Annie Hamilton. I’m an American citizen. I was kidnapped from a cruise ship five years ago. You’re my last hope. Please save me.”

What the fuck? This bitch wanted me to believe she was a sex-trafficked American? What kind of con was this heroin-addicted whore trying to pull on me?

“I gotta go.” I shoved her off me. This was not my problem. She was not my problem. I walked out of that smelly room and didn’t look back.

The streets of Curaçao were bustling now in the early evening, tourists strolling through this idyllic Caribbean town, unaware that around the corner from where they were buying shot glasses and sundries, women were turning tricks for less than the price of the tourists’ margaritas. The view of the beach was blocked by the endless taxicabs and the cobblestone streets were littered with cigarettes.

Dammit. Of all the brothels, all the whores. Why did I go there? Why did I choose her? I didn’t need this shit. I headed to the closest bar to get drunk. Not one of those pretty tourist joints that served up fruity drinks. A seedy local dive that offered nothing but hard liquor. No pictures of palm trees and beaches. The walls were barren, the air was thick with tobacco, and the bar stools had been cut with blades.

I should’ve listened to Kyle, fucked some college girl.

“Tequila, straight.”

The bartender poured me a drink, then another. Smooth, sweet, salty, tart.

The more the liquor flowed, the more I tried to push her out of my mind. I thought about my dog back home, my mother, my ex-girlfriend, my truck. I made small talk with the bartender; lied about my job, told him I was a tourist on a business retreat.

By the end of the night, I was blazed senseless. I stumbled back to the U.S.S. Ronald Regan, our huge, Naval nuclear-powered super carrier, and collapsed onto my rack.

But there was one problem. Her voice. She had spoken with a perfect American accent; sounded like she was from California. And her vaguely familiar face now made me think that I had seen her picture once on a magazine.

Christ. One fucking blowjob and now the whore was a constant presence in my brain. Maybe Kyle was right—I did need to get laid more often.

I closed my eyes and tried to sleep, praying to erase her from my memory.