Bilongo

Brian Ray Brewer

Description

Bilongo is a tale of romantic obsession that weaves its way from an American merchant ship plying Oriental waters onto a string of beaches in Central and South America in which the central character, Rawley Aimes, is torn between his love for his wife and his consuming desire for another woman. This book blends the themes of love, betrayal, redemption and the use and the abuse of occult power in a surrealistic form of writing which restricts the reader to an objective view like that of a hidden camera.

Sujets

• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Xlibris US
• Date de parution: 06 juillet 2023
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781669879787
• Langue: English

Extrait

Bilongo
BRIAN RAY BREWER

Copyright © 2023 by Brian Ray Brewer.
 
Library of Congress Control Number:
2023910448
ISBN:
Hardcover
978-1-6698-7980-0
 
Softcover
978-1-6698-7979-4
 
eBook
978-1-6698-7978-7
 
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.
 
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to any actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
 
Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.
Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.
 
 
 
 
 
 
Rev. date: 07/05/2023
 
 
 
 
 
Xlibris
844-714-8691
www.Xlibris.com
853690
Contents
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
 
Dedication
Acknowledgements
One
 
C andles flickered on the altar, rippling shadows at the feet of the virgin like breezes over dark water. Maria da Misericórdia looked down in silence at Marina, the young woman who knelt before her, head bowed beneath long raven hair, who prayed:
Ave Maria, cheia de graça, o Senhor é convosco; bendita sois Vós entre as mulheres e bendito é o fruto de vosso ventre, Jesus. Santa Maria, Mãe de Deus, rogai por nós, pecadores, agora e na hora de nossa morte. Amém.
Marina’s fingers moved down the rosary clenched before her. She prayed on:
Ave Maria, cheia de graça, o Senhor é convosco; bendita sois Vós entre as mulheres e bendito é o fruto de vosso ventre, Jesus. Santa Maria, Mãe de Deus, rogai por nós, pecadores, agora e na hora de nossa morte. Amém.
The candles sputtered, then strengthened. Marina stared into their glow as she prayed her novena. Mother of God, into their flames she stared as a scene played out upon ocean waves...
The moon is full and bright, casting an eerie glow to the cloud tops that mull below it, dark and brooding. Rain sweeps beneath them in sheets above the sea, which throws itself chaotic at the sky and at the ship that rides its swell. The ship is but a speck amid the tumult, a dim glimmer, bobbing wild off in the tumbled distance. But it looms larger and soon grows clear with the yellow light that pours from an open portal, dilating round and larger in the instant. Cold rain and spray beat upon the glass, but go unheeded by those within. Rawley drives hard into the woman beneath him with solid rhythm, pushing Lil down into the mattress and back against the metal headboard, which she grips with outstretched hands.
“Ave Maria!”
Their bodies move in unison, hips pressing together with heightened tempo at her urgent moans.
“Santa Maria!”
The ship rolls violently, and he works to stay inside her, wedging a leg between the mattress and the bunk without losing momentum. He clutches both her shoulders and pumps her even harder. Sweat rolls down his forehead and chest and falls in salty drops.
“Mãe de Deus!”
Half a world away at the foot of the virgin’s altar, tears fell from Marina’s brown eyes onto thin, clenched fists bound up in the rosary as she stared into the flame. The virgin looked on in silence as she spoke her prayer, “ ...rogai por nós, pecadores...”
Lil moans loudly, and her green eyes flutter shut as she bites into his shoulder and cries, “Oh, baby. Oh, baby. Oh, yes. Yes. YES!”
Rawley looks down on her intently, bathed in sweat, working hard to fuck her and stay mounted in the storm.
“Yes!”
He pounds on in fury, washing her in rivulets of salt that drip onto her belly where they pool.
All the while, Marina’s trembling fingers were drawn to the cross, which she wetted with tears beneath the eyes of the wooden virgin.
“Salve Rainha, Mãe de misericórdia, vida, doçura, esperança nossa, Salve! A Vós bradamos, os degradados filhos de Eva...”
“Oh baby, that’s it. Just. Like. That.”
“...A vós suspiramos, gemendo e chorando neste vale de lagrimas...”
“Harder!”
“...Eia, pois, Advogada nossa, esses vossos olhos misericórdiosos a nós volvei e depois deste desterro mostrai-nos Jesus, bendito fruto do vosso ventre...”
“Oh, yes! Yes! YES!”
“...Ó clemente, ó piedosa, ó doce e sempre Virgem Maria...”
“Cum now, babe! Hurry up. I can’t take any more tonight.” Lil draws a hand through the redness of her hair, then runs it down Rawley’s back, down low to pull him in. “Come on, baby. Cum, sweetheart. You’re gonna wear my pussy out!”
“...Santa Maria, por favor, me ajuda! Por favor...por favor...”
Rawley moans and collapses upon her, splashing their sweat onto the mattress.
The portal is bright but grows dim quickly in the distance until the clouds below obscure it.
The candles on the alter guttered beneath the wavering flames, and tears dropped from the crucifix onto the dirty tiles as she prayed her petition. The virgin watched in silence as Marina gathered up her bag and knelt to make the sign of the cross. She walked quickly toward the door of the church, then out into the light that shone beyond.
*****
“Come right to two-six-five.”
“Right to two-six-five, aye!”
Rawley glanced over to the rudder angle indicator to check the rudder’s function, then looked to the gyro repeater to watch the swing. The ship hung on the course line for half a minute, then gradually began to tick over. The helmsman brought her up short as she gained momentum so he could hold her steady on the new heading.
“Steering two-six-five!”
“Very well.”
Rawley glanced down at the collision avoidance radar and saw that the oncoming ship’s vector had opened. They would pass each other with 200 yards between them, too close on the open ocean but room to spare in the Singapore Straits.
He quickly checked the other vectors that clouded the screen, then walked out onto the port bridge wing to watch the oncoming ship. It was a worn old Russian freighter, hammer and sickle long cut from her stack yet still indelibly etched in shades of rust. As rough as she looked, though, she was down to her marks, still moving cargo from somewhere to somewhere else in the world, still working. She came up on their beam, and he scanned the men that lined the rail with his glasses. They were shirtless, shoeless Malays or Filipinos who faked out the hawsers on deck.
Rawley shifted his gaze forward, first to the tanker they were overtaking, then to the hydrofoil that would cross well ahead and finally mid-channel where a cluster of dugouts had bravely and foolishly set their nets. He would edge over a few degrees to starboard and pass them to port, then would move back to inch between the tanker and an oncoming containership that was still several miles off. He walked backed to the collision avoidance system rechecked the vectors, then ordered, “Let’s bring her right to two-five-eight, Charlie.”
“Right to two-five-eight. Aye, mate.”
The ship edged to starboard and her bow arced past the flotilla to point toward the shoals that girded Singapore Harbor.
“Steering two-five-eight.”
“Very well.”
The sun shone hot above the towering city of glass and steel and poached it with tropic heat as it did day and night, summer and winter, every day of the year. The harbor boiled with activity: ships headed into and out of the channel; ferries shuttled back and forth; bum boats tended to local commerce; and the ever-present fishing skiffs were amid all, oblivious to the traffic around them, interested only in the traffic below. The air was busy too—he counted no less than four large jets circling the airport, and even as he counted, a flight of low-skimming Singapore Air Force F-16s buzzed by. The planes routinely patrolled those oft-contested waters that marked the disputed borders between three not always friendly nations.
Rawley took bearings off a shoal light and a range marker and walked back through the bridge to the chart room to plot them. The captain was at the chart but stepped aside as he walked in. Rawley quickly scribed in their position and noted the time. They were farther to the right than he wanted to be, 150 yards off the shoals, but the gang of fishing boats close ahead left him little choice other than to veer out to port—out of their lane and into the oncoming traffic. He’d swing back mid-channel as soon as he could.
The captain looked at the position as Rawley plotted it, but if he was concerned, he didn’t show it. Singapore was always busy. Lots of ships in little water. One maneuvered as one could. They both walked back out onto the bridge where the captain took his chair and where he checked the radar for any new targets ahead. There were several. He dropped some they’d passed from the memory and acquired the new ones as he could—the computer couldn’t handle them all. He chose those he judged most pressing, then he was out on the port wing to watch the fishing boats as they drew near.
Fishing boats in the Orient were problematic: one never really knew what to expect when passing them. The rules of the road were as familiar to those poor fishermen as calculus to a crab. Their navigation, as their faith, was in the hands of Allah. Rawley watched them bob, intent upon their nets, heedless of the tons of commerce that steamed so