Unknown Pleasures

This is my first submission for a while and it's good to be back! This story involves a little bit of same-sex experimentation so if you're overly prudish perhaps it won't be for you. I hope you enjoy it.

*

Even if the rest of the weekend turned out to be a disaster at least Daniel would have the hydrofoil journey to look back on fondly. Ever since he'd seen the Disco Volante cutting through the clear blue waters of the Caribbean in the James Bond film Thunderball he'd loved the seemingly impossibly futuristic and glamorous idea of a boat that was so powerful and so fast that its hull could lift clear of the surface to skim effortlessly across the water. Knowing that the final leg of their journey was to be on board a retired 1960s hydrofoil had tipped the balance in favour of a rather mysterious sounding weekend on a remote island in the Adriatic. To even board the craft that looked as though it had been designed long before such tedious concerns as maximising passenger numbers and profit margins it had taken Daniel and his wife Marie a car, two planes, a train and an enthusiastically driven Albanian taxi so it was obvious that their destination was not on the regularly trodden tourist trails of southern Europe. The length and complexity of the trip had taken its toll and Daniel had dozed off as soon as the boat had started planing, as had everyone else by the looks of things. It was only his phone vibrating in his pocket that had woken him and, by virtue of the jolt his phone had given him, Marie as well. A glance around the aeroplane-like interior told Daniel little about his dozing travelling companions. They were a mix of ages and their appearance told him nothing but as this was a private vessel taking them all to the same place he hoped they'd have something in common.

"Smile!" said Marie, squashing her face against his and holding her phone in front of them to take a photo. "Oh, there's no service." She leant into Daniel to take another snap with the view through the window as the backdrop then showed him the result. It wasn't the best photo he'd ever seen but the bright sunshine dancing off the azure blue of the clear sea couldn't fail to put him in a good mood. "Are you excited yet?"

Daniel looked at his beautiful wife. Her enthusiasm for life was infectious and one glimpse of her beaming smile was enough to dispel any worries he had. "You promise me there'll be no mud?"

"Promise. Zero mud."

"And I can choose where to go at least some of the time?"

"That depends on where it is you want to go!" She elbowed him in the ribs and laughed. "You're gonna love it. We both are. I'm positive of it, darling." Marie ran her hand up his thigh making him shiver and Daniel thought she was probably right.

He looked at his watch and smiled. "Twenty years ago to the minute we had sex for the first time you know?"

Marie made a face of mock shock. "How dare you! We didn't have sex for another two days after we first connected and you know it!" She pinched his side to admonish him.

"And you know as well as I do that that isn't quite true is it? I was inside you perhaps three hours after we first kissed."

Marie turned to look out of the window and pouted, trying to prevent her smile from showing. "I was a good girl. And I still am. And good girls don't have sex on the first night."

"Whatever you say, my darling. I knew you were a horny bitch straight away and twenty years has done nothing to change that."

Her pout faded and the smile spread and her hand squeezed his crotch gently. "Ahem. Good girl. Remember?"

"Oh, don't worry, I remember."

The boat slowed and sank from its hydrofoils to sit in the water like a normal boat. The captain drew them up alongside a jetty and announced that they'd arrived. Stepping out of the air-conditioned cabin and on the island's stone jetty the heat of the late summer afternoon hit Daniel like a wall. He blew out his cheeks and fumbled in his bag for his sunglasses. Once protected from the glare he was able to see where the space-age vessel had landed. The island was the largest of a little archipelago surrounded by the clearest blue sea he had seen this side of South Pacific. Gentle waves lapped at the jetty and onto a white sandy beach that curved around either side of the jetty in a small cove. At either end of the cove and straight ahead of them was an intimidating cliff that climbed straight up towards the burning sun mounted like a fiery jewel in a bed of deep blue. A vertiginous staircase had been cut into the cliff side but fortunately, considering the size of the suitcase Marie had brought, a funicular railway ran from the end of the jetty up the cliff.

Their fellow passengers, pulling suitcases and carrying rucksacks, made their way down the jetty towards the funicular, apparently more aware of what to do than Daniel was. Perhaps they'd been before. Surely returning customers had to be a good sign. A few people came down the jetty and boarded the hydrofoil which then edged away from the jetty, turned the way it had come, and accelerated away, rising magically from the water as it began to plane.

"Come on, geek boy," Marie said, taking his hand. "Time to party!"

They joined the short queue for the funicular just as a speedboat swept into the cove and up to the jetty. A man jumped off the boat and walked towards them. He was dressed in loose linen trousers, faded blue espadrilles and a baggy black t shirt. A stray festival goer, perhaps. "Professor Smith? Mr Smith?" he asked as he came close.

"Yes, that's us," said Marie. "I'm Marie, and this is Daniel."

"Super!" the man exclaimed and shook their hands warmly. "I'm Marcel, sorry I'm a bit late. There's a fuck load going on today. Welcome to my little island. Or, as it is for the weekend, our festival of Unknown Pleasures." Daniel and Marie's faces must have spoken for them as Marcel frowned and shook his head. "Forgive me, I thought Joe would have explained. Come, let's go this way and I'll explain all." Marcel grabbed their suitcase and marched towards the waiting speedboat.

"Please," said Marcel, handing the case to the boat's driver and jumping in himself. He turned to hold out his hand to Marie who, having turned to shrug at Daniel, allowed Marcel to help her into the boat. Marcel held his hand up again and Daniel followed. Marcel cast them off and the boat swung out in an arc and headed out of the cove.

"So, now I explain", Marcel said. He had an accent; European, but hard to place. His dark curly hair and beard suggested the southern half of the continent but Daniel was struggling to pin his origins down. "As I said, this is my island, actually there are several but this is the largest, and for a weekend every year I put on this little festival. Most people use the funicular but for my special friends we have another way." He hardly had to raise his voice. The boat was almost silent, obviously powered by an electric motor but easily as fast as a normal speedboat and the only noise was that of the rushing wind and the hull slapping against the gentle waves as the boat zoomed alongside the cliffs and round the island. "There is so much to do, I think you will like it." Marcel's eyes twinkled.

As they rounded a little headland the cliffs steadily became lower until what had been a vertical rock face became nothing more than an extension of the white sandy beach that gave way to pine woodland. Marcel turned in his seat to face Daniel and Marie. "There are seven islands in my little paradise. Almost all self-sufficient and all powered completely by electricity that we generate right here. Our hydrofoil is the only polluting mode of transport anywhere for several dozen kilometres. I just love the hydrofoil so much, it's my one indulgence." Daniel was starting to like Marcel. He pointed off towards a smaller island. "This island here is completely dedicated to solar technology. We have some of the most advanced generation techniques anywhere in the world. Over there on another little island we are experimenting with wave power, next door is our garden island where much of our food is grown..." Marcel turned and grinned. "But please forgive me, I'm droning on already. You are here to enjoy yourselves, not receive a lesson."

"No, honestly, it's fascinating, Marcel. Tell us more," Marie told him.

"You're most kind," he said. "I do get rather excited about my projects and not everyone finds them as scintillating as I do."

"I've never even heard of this place, never mind the cutting-edge stuff," said Daniel. "I mean, this boat. An electric speedboat. Can you even buy these?"

"Not yet," grinned Marcel. "Next year, yes! We're refining a couple of things before we go to market. Do you know the story of Elias Howe, who invented the modern sewing machine? He said that the key to his invention -- having the eye of the needle at its point -- came to him a dream. Let's just say something similar happened to me when I was working on designs for an electric motor. I have a number of electric boats for our own transportation. There," he pointed towards another island that had just come into view. Two wide, flat bargelike boats were passing each other, moving in opposite directions. "Do you see the two little ferries? They run 24 hours a day during the festival to bring people to and from our camping accommodation. They're also electric. My design," he winked.

"Is that what you do? Electrical design or something like that?" asked Daniel

"Something like that!" laughed Marcel. "I was an engineer, once upon a time, then I fell into the Silicon Valley world. I was very lucky, I made some good choices, I made some money. Now I do things I enjoy."

"Like put on a festival?"

"Exactly, my dear Marie! Now, tell me how you know my friend Joe. He has great things to say about you both."

"Oh god, it's a bit embarrassing really. I've been a fan of the band for years and I happened to see Joe at an after-show party a few years ago. I was a bit tipsy," Marie caught Daniel's eye and laughed, "Okay, I was drunk! Anyway, I was a bit star struck and for some ridiculous reason the only think I could think of saying to him was to ask him if he'd lost weight!"

Marcel found this highly amusing and doubled over laughing. "I love it!" he shouted. "What a way to begin a friendship!"

"Oh god, don't! I still cringe about it now," said Marie from behind her hand. "Anyway, for some reason he didn't call security to eject this deranged fan. Daniel appeared to save me, thank god, and the three of us started chatting. We've been friends ever since."

"And Joe's weight has returned!" laughed Marcel.

"And then some!" cackled Marie. "Have you seen him yet, by the way?"

"They arrive tomorrow, just in time for their show. They're our headliners, as I'm sure you know. I can hardly wait. I was a fan first, just like you, then I met Joe in San Francisco one year and we hit it off. I'm a big analogue synth nerd you see and once we started talking there was no stopping us. There's something wonderful about analogue sounds in a very digital world. Although I owe much of my success to ones and ohs, nothing can beat the warmth of transistors and oscillators. Anyway, I digress. They're the biggest name we've had and I'm very pleased they agreed to play.

"They're the reason we're here!" laughed Daniel. "The last time we saw them the experience was slightly marred by the hurricane and biblical mud. There isn't any mud here is there?"

Marcel looked up at the cloudless sky and grinned. "I can promise you there is no mud, my friend!" The silent speedboat rounded a point and into another cove then slowed to approach a wooden jetty and Marcel leapt off the boat to tie it off. The driver handed Marcel the Smiths' case and they stepped onto the jetty. "Now my friends, please come with me and I'll show you around a little." Beyond the jetty and beach were a few old stone buildings, probably once fishermen's cottages, and beyond those more of the Mediterranean pine trees. The wooded land then rose steadily upwards, as far as they were able to see. "This is a part of the island not normally seen by guests but friends of Joe's are friends of mine. Of course, you will not be camping, I should have told you that. We have some accommodation for special guests which I hope will be to your liking." Marcel led them to a little buggy type vehicle and told them to hold on. Just as with the speedboat it was more or less silent and clearly much more powerful than the golf cart it resembled and they were soon shooting their way up a sandy track through the woods and clinging onto whatever they could find.

"We could have taken a more direct route, I have a hydroelectric elevator on this side of the island," said Marcel, expertly sliding them around a hairpin bend, "but I fancied a drive."

"How long have you lived here?" Marie asked.

"Oh, for about five years full time. Before that, when I lived in California, I came here for holidays but one day I was in a meeting, some asshole banker was picking holes in one of our designs -- like he knew what the fuck he was talking about! -- and I just thought, 'Fuck it. I don't need this shit anymore. I'm going to my islands and I'm never leaving'. And I really hardly ever do leave. The islands have more or less everything we need, my wife Natacha loves it, I can work from here, we have people to stay, why would I want to be anywhere else?"

"Good question!" said Daniel. They had just popped out above the trees and were rewarded with a stunning view of green pine forest leading down to the brilliant water of the Adriatic Sea, and one of Marcel's smaller islands just off to one side. They turned another corner and the battlements of a medieval castle appeared. A couple more hairpins later and the full majesty of the ancient building was revealed. It stood on the very top of the cliffs, overlooking the whole island and for miles around. "My god! It's amazing."

"Thanks," Marcel said modestly. "It was begun in the late thirteenth century and much of it is original. Like the island it was owned by a series of Italian nobles who had serious expansionary ideas and saw the islands as a good gateway to Greece and Eastern traders. How it survived so intact is a mystery. I think it has seen a lot of bloodshed over the centuries." Marcel stopped the buggy in a little courtyard and jumped out. Through the open gateway revellers wandered. There was a smell of barbecued meat cooking and the gentle thud of a sound system somewhere in the distance. He whirled around, arms extended. "But now, for this weekend, it is the centrepiece of Unknown Pleasures and I welcome you to our little festival of fun."

Marie stood naked at an open window of their room in the castle and looked at the scene below. She didn't think she could be seen by anyone but then again, she didn't really care either. She wasn't exactly an exhibitionist but she certainly wasn't not one either. In the distance, the sea glittered brilliantly in the late afternoon sunshine as if the surface was scattered with diamonds. Three of the other islands belonging to Marcel were in sight. One was the island used for camping which, Marie could now see, was encircled by a ring of perfectly white sandy beach, dotted with guests taking a break from the buzz of the little village of hedonism and pleasure that sat below them. The other two islands Marcel had been more vague about. One was where he had his laboratory and workshops, the other he hadn't mentioned at all. The castle they were in was at the very top of the rim of what they now knew was a partially collapsed volcano. Directly below them, at the foot of the castle's walls and down the slope into what was once the caldera of the volcano the festival was picking up steam as the temperature began to drop from scorchingly hot to merely very warm indeed.

"So, what do we think of Tony Stark then?" asked Marie, turning to Daniel who, equally naked but not standing at a large, open window, lay propped up against the headboard of the massive the four-poster bed, sipping the prosecco that had been left chilling for them.

"Is that what you think then? Hidden away on one of these islands is a secret base full of his superhero gadgets?"

"Maybe!" chuckled Marie. "He seems very nice though, superhero or not. And very generous, too."

"Indeed," said Daniel, topping up his wife's glass. "Not every billionaire playboy genius inventor I've met has been nearly as friendly."

"Not a playboy. He's married, remember?"

"Oh yeah, and where is she, I wonder? She just happens to be away when there's an influx of excited, drunk, high and horny party people. How convenient!"

"Don't worry anyway, he's not my type," Marie laughed and prodded Daniel with a pedicured toe. She looked at him, suddenly serious. "But then again, maybe he's yours? Dark, scruffy, carrying a few extra pounds..."

"Just because I once said I thought Mark Ruffalo was good looking doesn't mean I..." But Marie was already on her way to the bathroom for a shower, giggling to herself as she went. Daniel sighed and picked up his Kindle.

"What you reading?" Marie asked. She stood by the bed, towelling her hair dry. The vigorous movement made her tits jiggle beautifully. Daniel enjoyed the view for a few seconds before answering.

"Just a little light holiday reading."

"Porn, you mean?"

"I prefer to call it erotic literature, my darling."

Marie laughed and sat on the edge of the bed. "Bullshit. I bet it's pure filth. Read me a sentence or two."

"No! It's embarrassing!"

"Go on. Just a bit. Find me a naughty part."

A little wave of excitement washed through Daniel's groin and his cock twitched in anticipation. He looked at Marie sideways then skimmed down the page for a suitable excerpt. "Okay then," he said. "And don't laugh!" He cleared his throat and began reading aloud: "'Almost as soon as I was up to speed Anna was demanding more, her own arse waving in the air. After a few more thrusts I pulled out and went back to Anna, then fucked her hard and deep again. I alternated like this for a few minutes, each girl demanding my cock after a few seconds, the wiggling of their round bottoms signalling their plea for more. Anna and Sara were holding hands, their fingers interlocked as they exchanged smiles and giggles, kisses, and looks of lust at the sensations within them. Both girls were so wet I could easily slip inside and I must have swapped over five or six times, my brain unable to compute exactly what was happening, my sexual instincts in complete control.' There. Satisfied?"

"Ha ha, not as satisfied as it sounds like he's going to be!" laughed Marie. "a threesome, eh? I knew it would be filthy."

"Like I said, erotic literature."

"And like I said; porn. Don't let me stop you, baby. You do whatever feels good."

Daniel smiled. He knew exactly what Marie was getting at. As she began to blow-dry her hair he picked up the Kindle and carried on reading to himself. The scene he'd been reading continued in a similar vein and quickly the inevitable began to happen. Daniel stroked his hardening cock as he read, caressing himself slowly as blood pumped into his shaft, engorging it, making it grow. He glanced at Marie who was smiling as she watched her husband masturbate. Her tongue flicked across her lips.

"I like watching you do that," she said. "Keep going."

Daniel did as he was told. He used his fingertips to squeeze just where he liked it as he rubbed the skin up and down, enjoying the feel of the soft skin juxtaposed with the hardness of his erection. As he read the sexy story and rubbed himself he cheekily put Marie in the position of one of the girls being fucked in the threesome. As he wanked shots of pleasure pulsed through his groin. Marie watched intently and as the pleasure built Daniel's attention drifted from the words on the page to the naked woman sat beside him. He reached out to touch her and stroked her inner thigh, his fingers searching upwards towards the glorious temptation of her pussy.