Full Fathom Five

1.

The shortest summary is this: Dad vanished four years ago in an undercover job trying to bring down a sex trafficking ring, and at last I had some evidence he was alive. An S&M style photo anonymously sent to me I was convinced was my father. The collar in the photo had a tag engraved with the word Algiers, the same word that appeared on the calendar of his former partner, now my stepfather, Tony.

I’d been the only person who believed he was still alive. Not the agency, not Mom, not Tony. They were so insistent that he was gone, I kept my belief to myself. I admit from time to time I even wondered if my belief was just to assuage my own guilt over my part in what went down. On that night I told Dad I was gay, and I kissed him, sliding my tongue in his mouth, knowing it would upset him. I threw him off his game just when he most needed all his composure and competence.

With this photo I had evidence he was alive. But I knew I was in way over my head and would need help.

I knew about twelve guys at the agency. When Dad disappeared they promised to be there in his place for me. You have a dozen fathers now, they said at his memorial service. Most, I imagined, got busy with their own lives, but some still sent me Christmas cards. I suspected I could call on them. But I also knew if I did they’d cut me out of any investigation,and I badly needed to be in on it. I couldn’t trust anyone else.

I couldn’t tell Mom, for any number of reasons, not least of which would be her upset at my continued search for Dad. And there was nothing she could do that I couldn’t do myself. She’d divorced Dad years before he disappeared anyway. This wasn’t her problem, it was mine.

That left Tony. He wasn’t only Dad’s partner, he was also part of the undercover mission in which Dad went missing. Complicating matters was that I’d been blowing him for the last two years, behind Mom’s back. It suddenly seemed fortuitous that we had this bond, because I really needed him now.

When Mom started her shift at the hospital I showed Tony the photo on my laptop and told him it was Dad.

“Will, this could be anyone,” Tony said. “The head is cropped out, and there’s no identifying marks.”

“No, it is him – I can prove it. Look, he has that little third nipple, just like Dad. Exactly like Dad.”

Tony paused to consider this, and then said, “Must be hundreds of guys with that. And look at this guy, your dad’s fit but not built like this guy.”

“But it’s four years, Tony. He could have changed. I know it’s him.”

“So that’s the other thing, kid. It’s four years. What’s he doing out there, hiding for four years, posing for kink shots?”

“Maybe he’s a prisoner. You said you guys were after the sex trade, maybe they have him.”

“Sex trade deals with women and kids, Will. How old’s your dad, forty something?”

“He’s thirty-nine.”

“Not a lot of thirty-nine year-olds in the sex trade, Will.”

Tears welled up in my eyes thinking about it. After I learned Dad had been a child victim in sex trafficking, I couldn’t imagine anything worse than him being a prisoner in it again. I almost wished he were dead instead of that.

“Son,” said Tony, “I have to ask you this. You’re online and trading these sleazoid S&M pics? You tell me you know it’s your dad based on his tits. You told me you slipped him the tongue that night. What kind of shit are you into? Cause I’m concerned here.”

Tony was always so upfront about everything, and I was such a twisted pit of secrets. I told him again how I had a teenage crush on my Dad, and I was sorry I was so sick and disgusting. I sobbed a sea storm of shameful tears, and felt weird and lame and knew I always would, and Tony held me tight until the storm passed. I didn’t know how he could still care about me, but it had become so important to me that he did.

“Son,” he said, wiping the hot tears from my face. “I feel so close to you now.” He kissed my cheeks and then my lips, held my face. “I want to be inside you.”


2.

I was almost in a daydream as I stripped off my clothes and lay down in bed. I couldn’t think any more about Dad, about Mom, about what I’d done to both of them. I just wanted to be held and to be part of something good and true.

Tony jerked his clothes off, and I saw his barrel chested body, the strong cock and blonde pubes I knew so well. He climbed on my back and I could hear him spitting in his hand, and smearing it on his erection. He positioned the helmet-like head at my hole and asked, “Are you a virgin down there?”

“Yes,” I lied.

“Good,” he whispered as his cock pressed into me.

I gasped as his cockhead open me, and the rest followed. I tried to slide back on it, eager for Tony to fill me up. He pulled me in with a bearhug and worked his tongue up my neck and in my ear, and finally plunging into my mouth. He worked up to a hard steady thrust quickly, and I was glad for him to beat everything out of me but the pleasure of his erection hitting my prostate.

“Fuck me,” I groaned, pulling my ass cheeks apart to take him deeper.

“Cal Miranda’s boy likes to take it up the ass,” he grunted, pumping even harder as he said the words.

I wanted to be punished and Tony was giving me what I deserved. The way I loved it made me deserve yet more.

“Is that what you wanted?” her hissed between his teeth. “Is that the daddy dick you wanted, Will?”

“Yes,” I moaned.

“I can’t hear you, boy.”

“Yes... fuck me… Dad,” I moaned, betraying my own father yet again.

As I called him Dad he thrust up hard in me. He spasmed as he made groaning animal noises, pumping his load into me. I grabbed the mattress to steady myself against his stronger body slamming against mine, unrestrained by love or kindness.

He dropped on me, panting and spent. His cock was still buried deep in me, oozing any remaining semen. I slid a hand under the weight of both of us to stroke my own erection, and it took only a minute to cum. When I did, Tony’s own cock stirred and he thrust hard with his half-erection to fuck my load out of me.


3.

“That was amazing,” Tony whispered, lying next to me as the sweat on both our bodies cooled us.
“Thank you,” I answered, pulling his hand up to my face to kiss it.

“The things I said… Will, I just… in the heat of the moment, sometimes you say things you don’t mean. It’s just talk.”

“I know,” I responded, rubbing my cheek against the tiny blond hairs on his fist. “I’m the last person who can hold anything against anyone… after what I did.”

“You’re so sweet,” he said, pulling me tight against him. “You know I love your mom. But some days I think I married the wrong member of this family.”

I turned to look up at him, trying to absorb the meaning of his words, asking “What?”

“Maybe,” he said softly, “maybe I should have married you.”

He kissed me long and slow, and I felt so wanted despite all my flaws and sins. I realized Tony had come to know me better than anyone. Better than Mom by far. Even better than Dad did, when he was here.

Dad.

Shit, I thought, the picture. I needed to show it to Tony again. I pulled my laptop over, the monitor light violating the dark intimacy between us, and zoomed in on the photo.

“Kid, this again?” asked Tony, exasperated.

“No, Tony – look – there’s one more thing,” I answered, zooming in on the tag on the leather collar. “Could this mean anything?”

In block lettering was engraved a single word. The same word I found in in Tony’s calendar.

He went silent and ran his finger over the track pad to scan it again. A – L – G – I –E –R –S.

I could see him processing as he looked over the image again and again, his brow furrowing.

“Fuck, kid,” he said, wiping his jaw and chin, “this might be your fucking father after all.”


4.

The next days were torture as Tony worked in secret, putting in long hours away at work. He swore he’d tell me what he could, even what he shouldn’t. My only comfort was that he admitted it. He admitted Dad could be alive.

Finally he sat me down to tell me everything.

“Will, I never had kids of my own,” he said. “You’re the closest thing to a son I’ve got, so I’m going to trust you like you’re mine, and ask you to trust me in return. You will never breathe a word of this to your dying day, understand?”

I nodded yes, eager to hear everything.

“Algiers is a sex trafficking ring, and it’s crazy complex. That was the case your dad and I were working. There’s Russian money, Chinese money, old Italian families, the fucking Middle East. Algiers is old school old, like hundreds of years old, they’ve been buying and selling and breeding women and kids for centuries.”

“From Algeria?” I asked.

“Name doesn’t mean anything. Maybe it did once upon a time, but not any more. Algiers is just a brand. It’s the go-to to indulge your sick fantasies if you’re a rich mother fucker. If you’ve got the means, they’ll give you whatever shit you need to get off. Or they’ll get you hooked on some fantasies you never even knew about before that get stuck in your head and you can’t get enough of. Understand?”

I nodded yes. In fact I knew a little something about things being stuck in your head.

“But in the last few decades things went nuts. Exodus from Hong Kong in the 90’s poured a shit ton of money into the scene on the West coast, especially here in Seattle and Vancouver. A few years later you add in Middle Eastern oil money and then high tech money. Upped the ante on everything. We’re not talking about a few bucks so a pervert can have a poor defenseless kid. We are now talking obscene sums for people to fulfill their craziest fantasies. There’s no limit anymore.”

He held up two fingers and then curled them to his face, to focus my eyes on his.

“Will, you kids talk about wealth disparity, but you have no idea. No fucking idea. If those fuckers ever let you know how rich they really are... if they blew the cover… Will, we’re like ants to them. People like us, we’re lower than worms. This kind of money isn’t about buying cars and swimming pools and shit. This is a whole other level. This kind of money is like magic. Like you can reshape reality.”

He suddenly sat back and sighed, “Fuck.” I could see how hard this was for him, and didn’t dare speak for fear of stopping him. He looked away and continued.

“Algiers ring isn’t just about buying and selling poor women and kids any more. That still happens too for the sick fucks who get off on that. They’re bigger now, high end. They buy and sell lives. Like indentured servants, serving up kink fantasies for the richest of the rich. Imagine you don’t have much going for you. You’re not born lucky - maybe you have your looks or something about you they want. Algiers can contract with you for a million, five million, ten million, whatever, to serve up some rich prick’s sex fantasy, and you retire at thirty. Fuck, Will, people slave away in shit jobs for decades for less than that.”

It took him a few minutes to gather himself, and he continued.

“They used to have a location be on the mainland. That was before the raid where your Dad was rescued when he was a kid. They had a low profile locally, because there’s a lot of places around the globe you can do this more easily. And it’s not like the fucking rich sicks can’t take a flight. But it’s never enough for these people. They want what they want where they want, when they want it. So a few years ago Algiers set up a complex on a private island in Puget Sound. The money protecting this place is like nothing you’ve ever seen. They control what goes in, what goes out.”

At the mention of Puget Sound I started to speak, but he held up a hand, and I let him go on.

“This place… super classy on the surface, super sick underneath. The Algiers Club there is like free flowing sex, Will. You can have anyone or anything you ever wanted, no consequences, no courts, no AIDS, no judgment, no resistance – unless that’s your kink. Just the most beautiful bodies you’ve ever seen, doing anything you want, for the price of admission. It’s a fantasy island Will, and even – even a good man can lose his moral compass in it.”

I nodded to indicate I understood.

“Your dad and I and a few other guys were undercover as client recruits. We were supposed to be wealthy high-tech assholes. The fucking tech industry is full of weirdos who never learned to have normal relationships but now have this amazing wealth and can rub shoulders with the old school richies. It’s a whole new market for Algiers.”

I tried to commit every word to memory. This was what I’d wait years to know.

“We were undercover at the same time in the Algiers Club, but all separate so if one of us ran into trouble the others would be clean. They marked your Dad. I don’t know how or why or what went wrong. Maybe they smelled something fishy. Shit happens. Anyway they marked your dad but didn’t go after me. There was a firefight, and your dad went down. After that I got pulled out for my safety. Too high risk, and Algiers group was on high alert, and their operation got impossible to get into.”

He set his jaw forward and concluded, “So Will, that’s Algiers.”


5.

“It’s in Puget Sound? Dad could be right here?” I asked. “That could be like a few hours away.”

“Look Will, the idea that your dad is alive - it’s a fucking longshot. But even if he is, that island complex is just a spoke, not the hub. The Algiers ring is international in ways you can’t imagine. They shuffle people around like a cards in a deck.You could be in Sidney in the morning, Seattle at night and Moscow by the next morning. If they have him which is fucking big if, partner, he could be anywhere.”

“But he might be there!” I blurted, my heart was racing. “How do we get in?”

“Slow down, partner. WE aren’t doing anything. Will, you’re a 20-year-old kid.”

“Tony….” I began, feeling my eyes sting. All these years and Dad could have been less than an hour away.  

“Here’s the thing,” Tony continued, grimly, “and this is just between us. My cover is still good. I spent the last couple days making some connections, and it’s solid. I’m going in, to see if I can find your dad. But I’m doing this on my own. No agency. No sanction.”

I could feel my heart swell with affection for Tony. He was so true and I was so lucky to have him in my life.

“Son, this is probably the end of my career. But I have to do it. If it’s your dad... Oh my God, Will, if this was all my fault…”

He buried his face in his hands, and it occured to me for the first time that he held himself responsible the same way I did.

“Tony,” I said, peeling his hands from his face, taking them in mine, “You have to take me with you. I have to do this.”

“No way partner,” he said blinking back his own emotion. “I lost your dad already. I’m not gonna lose you too.”

“Tony, I’m going. If I have to charter a boat and stop at every fucking island in Puget Sound until I find it, I’m going. I’ll be safer if you take me with you.”

He could see how serious I was. I really would go without him. I was going to go find my dad, or die trying.

Dad was alive. I knew it. And so close.


END, ACT TWO OF FIVE. TO BE CONTINUED.