Seven Days Aboard by Publius68,Publius68

This is the longest story I’ve written here on Literotica. It started out with the image of a single scene on a beach in my mind, and ballooned from there into 51 thousand words of very slow burn, copious assorted naughtiness throughout, and plenty of payoff when we get to it. It’s the first story I’ve written that I consider a romance from start to finish, so make of that what you will.

I meant it to be a Valentine’s Day Contest entry, but I just felt it would be too on the nose to set these events on that week. But I am including it as my offering to the Pink Orchid 2023 for Women-Centric Erotica Challenge. This is only my third shot at a female viewpoint character, but I like Daisy, and I hope you will too.

——————

DAY ZERO

“Good morning, sleepy head. It’s packing day!” squealed Kimmie, bouncing out of nowhere onto the foot of my bed. “Up and at ’em, girlfriend!” she went on, far too loudly. “We got to pack for our cruise tomorrow. Let’s get on with it.”

I blearily looked at the clock. “It is eight in the morning, you demon,” I groaned. I had been kept out late the night before by Kimmie, along with Adrian and Sophia during our ‘Bon Voyage Party’, where we did far too many shots in order to toughen up our livers in advance of our seven day, southern Caribbean cruise.

A cruise that I had never been one-hundred percent in favor of.

“Again, why are we going on this trip?” I moaned, pulling my covers up over my head.

“Because,” Kimmie replied, yanking my covers off not only my head, but virtually my entire body, “we need a vacation–you most of all!” She paused, looking at my irritably squirming form. “Ohh, that is a very nice nighty. You are bringing that on the cruise, right?”

I looked down at the sleek black teddy that I had worn to sleep the night before, precisely because I was not about to bring it on the cruise. I still didn’t know why I had bought the damned thing to begin with. It had an almost thong back that completely exposed my curvy ass, and was damned near sheer everywhere else, except for the most, ah, strategic of locations on the front. My nipples might have been pretty much obscured, but given my tits, the nightie put on a helluva cleavage show, not to mention all the transparent side- and under-boob. I had bought it a while back in a moment of idiocy, while my mind was consumed with pursuing a delicious guy who totally did not work out in any way shape or from, and who most definitely had not ever been allowed to see me in it. That had been four months ago, and I had not so much as met a guy I’d have even considered wearing this thing for since.

“Why would I bring this?” I asked, sitting up in defeat.

“Night three is Pajama Night, remember?”

“You think that I’m going to wear this in public? To dinner?” I snorted, incredulous.

“Well, you can wear a robe over it to dinner,” Kimmie said, as if seriously considering it. “But ditch the robe afterward for the pajama party, girl. In that thing, you’ll get over your dry spell, no problem.”

“I am not in a dry spell,” I grumbled, fully aware that I was, in fact, in a dry spell.

“Listen, I know what a dry spell is. You are in one,” Kimmie countered. Kimmie would not know what a dry spell was, as I doubted that she had ever had one. She does not have the measurements that I do, but she makes up for it with an incredibly athletic build and an astoundingly slutty behavior pattern.

Yes, I’m calling my best friend and roommate a slut. And she is, in the most adorable way. She likes sex, and likes variety in her men, that is all true. But she knows how to say no, does so often, and most importantly, no man has ever ‘used’ her. She also knows how to say ‘yes’, and when she says it, it is usually about fifty times, and at the top of her lungs.

I was lucky not to have been kept up by her affirmative behavior the night before, since my three friends had sworn off men for the evening, and had been too busy plotting our activities on the boat for any of us, even Kimmie, to break the pact.

“I don’t suppose that you have made coffee yet?” I groaned.

DAY ONE

The stupidly early flight to San Juan was a nightmare. Kimmie, despite specializing in catting around all night, was one of that most odious of species–a morning person. Back when I had finally caved and agreed go on this extravagant, unnecessary, wildly-expensive trip, I had immediately volunteered to take care of the flight arrangements. I am usually the planner of our bunch, and I realized instantly that I did not want to sit with Kimmie on a six AM flight lasting six hours. I stuck Adrian with her in the row in front of me and Sophia. The two of us tried and failed to get some sleep while Adrian and Kimmie yammered away loudly in front of us.

If I had been a better planner, I’d have put those two on the other side and end of the plane from Sophia and me.

If you have not gotten the gist by now, I am not temperamentally a fan of mornings. This is despite the fact that I am always the first person with my firm at work each morning. I’m only 26, which makes me the youngest and female-est of the execs at the marketing firm I have made my home. I need to work a little harder than everybody else.

“I still can’t believe that I let you guys talk me into taking a whole week-long cruise,” I groused yet again to Sophia.

“You are just afraid that the people at work will discover that they can survive without you,” Sophia scoffed, while sucking at her third coffee like it was her mother’s breast.

I decided to change the subject. “Tell me again, does the boat stop at Aruba or Antigua?” I asked.

“Antigua. And tell me again how you, the most organized planner in history, does not even know our itinerary?” Sophia asked tartly. “You have also refused to schedule one shore excursion in advance. And Kimmie said she had to remind you about things like Pajama Night.”

“You should have seen what she wanted me to wear to that,” I snorted. “And as for the rest… I plan every minute of every day at work. When I do go on vacation, I refuse to plan anything, or I’ll turn it into work, too. I’ll just hang out with you guys.”

“I hope you don’t think you are spending all your time with us,” Sophia said happily. “I’ve been between men as long as you have. Kimmie is… well, Kimmie. And Adrian seems ready to move on from Todd.”

“Wait. What?” I said, leaning toward Sophia and lowering my voice. This was the first juicy-sounding piece of conversation I’d heard that day, and my brain struggled to come to life. “I hadn’t heard they broke up. They just went out Tuesday night, I thought.”

“They did go out. Had a nice time too, supposedly,” Sophia whispered back. “But Adrian was back in our apartment, alone, before 10:30!”

I considered that. “Yep. If there are any good, available guys on the boat, they better be on their toes.”

Adrian, back in college, had once been the slut in our group, back when Kimmie was all shy and conservative our freshman year. But after keeping one boyfriend for more than a semester as a sophomore, Adrian had morphed from get-around-girl to serial monogamist.

I loved the girl to death, she was my oldest friend among our bunch, but she did have the rather unattractive habit of moving on to the next guy, or at least holding auditions, before telling the last guy that his services were no longer needed…

“Well, I don’t know about you,” I said firmly, “but I’m feeling past my expiration date on short-term flings. I’m not on this cruise for a whirlwind, slam-bang-thank-you-ma’am hookup at sea.”

“Uh huh,” Sophia said. “So you’ve given up on banging Chris Hemsworth and are want to be a one man girl now.”

I giggled at that. I couldn’t help it. “If any of the Chrises are on this boat, or any of the Hemsworths for that matter, y’all bitches better stand back out of my way. Some opportunities must not be missed. But other than superheroes, I’m not fishing for things I can’t keep anymore.”

“You’d muscle the rest of us out?” Sophia cried, holding her chest as if shot. “We are your friends! Hoes before bros, right?”

“Absolutely,” I retorted. “But Hemsworths before Hoes,” I added firmly.

“So selfish,” Sophia teased. “But as for men who will actually be on this voyage, you can abstain all you want. I’m in the mood for some catch and release.”

I shook my head. It was a good thing I had done one thing in advance, and bought the unlimited drink package. Otherwise this would have been going to be an awful week.

*

The cruise terminal in San Juan was a gigantic, concrete barn of a building, where we all ended up in long, snaking lines for check-in. It was like TSA from Hell. Sophia and Kimmie spent their time in line nattering on about Emily in Paris, a Netflix rom-com serial. I stayed out of their conversation because I famously hate rom-coms… and because I binge every season of Emily in Paris the evening it comes out. It is a show about a young, female marketing executive like me, after all. If I had let them know I knew about the show at all, I’d have probably ended up spoiling something big to them in my enthusiasm. They were not even all the way through Season One, and had no idea what was coming. I needed to keep my mouth shut and not ruin anything.

I let my eyes wander, and noticed several things. I had known this was a 21 and older cruise, but beyond the fact that there would be no kids, no other implications had really registered for me. It hadn’t seemed like it would matter much. The only other cruise I had ever been on was a voyage to Alaska with my parents when I was nineteen, and that passenger list had already been practically geriatric anyway. Not only were there no kids anywhere in this gigantic crowd, but the number of old people was maybe a fifth of the number I had expected for a cruise. Most of us in line were in our twenties, thirties, and forties, with a few fifties. Geezers were few and far between. Not only that, but this crowd seemed to mostly be groups of people, rather than couples. This was going to be a party boat, I realized forlornly. Visions of quiet deck chairs and my book flickered and dimmed.

The appearances of the passengers, and their voices, also revealed that we were going to be on a voyage with a lot of, maybe mostly, foreigners. I had been dimly aware that this was an Italian cruise line, but it had not registered on me that it was a line that marketed primarily to Europeans. My professional mind tried to spool up with ideas and speculation on how marketing such a product would be different, but I banished the work thoughts and kept my mind blank.

And then there was one guy who caught my eye. He was standing clearly by himself in the line, which was fairly unique, and he was more than a little hot, which was wonderful but also surprisingly not unique. There were more good-looking people in this line than I had almost ever seen in a single place before. But this one guy was special, at least to my eye. He had gloriously wavy brown hair with blonde natural highlights and striking eyes that looked blue from this distance.

As the line snaked on, he would drop out of sight, then come back into view, and I found myself marking our progress by my sightings of him. He had to be close to my age, in his twenties certainly. He was taller than almost everyone around him, and while he wore a loose-fitting Hollister teeshirt, he clearly was fit and nicely muscular. I don’t go for guys who are jacked or ripped, but I do like to have the idea that a man can pick me up and carry me safely out of any kind of…

Listen to me, fantasizing about some rando in a line from Hell.

And shit, he nearly caught me looking at him. I used my trick of not looking away, but focusing instead on something way beyond him. After I finished ‘scanning the back of the line’, I looked away. When the line should have brought him into sight again, I couldn’t help but look his way.

And he was definitely staring right at me. I was caught dead to rights this time. He actually flushed and looked away. So did I, blushing furiously.

Great. The first really good-looking guy I see on this trip, and I creep him out, acting like a stalker.

“What is your malfunction, Daisy?” Kimmie asked me, noticing my flustered nature.

“Nothing,” I muttered. Then I admitted, “A guy just caught me looking at him.”

“A guy? Where? Which one?” Kimmie asked excitedly. The nimrod went full prairie dog, sticking her head up high and staring around in what I viewed as the most embarrassing possible direction.

Never go full prairie dog, you horrible friend. I elbowed her in the ribs, and she hunched down with an, “Oof.”

The only good thing about the whole episode was that it forced me to pull my head out of the dude-filled clouds and actually engage with my friends. I needed to keep Kimmie from embarrassing me any further.

And I found that I kind of wanted her to be thinking about things other than that particular guy. He was my find–mine to mack on from afar, and I didn’t want to share.

Wow. I really needed to put in a bit more work on my social calendar when I got home to Dallas…

We got to the front of the line, checked in, and walked out toward the boat. It felt like a weight lifted from me as we approached the gangplank. I could shut off my planning brain for seven days, lie in the sun, drink, and go with the flow. Maybe I wouldn’t resent my friends the whole time after all…

I got my first real look at our boat as we left the check-in building and headed up the long, dusty ramp to the embarkation level. Our ride was smaller than most of the other boats in the cruise harbor, but I realized I really liked its look. It was white with long, bright, red lines painted on it that almost felt like racing stripes, especially with the more rakishly sleek lines it had, as opposed to the big, fat, mega-liners that surrounded it in port.

“It looks a lot smaller than the others,” I observed, as we walked across the tarmac.

“It is, dummy,” Sophia said merrily. “There are only, like, 2,000 passengers. What does the company call The Wanderer, Adrian, a ‘Luxury Mega-Yacht’?”

“You know it! 2,150 adult passengers, out to have fun, and a thousand crew to make it happen.”

And this was a ‘small’ boat. I shook my head, then looked back at our ride with a smile.

I was more than happy to go all girly-girl for the mandatory embarkation photo with my friends, and after the giggling process, I actually found myself actually looking forward to being on this trip, possibly for the first time.

By the time we got on board, our cabins were ready, but our luggage was still likely hours away from being delivered. We split up to check out our rooms, drop off our carry-ons, and touch up our makeup. Kimmie’s and my cabin was on the uppermost of the non-suite decks, and toward the stern. Sophia and Adrian had chosen an interior cabin a few decks down, with a wide window that looked down over the big, interior shopping and restaurant plaza inside the ship. They wanted the view of all the parties.

Their interior cabin was also nearly a thousand bucks less for each of them. Kimmie had wanted the two of us to book a suite. I had told her, repeatedly, that I did not want to show up our friends with how we could afford it (a junior one at least), when they sure as hell could not. Both Sophia and Adrian had nice jobs in the petroleum industry, with excellent benefits and good advancement prospects, but meager current pay. Personally, I was doing very well, with a recent year-end bonus in my bank account that had merely been dented by this trip.

Kimmie was the top earner among us, I was sure.

She sold Porsches. And she was a 26 year-old hardbody, with fabulously blended Asian and Norwegian features, and a flirty attitude. Thus, she sold a shitload of Porsches… all without actually sleeping with any customers. (Except for that one. No one blamed her for that one.) I loved Kimmie to death, but I swear, if she took a fall into an open septic tank, she’d pop to the surface clutching a lost heirloom diamond ring.

Some bar, we had not decided which one yet, was calling, so the two of us set about freshening up quickly.

I tossed off my travel blouse, which was wrinkled and probably smelly from the flight, swabbed my pits, put on some fresh scent and shrugged into the clean, sleeveless top I had packed for the first afternoon in my backpack. Sixty seconds in the mirror, and I was ready to go. Then I went out onto the balcony and looked out over San Juan harbor while I waited for Kimmie to get her tight, little, slow-poke ass in gear.

I smiled ruefully as I remembered that my friend in turn had her grumps about me. One of the chief ones is that I need very little work to get my face in shape to go to work, or even to go out. I have led, even in high school, a largely zit-free life, and I tan easily, quickly, and evenly, even through sunscreen. My eyebrows are dark (they do need to be trimmed… a lot), and my lashes full. It is a rare event, when I want to really doll up, that I actually use base, or even mascara. I usually just go with an eyeliner pencil and a touch of lipgloss unless I really want to be extravagant.

I wasn’t feeling extravagant that afternoon. I was on this vacation to depressurize, read, drink, and have fun with my friends… while watching them make fools of themselves with the male passengers. They could waste their own time on perfecting their looks.

Kimmie, as I said, is a knockout. But while she never comes close to laying it on with a trowel, she does spend ages doing her face.

“Come on, girl!” I called from the balcony back into the room. I had exhausted the charms of the other cruise ships and the industrial port that made up our current, pre-departure view. “There is a Bloody Mary with my name on it somewhere on this ship, and I want to find it.”

My phone buzzed. We could still text easily in port. “Come on, Kimmie,” I pestered her for the third time, seeing a hand extend itself from the cramped bathroom’s door and flip me the bird in reply. “Even Adrian is done up before you,” I added. “They already have a table up in some place called the Eagle’s Nest on deck twelve, so we can watch the boat cast off.”

“Cool your jets, girl,” Kimmie called. “I’m ready.”

I got up and returned to the cabin, eyes adjusting to the relative darkness of the interior. Kimmie had, of course, changed every stitch of clothing from the flight. She had on a low-waisted pair of jeans shorts, raggedly cut off extremely high to show off acres of lightly dusky, toned legs. Up top, she had on a very tight, white, cotton tank top that exposed a few inches of toned, nearly washboard stomach, along with a large amount of the bright green bra she sported beneath. There was plenty of cleavage too.

“On the prowl already?” I asked, as we climbed the aft stairs to deck twelve. No elevators had been one of our pre-cruise resolutions, to combat all the food and drink we planned to slam. Also, even modest little old me likes the way I look on stairs, whether from behind me, looking up, or above me, looking down… “I thought we are going to be a foursome for the first night.”

“No guys tonight,” Kimmie agreed firmly. “And this little outfit? It’s just something I threw on.”

I snorted.

“And maybe it will lay some marketing groundwork for the rest of the cruise,” she giggled. I giggled with her. She was incorrigible.

The Eagle’s Nest was a huge bar with a panoramic view aft of the boat. Deck twelve was a small level that stood atop the aft structure of the ship. There only other thing up there on that deck was an escape room, just forward of the bar.

“We should try the escape room,” I said excitedly, after my first long sip of Bloody Mary. Adrian and Sophia had gotten us a great table, right by the glass.

The three of them looked at each other. “Have you not listened to anything about this trip over the last three months?” Adrian shot back. “We booked a sesh back in March for all four of us, later on in the cruise.”

I frowned at her. “I don’t like to plan…” I began to refrain.

The three of them cut me off. “‘…when I’m on vacation,'” they finished for me in unison. I drank more Bloody Mary to hide my smile.

After a few minutes, Adrian frowned as she looked out the window intently, then at her watch. “Aren’t we supposed to have cast off by now?” she asked in a mildly puzzled tone.

We all looked out more carefully, and there was indeed no activity on the ship’s deck, nor dockside around the giant ropes that held us still firmly to the pier.

As if on cue, there was a paging tone over hidden speakers, and an insanely sexy, Italian-accented, male voice spoke. “Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen, this is your Captain, Captain Giuseppe speaking. Welcome to the Wanderer. The crew and I look forward to our week with you all,” he said in his deep but lilting voice. “Many of you will have noticed that we have not yet cast off. I wish to tell you that we will not do so for several more hours yet. As some of you know, there is a terrible late spring storm battering the northeastern United States, and air travel today has beenun incubo… a nightmare.”

The four of us looked at each other smugly. Departure from DFW had been smooth sailing for us, though there were lots of delayed or cancelled flights for domestic travelers.

“Many of our American guests’ flights have been delayed, or even tragically cancelled. Our shore office has been monitoring those passengers. There was brief window where the New York and Philadelphia airports reopened, but that quickly passed. Still, there are still three flights that made it into the air with a number of your fellow voyagers on them, and we shall wait to welcome them aboard. Alas, many others will not reach us in time. We have a long sail before our first port of call in Barbados, and must depart as soon as possible.”

“For those of you wanting to observe our departure, I will make another announcement when we are thirty minutes from that happy event. In the meantime, all other scheduled dining and activities aboard will remain as planned. Thank you all. Perhaps, since I have to drive,” he added, his smile audible in his voice, “you could raise a toast on my behalf to your three hundred or so American friends who will have to enjoy the Wanderer’s pleasures on a future cruise.” There was another paging tone, and that voice was gone.

We looked at each other and shrugged. No skin off our noses. We raised our glasses. “Sucks to be a yankee,” I observed. We drank to hapless travelers spending their April in snowbound Newark Airport.

“Okay,” Adrian said, dismissing the people that would not make the cruise. “To more important stuff. Does that Captain Giuseppe have the sexiest voice, or what?”

We all grimaced in agreement.

“I wonder what it would take to do the captain of a cruise ship?” Kimmie wondered. The rest of us squawked in scandalized giggles.

“You realize that he is probably 60, with a potbelly, and a wife on board?” I scoffed.

“So?” Kimmie asked. Jesus, this trip had her horny. “Daisy, don’t tell me there is no way you wouldn’t do him anyway, just to hear that voice tell you how wonderful you make him feel.”

“Not if there is a wife, on-board or otherwise!” I said, aghast.

“So you do have circumstances where you’d do him,” Adrian observed in amusement. “Well girls, we have found Miss I’m Not Interested In Men On This Cruise’s breaking point. She will begrudgingly settle for fucking the Captain of the whole ship!”

We all started to giggle, then gasped and fell silent as we realized that our cocktail server had chosen that exact moment to appear at our table, almost certainly overhearing that last sentence. We looked at her in ill-concealed horror and she just blandly handed out our next round.

Last, she bent down over the table to hand me my second Bloody, and looked me in the eye. “Been there, done that,” the cute little Indian girl whispered. “Worth it…” Then she was gone.

It doesn’t matter whether what she said was remotely true or not, in any way. I could physically see her eventual tips from each of us doubling at that very moment.

I endured a nice patch of ribbing from the others for a bit, before we moved on to other matters. It turned out that most of the crowd in the Eagle’s nest was on the mature side for this passenger manifest. And all joking about the Captain aside, none of us were really that into older men. We put the drinks on our unlimited drink passes, and handsomely tipped our ever bland-faced server, then took the remainder of our drinks down two levels to the main pool deck. It was crowded with many of the passengers our age, and it was quite the party, with a steel drum band and a moderately talented singer.

We finished our drinks expeditiously and then spent the next hour with our shoes off, grooving to the music and standing in the pool, almost fifty percent of which was only just more than ankle deep. From my cruise to Alaska, I knew that the water would slosh around here once we put to sea, and this would be a great place to relax and just lie back, letting the water splash over me then drain away. It had been fun to do it in Alaska, though weird with the chilly air. Here in the heat, it would be awesome.

I looked around at the crowd, surveying the people around us. There was an extraordinary number of people our age, or near abouts. I kept on looking some more, but didn’t see what I was looking for.

I imagined lying here in this shallow terrace, in the sun, with the water swirling around from the movement of the ship, in my black bikini, or maybe even the red one… I really was not on this trip to pick up guys, but what girl doesn’t enjoy some respectfully hungry looks? I’d get them in the black one for sure, no need to go for the red one with all the strings. I didn’t even know why I had brought that one.

I kept looking, but I never saw that guy from the line. What was his deal anyway…?

I shook my head. I didn’t need any specific guys, or any random guys for that matter, to worry about. Still, I did not mind some nice, bare, masculine torsos, or tight, manly butts to check out as I relaxed. I wasn’t in the market, but I wasn’t dead. And there were plenty of guys already soaking in the sun now, before we even left the dock.

I nudged Sophia and subtly pointed out to her one African-American (African-European?) guy who was shorter than me, but who clearly lived at the gym.

“Already seen,” Sophia murmured, but happily took another look. He was a dish, and from her expression, my friend might try taking a bite. Had I not moved on in my life from hook-up situations, I might have taken a nibble on that one myself.

The good thing about being not on the prowl, but not in a relationship either, was that I could mack on as many dudes as I wanted, guilt free. And I had to admit, Sophia had picked out a cruise with more than ample macking opportunities.

I continued to scan the crowd, not sure how to place my nagging frustration. After a bottle of water and a frozen strawberry daiquiri, I was grooving to the music when the all-aboard whistle blew, and we heard the captain (Christ, that voice!) tell us that the last passengers the ship could afford to wait for had arrived dockside, and we would soon be departing.

We consulted our watches, and realized that we ought to go change for dinner. The sun was getting low, and our dining time would be coming up soon. It had been decided in my absence, but with my hearty approval, to stick with the traditional main dining room for our dinners together. It was included after all, and none of us, even Kimmie, was made of money. My three friends all clearly hoped to miss out on a few nights of course, if some guy or other asked one of them to one of the small, specialty dining restaurants.

That would be fine with me. Even if they all got a date on the same evening, I’d eat alone, and order all their desserts for myself.

I changed to a fresh sundress, since our luggage had appeared, but Kimmie just put on regular jeans and kept her ‘look at my tits’ top on. The first night was a casual evening, after all.

Our seating was assigned, and as we entered the huge, beautiful dining room, we were shown to our table. As we approached, I was stunned to see my guy from the line, sitting at a table just three away from ours.

Almost without thinking, I quickened my steps and got to the table first, seating myself facing directly toward him. I blushed when I realized I’d done it. But I didn’t move…

Moments after we were seated at our table for eight, our dining companions for the week arrived. They were two couples, maybe ten years older than us, and all four attractive enough that I winced about whether Kimmie could keep her flirtiness under control and not piss off the wives over the course of the week.

Turns out, they were French. I knew instantly that they were not from Paris because, well, none of them were ginormous dickweeds. I found out over the course of dinner that I was right. They were wine distributors from Provence. The only problem with having them for table companions was that they were super intimidating with their wine knowledge, and condescendingly viewed Adrian and myself astrés amusant because of our preference for cocktails over the grape with dinner.

But they were still very cool, and I looked forward to dining with them for the week. And the French thing was a blessing, since Kimmie really could not retrain herself from flirting. Being French, both guys flirted back just as hard with her and, well, with all of us. The wives just smiled at us like we were adorable kittens whenever it went on.

But goddamn it, I kept checking out of the conversation. That guy was sitting over there at his table, chatting happily with his obviously European table-mates, and ignoring the three empty seats at his table. Had those people missed the boat? Was that why he was alone?

Would he like someone to sit at his table with him?

I shook my head and returned my gaze to my own friends and table companions. I really needed to get back out there on the social scene when we got home to Dallas. I was waiting for relationship material, but the wait was getting long, and my body was signaling its impatience.

*

It was nearly ten by the time we finished dinner and all left the dining hall. Our new French friends left with the women hanging more than a little suggestively on their men. They headed straight for the elevators, and asses were being massaged right out in the open as they walked away.

“Looks like there is more than dessert on the menu tonight,” Sophia snickered.

“I think it is sweet, seeing married people acting that horny,” Adrian said firmly.

“Maybe the wives were just laying their claims all over again,” I snarked. “I thought Antoine was going to stick his tongue down Kimmie’s throat a couple of times during dinner.”

“I think I’d have let him…” Kimmie drawled, almost to herself.

“In front of his wife?” I snorted. Even Kimmie would not go there, and we all knew it.

“Oh, like you wouldn’t do Antoine in a heartbeat,” Kimmie retorted, almost contemptuously.

I looked at her. Adrian and Sophia were looking at me a little challengingly. It was time to remind them, and myself, that whatever my intentions, I was not becoming a prude.

“I’d actually prefer Etienne,” I said loftily. That got a snort or two. “But yeah, were I of a mind, I’d fuck either one of them… in the right circumstances–which are not on board a boat for seven days… with their wives!” I glared at Kimmie in particular.

“Easy there, Sheriff,” Kimmie laughed. “I’m guessing there are three hundred doable single guys on this cruise, I think I can hold off on the married ones.”

“I don’t know,” mused Sophia as we walked through the casino. “I’m with you on Etienne, Daisy. And how cool would it be to be a frenchman’s mistress?” she asked dreamily.

Sophia was watching way too much Emily in Paris. Or rather, she hadn’t watched enough of it yet…

What functioned as the main deck of the ship was one flight of stairs up from the casino and dining room. It held in its core a huge atrium plaza with several expensive specialty restaurants, a few super cool bars, and lots of interesting European brandname stores. To either side, and running upward for several decks, were stateroom windows that overlooked. Sophia and Adrian pointed out theirs. It did look like it had a good view of all the festivities down here.

And there were a lot of festivities going on. There was a four piece jazz band playing in an ornate gazebo in the center of the plaza, with a sexy male singer belting out Sinatra and Bublé tunes. It was crowded with people, mostly the younger part of the passenger manifest, but plenty of forty-somethings were getting their groove on too.

The four of us shouldered our way through the crowd to where the dancing was thickest and started getting down a little ourselves. Mostly we danced in a square together, but get enough booze in Kimmie and she decides she wants to show off her six months of Arthur Murray classes from three years ago, thus she and I had to do some turns at The Hustle and Cha-Cha together. We always break it off pretty quickly because we both want to lead.

But no No Guys The First Night pact survives contact with the enemy. Soon one or another of my friends were getting peeled away to dance with some guy or another, rejoining us after a song or two. As the hour progressed, our core group went from averaging all four of us together, to three, to usually only two.

Even I found myself dancing with a fairly plain-looking guy who nevertheless could dance up a storm. He didn’t ask or anything, we just sort of were dancing all of a sudden. I found myself really enjoying the next two songs, but when a slower number came next, I smiled and dashed the dreams I had seen forming in his eyes by returning to Sophia and Adrian. Kimmie was still off, temporarily breaking the pact.

But at last, the inevitable happened, I found myself alone in the middle of the dance floor, dancing with myself. Or rather, I was dancing with about a half-dozen guys nearby, while trying to make sure I didn’t dance with any of them specifically. I like dancing. I like it a lot. But it kind of makes me horny, and I did not see any of the guys around me as horniness material.

If I had been in the market to scratch that itch in the first place.

My buddies would return eventually, I knew. Even Kimmie… probably. But I was done. Dancing and holding back did not easily go hand in hand for me.

I slipped from the crowd and made my way to the aft stairs. It was seven flights up to deck twelve and a return visit to the Eagle’s Nest bar. My legs were feeling it by the time I got to the top, which was the point of taking the stairs, right?

As I had hoped, the Eagle’s Nest was full but not crowded, and had a chill vibe late at night. There was no live music, just background tracks on the PA, though I did see that there was a stage. I assumed that there would be live entertainment up here on some days or nights.

I made my way through the room filled with mostly older passengers, mostly couples, and spied an open seat at the bar. I pounced on it and slid into place. The handsome older Chinese bartender saw me approaching and was asking me for my order before I even got my ass fully situated.

Premium Drink Package, right? I asked for a Russell’s Reserve Single Barrel Rye Manhattan. The bartender smiled and turned to his station. I looked around.

As I turned to my right, the man sitting there idly turned to return my gaze.

It was Line Guy.

“Oh, hi,” we both blurted out.

Shit. I had just told him I recognized him. That was tantamount to admitting that I was staring at him all that time in line. Had he seen me staring at him during dinner too? Shit.

“Hey, listen,” he said swiftly. Even his voice had that certain something about it. “About the embarkation line…”

“Oh, geez,” I interrupted, blushing again, I was sure. Hopefully the low lighting would hide it. “I’m sorry…”

“No,” he interrupted back. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have been staring. But I was alone in the line and my eyes just naturally fixated. I didn’t mean to be rude.”

He had been staring at me too? So I had gotten away with staring at him? Oh, thank God. This could have been embarrassing. But I hated for him to feel bad. He seemed alone on this boat and that had to suck.

“Oh, you couldn’t have been staring at me all that much,” I reassured him. “Most of the times I looked at you, you weren’t looking at me.”

What. The Fuck. Did I just say?

“I… I mean… you kind of stood out in that crowd, being all by yourself,” I stumbled on.

His eyes had widened when I admitted staring at him, but now he smiled wryly. “Yeah.”

I actually caught myself in time not to say the next words loaded up for delivery on my lips. Then I said them anyway. “But what made you stare at me?”

He definitely blushed at that. I hoped it distracted him from my own deepening flush. “Uh…” he hesitated, then he grinned and straightened his spine a little. “Sometimes a guy just fixates on a pretty girl?”

My Manhattan arrived, rescuing me from directly addressing that reply. I practically snatched at it, and took a delicious sip. He backed off his body language and took a long pull on his draft beer.

I could not help but re-engage though. This was too good an opportunity to satisfy my curiosity about this guy, so I could move on and enjoy my vacation without fucking thinking about him all the time.

“So, are you really on a cruise all by yourself?” I asked quickly.

He grimaced. “Apparently so. It was not the plan, in so many ways.”

“Those three empty seats at your table?” I asked softly. “Did they miss their flight, with the storm and all?”

“You saw me at dinner tonight?” he asked, derailed by the revelation.

And… I was busted again. Worse, this time he wasn’t busted along with me.

“You are just three tables away from me,” I said sheepishly. “You were right in my line of sight, and the three empty seats stood out.”

“There were lots of tables with empty seats.”

“Yeah, but yours were right in my line of sight,” I repeated. And those seats were right next to you…

He stared at me, grinning. “My name’s Dale,” he said, extending his hand.

“Daisy,” I replied casually. We shared a friendly, businesslike handshake.

I took a drink and gathered my thoughts.

Looking for a safe topic of conversation, I asked, “So tell me about the empty seats. Your buddies get caught in the weather?”

“My parents are still in Buffalo, I assume,” he said with a sad, but not heartbroken smile.

“Parents?” I asked, with a raised eyebrow. He still went on vacation with his parents?

He grinned, apparently hearing my unspoken challenge. “Paying for a cruise is an excellent way to convince your 27 year-old son to spend a week’s vacation where he can’t get away.”

“Amazing,” I said, around another sip. “You paid a weather witch to shut down the entire northeast, just to foil your mom’s plot to fuss over you for seven uninterrupted days?”

“There is no level I won’t stoop to,” he replied, enjoying his beer in turn.

That was it. He lived in New York of all places. At least now I knew for sure that he’d be the sort of dead-end fling I was specifically avoiding on this trip. I could relax around him now.

“And the third seat? Sister? Or brother?” I asked with a much more relaxed smile.

“The girl couldn’t make it either,” he said, his voice suddenly flat.

Oh.

Oh!

‘The girl’ was clearly not a sister. And she had gotten blocked by the snow, too. The kind of girl you brought along on a long cruise with your parents.

I was suddenly unhappy, and I couldn’t figure if I was jealous or competitive. Neither were appropriate.

And speaking of inappropriate, he had a serious girlfriend who was kept away from him for the week, and the first night of the cruise, he is sitting at a bar, flirting with me!

He was flirting with me, right? Oh shit. Maybe I was flirting with him, and he was just being polite?

And if he was just being polite, what did that say about me and my skills? My attractiveness?

Or maybe I was just some cheap whore, hitting on a spoken for man…

He waved for another beer.

Or maybe we were two grown-ass adults… just strangers having a casual conversation over a drink in a bar while traveling. That thought relaxed me thoroughly.

We ended up talking about desserts, of all things. We started out by expressing our disappointment in the offerings that evening at dinner (though we had both eaten all of ours), then branched off into Dessert Theory, if that is a field of academic pursuit, and found common ground in the belief that while sugar is the universal ingredient, bacon is the secret to great, truly great, sweet endings.

Then, we both simultaneously yawned right in each others’ faces. We giggled, and I remembered that I had had to wake up early enough for a six AM flight. Dale’s flight had been at the luxuriously late hour of 7:10.

“It’s been a slice, but I have to hit the hay,” Dale said, covering a second yawn with the back of his hand. “It’s been fun talking to you. Thanks for keeping a single traveler company.”

“You’ll have fun this week regardless,” I reassured him. “And thanks for keeping me from drinking alone. I just hope that my roommate hasn’t locked me out of our cabin.”

“Heavy sleeper?”

“If Kimmie has locked me out, it won’t be because she is sleeping,” I chortled.

“Really?” Dale said slyly. “Perhaps I should meet this Kimmie.”

“Ha! Maybe,” I shot back as he rose from his bar stool. Over my dead body, I found myself adding silently while I could not help but watch him walk away. That was a nice ass.

I shook my head at myself for about the umpteenth time this trip already. If Kimmie found him on her own, they were welcome to each other, right? Or any of my friends. But for my own part, I was not catting around on this cruise.

I got back to the cabin, where I found to my surprise that Kimmie had returned first, and alone.

“Well, look what the cat dragged in,” she said from her bed.

“You are back already?” I asked as I slid my sundress off my shoulders and started to remove what little makeup I was wearing.

“No guys first night, remember?” Kimmie said cheerily. “Or did you forget that? Where have you been, girl?”

“After you guys all abandoned me on the dance floor, for guys I might add, I wandered back up to the Eagle’s Nest for a nightcap,” I replied haughtily.

“The geezer bar where we drank first? Why?”

“It was quiet, if a little crowded. I was in a mood for some chill.”

“You were chilling for a while,” Kimmie said, snuggling down under her covers.

“I ended up in a conversation about baking and desserts with the guy on the next stool,” I said, looking through the closet for my nightgown. “We were both unimpressed with the ship’s offerings in the dining room.”

“Oh ho,” she murmured into her pillow. “So you were out later than the rest of us, with a guy!”

“I was out late discussing bacon in desserts,” I said, quellingly. “And it was just that guy I had seen by himself in line when we boarded.”

“Wait,” Kimmie said, sitting bolt upright in her bed. In contrast to my soft cotton nightgown with its pale blue flowers, Kimmie sleeps naked, even when she sleeps alone. Her bouncy tits popped free and I swear I could see her nipples getting hard right there. “You went out and tracked down Line Guy? How good-looking is this man?”

I rolled my eyes and went into the bathroom. “He looks fine. Get real, Kim,” I said around my toothbrush. “He just happened to be sitting on a stool next to the only empty seat at the bar.” I spat out and rinsed.

I turned out the light as I left the bathroom, my ego not needing to see any more of Kimmie’s hotrod bod that evening. I felt my way to my bed.

“Uh huh,” Kimmie laughed as I heard her snuggle down once more in the darkness. “Well, if you just happen to ‘run into’ this guy again, like, say, back here in this cabin, give me a heads up if you can.”

I flipped her the bird idly, then realized that was a futile gesture in the dark. I think she heard it anyway, because she laughed.

“And if you ‘run into him’ for too long, be warned,” she teased. “I may go ahead and come in to watch.”

“Yeah, like I’d put up with you sitting there watching!” I scoffed. It took me a second to register, then shake my head at the fact that I had denied the idea of her watching, not the idea of having the guy in here with me. Was I getting that generally horny after one day on this boat?

“Okay, fine,” Kimmie said slyly. “I’ll join in, if you insist…”

From the sound of it, I tagged her perfectly with the pillow I swung at her in the dark. I yanked it back and we both giggled in the dark before settling in to sleep.

For just a second, I found my mind actually picturing having Kimmie crawl into bed with me and some faceless guy. And I wasn’t completely shying away from the image! I really was getting that horny, apparently.

But she wasn’t going to be getting in any beds with me and Dale.

Because Dale wasn’t going to be in any beds with me, right?

DAY TWO

Our first full day of the cruise would be spent at sea, as the boat sailed fast to reach Barbados by the morning of day three. The weather was spectacular, with blue skies and warm air. The only breeze was supplied by the steady nineteen knots of our passage through the blue Caribbean waters.

The four of us met up for breakfast at the buffet. Over eggs and bacon, Adrian and Sophia regaled me with tales of all the handsome guys they met the night before, which were worth being pursued by, and which were worth being pursued by until they caught them. I shook my head at all their increasingly raunchy chatter.

“So far my favorite from last night was Jimmy,” Adrian said. “The blonde guy with the soul patch,” she added in response to Kimmie’s inquiring look.

“Isn’t he kind of short for your tastes?” my roommate asked.

“Yeah,” Adrian shrugged. “But I kind of got hung up watching his tongue licking on an ice cream cone, though. That monster looked like one helluva fun ride.”

Even I squealed in deliciously scandalized laughter. Then, I couldn’t help myself, asking what we all had pretty much assumed by now. “So Todd is officially in the rearview mirror?”

Adrian winced a little, then shrugged. “Not officially, but… Hey! What happens in the Caribbean, stays in the Caribbean, right?”

“What has made you decide to be such a hall monitor on this vacation, Daisy?” Sophia asked, more curious than irritated.

But a little irritated.

“I’m not a hall monitor,” I protested. “You guys can do what and who you want, and I’ll enjoy seeing and hearing about it. I’m just not in the hookup market anymore myself, so random dudes on a cruise I’ll never see again are not interesting to me.”

Just then, Captain Giuseppe and his interesting voice came on over the PA to congratulate us all on our wisdom in choosing the Wanderer for our cruise, and this week in particular, as the weather was going to be the best he had seen all season. He had a few more words about activities on this, the first of separate two days at sea during our cruise, then with a dong of a bell, he signed off.

We all looked at each other for a few moments.

That voice. That rich, lightly accented, deep, sexy voice…

“But if the Captain were available…” Kimmie teased me.

I actually found myself shivering a little. “Yeah,” I smirked, leaning forward. “I haven’t even seen him, but I’d suck his cock so hard, just to hear that voice say thank you…”

More gales of laughter. As jokes went, it was weak, but it was dirty. And I mostly just wanted to reassure my friends that even if I wasn’t currently in the market myself, I still was a big fan of sex.

“But,” I went on with an exaggeratedly mournful sigh, “since the Captain is still probably married, possibly fat, certainly old, and inevitably contractually obligated not to avail himself of any of us passengers, I shall just continue with my plan of enjoying myself, drinking small amounts throughout morning, noon, and night, and following along with you guys. What are our plans today, oh cruise director?” I asked Sophia, who had taken lead on most planning for this vacation, including selecting this excellent boat.

“Sunbathing, and maybe lunch, on the Top Deck,” she replied promptly. Kimmie smirked and agreed happily.

“The top deck? I thought the Eagle’s Nest bar was on the highest deck. There isn’t anywhere to sun up there,” I said curiously.

“The Top Deck is forward, not aft,” said Sophia, showing off her nautical lingo. “It’s a smaller open deck, um, exposed to the sky.”

“I figured that you guys would have boy hunting on your itinerary,” I smirked.

“Oh, I am sure there will be men,” Kimmie smirked right back.

“Speaking of sun, lunch, and especially men, let’s get on with the day,” Adrian chimed in. “I say we go back to our cabins, suit up, and meet in the Porthole Pub forward. We can do a shot, then go on up once we are together.”

Back in our cabin, Kimmie was stripped naked in a flash, then her progress ground to a halt as she tried to select a swimsuit. She was standing there, holding a gold lamé bikini bottom that seemed too small to be decent, and a white one that seemed possibly even smaller. Either would look amazing in contrast with her exotic skin tone.

I ignored my naked roommate and examined my own options. “How did I let you guys talk me into this Bikinis-Only Policy?” I groused.

“Because you know you look hot in them?” Kimmie asked idly, still trying to decide.

I rolled my eyes.

I want to be clear. I love bikinis, and love how sexy they make me feel, so I had readily agreed to the policy when we first booked the cruise. But since then, I had purchased a sling-type one-piece that was way hotter on me that any of my bikinis, and I was still bent that Kimmie had actually hidden the damned thing to keep me from packing it.

So I had brought three bikinis, and I instantly chose the blue one. It was the most conservative, and I figured that would piss off Kimmie. The bottom was high waisted and low cut around the thighs, and looked more like a pair of 40s or 50s pin-up shorts than bathing suit bottoms. The top was generously cut as well, but I will admit it still showed plenty of cleavage. Pretty much any bikini top has lots of cleavage on me.

Instead of being put out, and trying to get me to go with one of my racier choices, Kimmie just shrugged at my choice. “Which one?” she asked me plaintively, holding out her options.

“Gold,” I said exasperatedly. “Now suit up. I want a drink and some time in the sun with my book.”

“Thanks,” Kimmie said, shimmying into her suit. “And I hope the book is at least smutty.”

“Filthy-minded wench,” I growled at her. Then after a beat, I showed her the cover. The heroine, whose bigger tits than mine were falling out of her dress, swooned in a field at the feet of a shirtless man with six-pack abs and pecs that cast their own shadow.

“Busted,” crowed Kimmie, settling her own tits securely into the gold top. “But don’t get too hung up on that, and forget to look around at your fellow passengers.”

I looked at her sternly for a moment, then let out a sheepish grin. “Don’t worry, girlfriend. I may not be buying, but I promise I’ll do my share of window shopping.”

We grabbed our pool bags, threw on some cover-ups over our suits, and headed along the passageway and down to the deck with the Porthole Pub. It was a nautically-themed space with lots of old-style mahogany paneling, and ropes and pulleys everywhere. We sat down to wait, and Kimmie ran her hand along one thick rope right by her head, of course making a bondage joke. I snorted at her and we giggled.

To my knowledge, Kimmie had never actually tried bondage, for all her active lifestyle and smutty mind. I doubted she ever would.

I was the one with that little secret in my past experience. The first guy who I’d tried bondage with, in college, had made it seem hot as blazes for me. The second guy, whom I had hooked up with shortly after moving to Dallas, had made me swear off handcuffs forever… Kimmie needed to know about none of it.

It was almost fifteen minutes before Adrian and Sophia dragged themselves in. Kimmie waved them over to the booth we had commandeered in the center of the place. “About time you two showed up,” Kimmie scolded. “We were about to die of thirst!” She turned and traded glances with the bartender who had not much to do at that time of day.

“Blame Sophia,” Adrian grumbled. “She took forever going back and forth about which suit to wear, like it matters.” Like it mattered? I supposed it didn’t. Sophia was the least voluptuous of us all, but the tallest, and probably the most elegantly beautiful. She had been born in Denmark before moving to the US as a baby, and she had those classic Scandinavian features of striking blonde hair, brown eyes, and comically high cheekbones. She looked like a fashion model and even baggy sweats looked amazing on her.

The bartender wove through the mostly empty bar toward us, an appreciative look on his face that morphed into simple professionalism as he arrived at our table. We decided that the Shot of the Day would be Kamikazes, and in short order were delivered four excellent ones, free with our drink package.

We all tapped our empties down on the table together, and Adrian said, “Well… let’s do this!” She was almost quivering.

We were going to go lie in the sun. What had her so nervous? I realized that it had to be a guy, and I wondered how long it would take to figure out which one it was. All my friends were practically bouncing as we climbed the forward stairwell, which I for one had not even been on yet. I guessed the hunt for guys was on in earnest.

At the top of the stairs, we turned and went outside through the starboard doors. On cruise ships, there is usually a pair of glass bypass walls to keep the sea breezes from blowing too hard directly into the interior. The one’s on this deck were opaque for some reason.

We passed out into the sunshine. It was indeed a glorious day.

And I knew what had my friends so antsy.

The Top Deck was a top-less deck.

I froze. How the fuck had I missed this? I felt a fleeting moment of relief to see that it was actually ‘top-optional’, as almost a quarter of the women in the area still wore something on their tits, but that relief faded as I remembered who I was with.

I instantly knew Sophia was somehow behind this. I grabbed her arm as we looked around for chairs. “How did you find a boat with a nude deck?” I hissed at her. And how was I not informed?

“It’s a European line,” Sophia shrugged as if that explained everything.

“And all three of you just forgot to mention this to me in advance?” I sarcastically interrogated our group as a whole.

A lovely older woman with an olive complexion deepened by a rich tan walked by us, wearing a huge hat and sunglasses, and sporting even huger, bouncing boobs. We all paused to watch, unable to help ourselves. We weren’t the only ones looking. I was pretty sure I saw one guy who was obviously on the cruise with his wife practically sprain his neck trying not to track the woman’s movement.

As she turned away from us, I glared again.

“It is in every brochure, and on the website,” Sophia said, straightening her spine. “All you had to do is read a little about your big vacation.”

“Sorry, babe,” Kimmie said, laying a hand on my upper arm in genuine, if still amused, apology. “We actually bet on whether you’d demand a different cruise when you finally saw it.” She shrugged even more sheepishly. “And when it became clear that you weren’t going to notice this little feature of the boat, we all decided it was just too funny to spoil it for you.” It is always hard to remain mad at Kimmie for long. And dimly, I was aware that they had probably had some pretty good laughs–laughs I have to admit I would have shared had it been someone other than me who was the one in the dark…

“And it isn’t mandatory,” Adrian blurted, looking at my still stormy visage. “It’s just tops-optional.” That earned her a glower from both Sophia and Kimmie.

I sighed. That didn’t matter. As we wound our way toward four chairs that Kimmie spied, I reflected on the power of peer-pressure that the four of us exerted on each other. There was no way I was not about to find myself with naked tits in public for the first time in my life.

Kimmie’s cover-up and top were off before we even reached the seats, though I saw even her have a moment’s hesitation before she whipped off that gold top. No wonder she had only been worrying about which bottom to choose.

I stared down my friends, daring any of them to take the lounger by the rail. I wanted all three of them, and more importantly their naked tits, between me and what looked like half the guys on the boat. I spread out the towel I had grabbed, dropped my book, with its suddenly demure-seeming cover facing up, and reached behind me to unhook the back of my top.

I looked up to see both Sophia and Adrian standing there nervously, both with their tops still on. “What the Hell?” I asked exasperatedly.

“I… I’ve never done this before,” Sophia, Miss I’m So European, admitted.

“Me either,” Adrian agreed, plucking nervously at the big plastic U that held the cups of her bikini together.

“Like I have?” Kimmie asked, holding her arms out to the side, pushing her delicate, bouncy boobies out at us… and half the boat. “Get with it, girls!”

I actually was lifting my top off over my head before either of our friends got over their paralysis. If I was going to have to get my tits out, I was determined to get it over with, so I could read my book.

The sensation was… terrifying. But exciting, I’ll admit. I shivered and looked around. Amazingly, the entire deck had not fallen silent in order to stare disapprovingly and/or hungrily at my nudity. In fact, my state was only getting a few sidelong glances.

I was briefly irritated at that.

But I was more irritated at my plotting besties that still had their tops on. I caught Kimmie’s eye, and we both cleared our throats sternly.

Sophia and Adrian looked at us, then each other. Then they giggled, and ditched their tops. We all gingerly lay back on our chaises. Almost as one, we suddenly heaved a big sigh. “I can’t believe this,” I grumbled.

After a moment, Kimmie leaned over toward us and whispered, “I’m not going to lie, guys. I think we are the best looking group of girls up here.”

“Come on,” Adrian said. “What about that lady over there?” she asked, subtly indicating a stunning thirty-something redhead on the other side of the small pool, lying with an equally beautiful man who was likely her husband. Her boobs were… unearthly.

Kimmie paused to look. Then paused some more. Then she turned back and hissed, “She’s not in a group!”

Sophia laughed and shoved Kimmie.

And we all lay back in the blazing sunshine. I even picked up my book. The world had not fallen in, and the sun did feel awfully nice. The fact that I was lying there, in public, with my boobs on full display only felt like there were a few ants in my pants, rather than the full hive I’d have expected.

“Shit! Sunscreen!” Adrian exclaimed. We all jolted up. The circumstances had been so weird that none of us had thought to lotion up! We all looked at each other like we had just been narrowly missed by a bus. We were out here with the blazing sun slamming down onto our completely untanned breasts! Sunscreen would have been a vacation-ruining omission.

Aaaaand that’s how I found myself massaging my naked tits in front of a boat-full of horny dudes. If I had felt irritated before that we weren’t getting enough leering glances from the guys in our area of the Top Deck, the four of us rubbing suntan lotion into our own boobs, followed by each other’s backs, put an end to that. And replaced it with irritation at being stared at.

“Show’s over, assholes,” I grumbled as Sophia finished getting between my shoulder blades, and I settled back to get into my book. Paperbacks, it turns out, are singularly insufficient to cover up a set of tits, even pairs like Kimmie’s or Sophia’s, much less ones like mine. I finally just brazened it out and acted like nothing was out of the ordinary.

What I could not believe was, most everybody up there acted no different in how they looked and talked to each other than was my experience at any normal beach or poolside in sensible, prudish America. And the sun and open air felt amazing on skin that had never experienced them before.

I still hadn’t read a full chapter when I realized that I needed a drink. Adrenaline had burned off that Kamikaze from earlier, and I was thirsty besides. I sat up, grabbed my ShipCard, which was room key and charge card in one, and addressed my friends. “Drink run. Who wants something?”

Three ShipCards were eagerly thrust my way, and I was tasked with retrieving three Banana Daiquiris–four, if you counted my own. I was all the way across the deck and mixing into the crowd waiting at the bar before I realized that I had forgotten to put my top back on. Now I was standing in a boisterous crowd with my boobs exposed.

I was embarrassed all over again, in addition to thirsty, and the line was not moving fast.

I had never been around so many bare tits in my life, and I had been on several varsity sports in high school, with the showers to prove it. Moreover, I sure had never been around naked boobs in public, with guys everywhere… with one exception.

Ever tried standing in a slow-moving line at a bar without touching the people around you? Impossible, right? I tried anyway, which was unfortunate.

The girl in front of me was chatting with about every guy around her, and laughing a lot in a very annoying bray. She was getting plenty of attention, despite sporting a rack that paled in comparison to mine. That catty thought yanked me up short. Apparently, deer-in-the-headlights paralysis was not an attractive look in a young lady like me. Guys really do like a woman who laughs at everything they say.

Fortunately, right? I wasn’t looking for attention, and I really wasn’t getting much.

But some more would have been… affirming.

Then Horse Laugh Girl backed up suddenly to make way for a guy holding five beers precariously over his head. I jerked backward to avoid her, and thudded into a meaty wall behind me. I turned automatically to apologize, just as the dude I’d hit was doing the same to apologize to me, the girl who had just splatted against his immovable back. I found myself staring up at a handsome Mediterranean-looking guy whose home address must have been a Planet Fitness.

He flashed a dazzling smile that would have seemed charming if he wasn’t involuntarily (I hoped) eye-fucking my brains out the second he laid eyes on my naked torso.

“I am… so sorry to have gotten in your way, seniorita,” he said, in a voice that was in no way devastated.

“I’m the one who bumped into you,” I automatically demurred. “Sorry, but I was getting out of the way of someone fortunate enough to have already gotten their drinks.”

“The line is long,” he sympathized, in a momentarily genuine voice. “But no matter,” he went on, back to eye-fucking me. “I will at least try to make sure you are not run over from my direction.” With that, he somehow swelled up to an even larger size and indeed made a convincing impression of a concrete wall.

A very handsome, muscular, concrete wall.

This guy was exactly what I did not need. I thanked him and turned around, as if to watch out for my unprotected side, but mostly to stop staring at him. I was absolutely not in the market for a fling with some random fellow passenger, no matter how gorgeous, and if I kept facing his way, I’d be eye-fucking him back… which would give him ideas he should not have.

“Good idea. Keep your eyes on your unprotected side,” he said, unfazed by my turn away. “So you are an American?” he asked. Yes, Captain Obvious. “My name is Raphael. I am from Madrid. This voyage is only my second time visiting your half of the planet.”

“We are fortunate to have you,” I replied over my shoulder, then turned back away and winced at myself. It had been four months since I’d spent much time in friendly, non-work conversation with a good-looking guy. The flirt had just slipped out. An opening appeared at the bar, and I lunged into the narrow space, and away from my statuesque friend. Turning away from him had done nothing to escape the eye-fucking. I could just feel his gaze on my ass.

“Good catch there,” he said, having moved easily forward behind me.

“I like to be aggressive when an opportunity presents,” I drawled.

Shut. The. Fuck. Up. I yelled inwardly at myself.

Honestly, he wasn’t even really my type, gorgeous as he was. I genuinely was not vibing on him. But I do like to think that I have some game with guys, and after my dry spell, I guess it just slipped into gear. I think I might have just rolled with it and flirted on, despite not being interested, and not being in the market, just for the practice… if I had not been fucking topless… in public… in a crowd.

Fortunately, all the bartenders were male, and with my back turned resolutely to Raphael, that meant my tits were aimed directly behind the bar. I am not so modest as to pretend that that did not have anything to do with the way I was served way ahead of my turn.

I may have been desperate enough to escape my delicious admirer that I had been pointing my naked tits rather aggressively at the short Philippino who ended up gravitating my way.

Great, I was manipulating men with my naked tits now. I was a stripper.

But I got my drinks in record time, and I slipped away from the bar as fast as I could. And damned if I wasn’t a little self-satisfied about my apparent super-power. My instinctual politeness made me speak one last time to Raphael though, before I could stop myself. “Thanks for the body guarding. See you later!”

See you later? No. No. No!

I returned to much acclaim from my thirsty friends, and we toasted happily.

Ten minutes of happy conversation among us, during which I largely managed to forget that I was not wearing a top, ended with me being convinced to join them on the Jolly Roger Pirate Rum Voyage the next day in Barbados. I was not sure what the hell that was going to be, other than another eighty bucks in expenses for this vacation, but I was able to extract sworn testimony that it was not a topless excursion, so there was that.

Having been forced to make an actual plan to mar my desired free-form vacation, I settled back with my book. Half a daiquiri and two chapters later, I was starting to really enjoy myself, despite the expectation that Raphael would show up in response to my invitation and stare at my tits some more. I considered rolling over onto my belly to read, in case he showed up. But he’d just eyeball my backside if I tried that. At least, if he was staring at my tits, I would be able to stare back.

It had to be the book, right? No, I thought as I looked down at my bare breasts, nipples more than half erect. Sitting around topless was supposed to make the guys horny, not me, wasn’t it?

I eventually started to get a little offended that Raphael had not sought me out when, with perfect lateness, here he came. He had a buddy with him, who was shorter, leaner, hairier, but just as suave and handsome.

“Ah, we meet again,” he said, waving as they approached. “This is my friend, Juan.”

“Nice to meet you, Juan,” I said. Then, realizing evilly that Raphael still did not know my name, I let him remain ignorant and waved at my friends, “These are my friends, Sophia, Adrian, and Kimmie. Girls, this is Raphael, my guardian in the drink line, and his friend Juan.” My friends were more enthused at the company than I was, which suited me to a T.

Conversation ensued. I found myself equal parts amused and, dammit all, irritated that the two men’s attention was spread equally among us. Even my buddy Raphael’s ocular intercourse was being put to each of my friends in the same measure as to me.

I thought we had something special, Raphael!

I thumbed my nose at myself inwardly.

This was indeed a perfect opportunity to escape this display case for tits. “I don’t know about you guys,” I inserted at the first conversational pause, “but I am too nervous to trust this sunscreen. I’m going to get out of the glare.”

I went to put on my top, and discovered that tits that are about to disappear from view are apparently even more compelling to the male gaze. I’ll admit it. I basked very briefly in the attention I was suddenly monopolizing as I worked my girls back into the bikini top.

“And just to prove that I am capable of making plans in advance on my own this trip, I will tell you that I plan on doing the three o’clock music trivia in that Porthole bar that I saw advertised earlier,” I said in parting. I waved to Raphael and Juan, whose gaze had spread back out once I was no longer topless, and slid away.

My friends seemed quite unconcerned about escaping either the Sun’s rays, or the Spaniards’ gaze, or the gaze of anyone else up on the Top Deck as I departed. Good for them. They were all looking to get laid. I was not.

A shower, a delicious lunch, and another few chapters of my book got me to two-thirty. I put the smut away, and headed to the Porthole, just in case there was a crowd lined up to do a trivia contest in a dark bar in the middle of a glorious day in the southern Caribbean. The bar was nearly deserted when I arrived.

I grabbed a table to the side, and got an answer sheet from the remarkably homely assistant cruise director with the hyper-pert friendly attitude, who was running the contest. To my surprise, a fair number of people started showing up. I let myself get talked into a glass of champagne by the same bartender as earlier. I did have the unlimited drink package, after all.

With five minutes before the start, I looked up to see my Line Guy, Dale standing over me. He smiled a little shyly and asked where my trivia team was.

“Coming… allegedly,” I said before I could stop myself. I didn’t need to sound catty. I really did not need to be catty.

“Need a teammate, then?” he asked, remaining respectfully standing. “I was wanting to kill some time, and I know I’ll suck on my own, but maybe I can help you a little.”

“I’d love a teammate,” I found myself saying.

Daisy! You can turn off the flirting, you know.

“I’m sure that between us, we can suck twice as badly as apart,” I chuckled. Dale slid into the chair next to me and looked around.

The bartender appeared again in suspiciously quick time. I surmised that Dale had already managed to establish himself to my friend as a very good tipper. He received his Stella Artois before the game even began.

We did, indeed suck, but not badly enough to lose. We high-fived as we received our cruise line keychains.

“That was fun,” Dale said, as we turned to polish off our drinks. “Uh,” he said slowly. “There is Harry Potter trivia tomorrow at five, when the ship is casting off. Want to…?” He trailed off as if almost reconsidering.

“Sure,” I said, not wanting him to feel uncertain. And not wanting him to retract the offer. “I can use a beer koozy to go along with this sweet keychain.”

We chuckled at my feeble joke, and parted ways. It was nice to just have somebody new to talk with. I loved my girls, but their relentless dick-chasing was going to get old on this trip. I could have simply befriended a bartender or two, but I felt like my liver would prefer I find a fellow passenger or three to spend my non-buddy time with.

*

I returned to our cabin after trivia, and got started getting ready for dinner. This evening was the first Formal Night on board, and I was honestly excited to get dolled up. I will never get too old to play dress-up–it is just that the game gets more expensive, the older I get.

My dress for the first night, for instance, was an 800 dollar dress-up prop. I was steaming out any wrinkles when Kimmie came back to the cabin.

“Hey Daisy,” she exclaimed, almost tentatively.

“Uh, oh,” I said immediately. “What’s up, Kim?” I set aside the steamer and sat down in my underwear to put on a bit more makeup than normal. I didn’t look at her.

“You aren’t going to get mad if I meet back up with Raphael after dinner, are you?” she asked, actually sounding concerned. My friend was a possibly excessively promiscuous person, but I knew that she would never get in another girl’s way.

“Please do,” I snorted, pondering how much eye makeup I was going to employ. “You know I am trying to focus on finding the man back home, rather than just a man. I feel like you will have fun with enough guys for both of us on this cruise.”

“I don’t know,” Kimmie said innocently. “Raphael is awfully dreamy.”

While the man was probably going to enjoy this evening… um… to the fullest, if Raphael made it to tomorrow morning as Kimmie’s focus, I’d eat my hat. There were too many hot dudes on this boat that my buddy would never have to see again for her to stick too long with any single one.

As I said, I seldom use much makeup, but I was committed to going all in that night, and by the time I had satisfied myself with my face, Kimmie was already shimmying into her dress. It was a classic, mid-thigh length, long-sleeved, scoop-necked, little black dress. Except, it was red, with gold threads shot through the fabric which made it sparkle brightly without a single sequin.

“Damn, girl,” I said, impressed. “You clean up well.”

“Let’s see after I do my hair,” she fretted.

I stood up and smiled at her, my own hair and makeup complete. “How about me?”

“You are fucking gorgeous,” Kimmie laughed. “You seriously are so freaking pretty, Daze.” She snorted, “And for someone not intent on stripping down with anyone, that is some pretty goddamned sexy underwear you have!”

I blushed, standing there in my black lace bra and high-waisted thong. I had shaved my legs glass smooth, so I had no stockings. “These are for me, and my own ego,” I said defensively. “If I were intent on getting laid tonight, I might just omit the underwear… like you have.”

“Touché,” Kimmie admitted. She was going to need to be careful with that skirt hem, or she would be advertising that lack of underwear rather directly. Or maybe she was intending to do that advertising…

My own dress was emerald green, like my eyes, and ankle-length. I had had to choose the bra carefully to find one that barely there enough to not show up in the wide and deep cleavage the dress revealed. And the thong had to rest far up on my hips to stay out of sight, due to the slit that ran up the left leg–way, way up the left leg.

“Zip me up?” I asked Kimmie.

“Damn, that is a fucking red carpet dress, Daisy,” Kimmie said, staring at me for a long second before moving around to tug the zipper past the mid-point of my back. “Guys are going to be all over you.”

“I’m not looking for guys to be all over me,” I said automatically.

“Well then, I’ll help you change your dress.”

“No way,” I snorted, looking at myself in the mirror again. “I just haven’t been feeling that sexy lately, and when I saw this dress, I realized it might do the trick.”

“Mission accomplished,” Kimmie said, with something akin to jealousy in her voice. That was for the dress, not my looks. Kimmie looked like a million bucks. “But come on Daisy! A guy in your life, or at least in your bed here or there, would fix that lack of sexiness feeling cheaper than a thousand dollar dress.”

“It wasn’t a thousand dollars, and you know when it comes to sex, I’m looking for a relationship right now, not an ego boost.”

“If guys drooling over you is the boost you need, didn’t the Top Deck do the trick yesterday?”

“Walking around with my tits out?” I snapped. “I didn’t know what to think,” I added, almost introspectively.

“Adrian says she can’t do it again, can you believe it?” Kimmie said, trying to stuff too many things in the little clutch she was bringing to dinner.

“Again?” I almost yelped. The idea of going up there again had not entered my mind.

“Fuck yeah,” Kimmie grinned. “I loved it, didn’t you? Once I got used to it, I mean. I may need to find a place to do it somehow back in Dallas. It was hot and you know it.”

I rolled my eyes. I was with Adrian.

Wasn’t I?

“The only problem with this dress is, it is too long,” I said, going to the closet. “To keep it from dragging, I have to wear these shoes!”

Kimmie laughed at my predicament as I slid on the black, four inch heeled pumps with the one inch platform under the ball of the foot. Any other shoes and the dress would have dragged.

“Not only are you sex personified in that dress,” Kimie said admiringly, “you are sex on stilts.”

I waved her off. But I was beginning to feel a bit uncomfortable with my look. I had hoped for attractive elegance, but now that I was all done up, I really was beginning to feel a bit more out there than I had intended. I looked at the slit, which hung a tiny bit open, even when I was just standing straight, and felt some of the same tremors I had on the Top Deck. Worse, I didn’t hate them. I wasn’t sure yet whether I liked them that much, but I definitely didn’t hate them.

Kimmie laughed out loud at me when I produced a small roll of gaffer’s tape to ensure the neckline wouldn’t slip open or over and reveal that I did have a bra underneath the dress. “What?” I smiled, letting my inner vamp out for a minute. “I didn’t spend that much time finding underwear that doesn’t show in this thing to have it slip, and ruin the illusion that I’m naked under here.”

We laughed and left arm in arm to go to dinner and break men’s hearts.

Well, I was going to break hearts. Kimmie was likely going to go and fulfill some hearts’ desires…

*

As we moved through the ship, I saw that about a quarter of the people on board were half-hearted at best about dressing up, with women in just a nice dress, and men maybe sporting a jacket. Another quarter were adamant in not dressing up at all on their vacation. Leaving half of us who had put some work into putting on the Ritz. It was fun.

We stopped on the deck above the dining room to look at the artwork being displayed for sale there. Most of it was dreck (I have an Art History minor), but there were a few pieces I genuinely liked. They were out of my price range by a mile, but I liked them.

“Hey, we are already a couple minutes late for dinner,” I exclaimed when I looked at my watch.

“Duh. How are were we supposed to Make An Entrance, if we aren’t a couple of minutes late?” Kimmie asked.

But I hustled her on to dinner. Wearing that dress in public was feeling a lot… breezier than I had anticipated and I wanted a drink.

Most of the people who had refused to dress up had also decided not to eat in the main dining room, so the space was a mass of suits and glittering dresses. We did get some appreciative glances as we wended our way to our table, but we were hardly the center of attention, to Kimmie’s frustration.

We were the last to reach our table. As I approached my seat, I saw across the room that Dale was at his table, resplendent in an awesome-looking tuxedo. He watched as I seated myself, then was drawn back into conversation with the couple to his left.

The two frenchmen at our table rose gracefully as we approached, bowing slightly. Formal night apparently meant old-fashioned manners night as well.

I had never sat in the dress before.

The slit opened completely when I did, and there I was in the middle of the dining room, with my entire left leg exposed to the hip. I furtively checked that hip, and was relieved to see that even sitting down, the thong’s waistband was still up and out of sight.

That was what I was worrying about?

Thank God for the table cloth.

Drinks could not have come fast enough. And the first course was excellent. At least my soup was. I could tell that Adrian, who was on my left, was unimpressed with her escargot.

We were almost finished, and laughing as Sophia told a story to our table-mates, when Adrian grabbed my leg gently. “Don’t look, but wasn’t she with Etienne last night?”

I let my gaze roll over our table companions. The elegant brunette, whom I did indeed clearly remember being introduced as Etienne’s wife the night before, was now seated all the way over on the other side of Antoine from her husband. And Antoine’s wife, the busty, auburn-haired lovely, who was seated between the men and rocking more cleavage than even I was, chose that moment to caress Etienne’s hand with her wedding and engagement ring-sporting fingers.

Adrian saw that, too. “Damn…”

When our dining companions switched up seating for the evening, they switched up seating! From the start of the night before, it had been clear that all four of the French people at our table were physically demonstrative, but tonight all four of them were being even more so, and with each others’ spouses. It was nothing outrageous, but it was clear as day, once you recognized it.

I looked over at Kimmie and Sophia. “I don’t think they’ve noticed it, have they?” I whispered to Adrain.

“No. Let’s see if and when they do,” Adrian smiled back conspiratorially.

I swear, neither of them noticed all through dinner. They were both too busy flirting with the men, to notice that they had swapped wives right in front of us.

Watch it girls. These guys might actually bite.

I found myself catching Dale’s eye again across the room at some point where I had checked out of the conversation at my own table. We smiled at each other in recognition, and he raised his glass of champagne in my direction. I smiled and sipped my Manhattan in return.

And then Adrian grabbed my leg again. “Is that him?” she hissed.

I was about ask who ‘him’ was, when I saw who she was talking about. A tall ship’s officer was making his way through the room, nodding here and there as he passed. He wore dress whites, immaculately tailored to his impressive form. He was probably about fifty, with just enough gray at his temples to look amazing. He dark, Mediterranean complexion was perfect, and he had the looks to carry off his impressive mustache. I go for younger guys, but I found myself shifting in my seat as this absolute specimen of Italian manhood kept coming our way. There were indeed four stripes on his shoulders. This had to be Captain Giuseppe, and his looks, impossibly, lived up to his voice.

And he made a bee-line right for our table!

He approached from behind the French couples, who only realized he was coming when the four of us all shut up and stared like children looking into a candy store window. They turned as one, and Etienne’s wife’s face lit up.

“Giuseppe!” she exclaimed. “Don’t you look marvelous tonight?” She turned to the table as a whole. “Everyone, may I present our illustrious and dashingly handsome Captain?”

The Captain said he just wanted to say hello, and graciously allowed himself to be introduced to every one of us at the table. I still can’t remember Etienne’s wife’s name, but she knew all of ours. He even took just enough time to speak to each of us at the table individually… When he found a way to ask me quite ordinarily about Dallas, that voice, coming now from that face, atop that body, with that left hand so tantalizingly bereft of rings, imperiled the state of my underwear.

When he inquired of Kimmie’s profession, his face lit up more than politely when he heard she sold Porsches. He apparently was on his third model, himself. “I would promise to by my next one from you, Signora, but alas, my ship seldom makes port in Dallas,” he joked with her, and from her involuntary reaction, I think he would have more than just imperiled the dryness of her panties, had she been wearing any to begin with.

But our Captain was a busy man, and had to move on. He favored each of my friends and me with a final, eye-locking smile, and Etienne’s wife rose just enough for him to favor each of her smooth cheeks with a soft kiss, neither of which were of the air variety. He bowed, and sailed away through the room, stopping here or there as he departed.

We Americans all turned and stared at the brown-haired beauty. She smirked back at us. “Our Captain is quite the handsome man, is he not?”

“How do you know him?” Sophia asked, after a beat.

Etienne laughed. “The Captain’s little sister is my wife’s boss, back in Paris. She must have told him we were sailing on his vessel.”

“Yes,” his wife added. “And she is far more attractive even than her big brother. Etienne lusts after her constantly, whenever her comes to my office.”

“C’est vrais,” he laughed.

“Perhaps someday, should you have the occasion to step over my dead body, you can indulge your desires,” she told him more than a little tartly. But her hand next to Antoine was out of sight beneath the table as she spoke, and her bare, elegant shoulder was moving just enough to suggest her hand might be moving quite a lot. My gaze flicked to Antoine’s wife, and her hand next to Etienne was similarly hidden, and possibly moving as well. Not a lot of movement, but…

So very much is going on between a couple when the wife essentially tells her husband, ‘I may be massaging your buddy’s junk right now, but don’t you dare touch my boss.’

Adrian, still somehow oblivious that they were not sitting with their spouses, asked, “Is he married?” Then she blushed furiously as the rest of us laughed. But I’ll admit, even I listened carefully to the response.

“No, my dear. He most definitely is not.”

Even before the dessert arrived, Kimmie and Sophia excused themselves from the table. The meal had gone long, and they had appointments.

As soon as the desserts, which were much better than the first night, had been devoured, our French companions also rose. Etienne, along with Antoine’s wife, declared their desire to visit the disco for a while. Antoine, along with Etienne’s wife, demurred, and made no mention as to their plans. As the mismatched couples walked away with a wave at Adrian and me, the men’s hands clasping the asses of each other’s wives made everyone’s ultimate destination quite clear.

“We are spending this cruise hanging out with swingers!” Adrian hissed to me as we watched them leave. Antoine was being particularly aggressive with the backside in his hand as they were lost from view.

“Very little is surprising me about this cruise you guys dragged me on,” I laughed in reply. “And speaking of sexual libertines, I assume that Kimmie and Sophia ran off to meet up with Raphael and Juan? Or did Soph find some different guy?”

“No, she won out on Juan,” Adrian snapped a little dourly. “I was a little bitchy about it when she won our surreptitious game of Rock, Paper, Scissors.”

“You did not Roshambo over a guy!”

“We did,” Adrian said impishly, her mood immediately lightening. “When I got pissy about losing, Sophia suggested that we could share!”

“That crazy bitch,” I laughed. “Get her the least bit drunk and she’ll joke about anything.”

“I just hope she was joking,” Adrian giggled.

What the fuck was with this cruise and people talking about threesomes?

*

After we left dinner, Adrian and I cast about for how to start our evening. I immediately thought about trying the Eagle’s Nest, but that seemed to be Dale’s haunt, and I didn’t want him getting the idea that I was stalking him. Some nice music came from the doors to the Jazz club nearby, and I dragged Adrian that way. There was a nice trio playing in there, and we happily ordered a glass of wine.

The two of us got briefly separated as I watched the band, and that was all it took for Adrian to be approached by a young guy, even younger than either of us. He was cute, with beautifully wavy, sandy brown hair and sporting an expensive suit. I smiled and stayed away, giving her a few minutes to audition. I’m not sure who was auditioning, though.

I found a spare seat at a table where an older couple sat, and horned in their space with their permission. The husband took one look at me, and in broken, German-accented English was very quick to invite me to sit. I looked at his wife before I sat, but she was more amused than not at his reaction. We actually ended up in a nice conversation. She worked in a similar position to mine in Munich, and we traded notes. I might have even learned a thing or two.

When I thought to wonder where Adrian was, a half hour had passed, and the audition had apparently gone well, because my friend had ghosted me.

Instead, as I looked around, I saw Dale enter. Before I could slip away, he saw me and waved tentatively. I shrugged inwardly, and beckoned him.

“Buy you another?” he asked as he approached, indicating my mostly empty glass.

“I’ve got the drink package,” I replied, but rose. “That said, I could get another.”

We moved together to the bar. “Like Jazz, do you?” I asked while we waited for the busy bartender’s attention.

“I love it actually. But, um, I’ll be honest. I had thought about just going for another quiet drink in the Eagle’s Nest tonight, but since it seemed like that was your place, I was afraid if I ran into you up there, you’d think I was stalking you,” Dale chuckled. “Oops.”

“Not at all,” I said, omitting my similar thought process.

It never occurred to me until later that I had not said goodbye to the couple that let me share their table.

Our drinks refreshed, we took a spot along one wall, where we easily fell into more conversation. I like Jazz, but Dale clearly did love it, and I spent a good portion of the time listening to him go on enthusiastically on the subject. He knew his stuff, and I was just a little amazed that I wasn’t bored.

But I like listening to Jazz more than I like listening about it, and I was feeling left out by all the people dancing. When a new song began, I asked, “I like this one. Want to dance a little?”

Dale brightened at that, and we found ourselves out in the crowd, dancing. The songs were up tempo, and we danced without holding each other, which suited me, and apparently him. He was the one with a special girl back home, after all.

When the music suddenly changed to a slower pace, we both demurred, and returned to the wall to listen and chat some more.

It was genuinely nice to have one person on this boat to have a conversation with that was not trying to charm or smarm his way into my pants, or anyone else’s for that matter. That said, when the music picked back up again, I dragged him back out onto the dance floor. I had to be careful, trying to dance in those high pumps, but I kind of liked the way they had me almost at eye level with Dale.

The music quickly went slow again. This time, I shrugged inwardly and made it clear that I’d like to stay out on the floor a little longer. He cocked an eyebrow at me, and we sort of dared each other to dance a slow one or two.

To be clear, I suck as a dancer, even when not on stilts, and while Dale was better, he was no Astaire either. We pretty much just held each other’s waists and swayed to the smooth music. I could tell that it was the girlfriend who made him hold me so tentatively. This kind of felt like a challenge to me, because apparently I’m a bitch, and I moved just far enough closer to let my hands slip down to his hips, with my fingertips brushing the edges of his very nice backside.

He held out for a while before his hands slid a little lower too. Actually, it was just his left hand. His right stayed high, well clear of the stupidly high slit in my dress. I still smiled and, while being obviously playful, I squeezed his ass just a little. His eyes widened at that, and I felt his left hand on my right hip clench back in return, getting a lot more of my ass in his grasp than I had expected. I just let him hold there as we danced a few more measures.

Then my feet betrayed me, just as I was starting to genuinely enjoy the feel of his hand… I winced as I wobbled on the heels, my foot threatening to cramp.

Dale instantly reacted and guided me off the floor, concern in his voice. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah, fine,” I grumbled as we returned to our drinks. “I’m just not used to wearing these Come… crazy high heels. My feet say no more dancing.” I took a long drink of wine to recover from almost saying out loud that I was wearing Come Fuck Me Heels.

Dale just shrugged and murmured, “It was fun while it lasted.”

I liked him because it was safe and normal to talk to him, but I had to admit that I was also enjoying teasing him just a little bit. Turns out innocent flirting is good for the soul. “It was nice dancing there at the end,” I smiled into my wine glass, “but you’d have gotten a better experience if your right hand had slid as low as your left.” I looked significantly down at the slit on my left leg.

“Ha!” Dale barked, caught by surprise. “I’ll be honest, that dress is a little intimidating,” he said almost sheepishly. “It, uh, reminds me of that one that Angelina Jolie wore to the Oscars a few years back.

I shot my left leg out straight to the side, exposing almost its entire length, just like Angelina had at the Oscars. Before he had said anything, I had missed the similarity. But not anymore. “I have no idea what you mean,” I deadpanned.

Dale took a much longer look at my leg than maybe he should have, and I left it out there to look at longer than maybe I should have. Finally, I caved first, and slid my leg back under me and inside my dress.

Innocent fun. The rest of our conversation, back again onto normal, comfortable subjects like more baking and the art for sale on the deck above us, was fun too. But my feet did not stop throbbing, and I finally succumbed. I made my excuses and headed back to the cabin before I really wanted to. Kimmie and Raphael apparently found somewhere else to commit whatever unspeakable acts on each other that they were committing–and which Kimmie would likely speak of at length tomorrow.

I took two Advil and crawled into bed. Sleep was only slightly delayed by my mind gnawing on a few witty comebacks it was only now, much too late, coming up with for things Dale had said.

DAY THREE

I slept late the next morning. Kimmie, who had somehow been dragged in by the cat without waking me in the wee hours, slept in even later. I drank coffee on our balcony and looked out over the harbor in Barbados until Kimmie awoke. Then we both showered and put on bathing suits and coverups for our rum boat ride on the Jolly Roger Pirate Tour.

“Ooooh, Daisy. Wearing the sexy red one, are you?” Kimmie teased. “For a girl who claims she’s off the market, you sure are advertising a lot on this trip.”

“First of all,” I said sternly, “whatever this suit looks like, it is actually the least likely to slip off, if we go jumping off the boat into the water, which I imagine we will.” That was true, the red bikini didn’t cover a whole lot, but it had all sorts of strings and straps criss-crossing around that I had found were actually quite effective in keeping what there was of the suit right were it needed to be. My black suit already had a wardrobe malfunction on its record fro a few months back, and the modest blue one… I wasn’t wearing the modest blue one.

Kimmie shrugged skeptically, and we headed out to eat as much as we could to stave off the rum punch we knew we’d be drinking. I didn’t want to get drunk.

We got drunk. Everybody on that tour got drunk. All forty of us got back to the boat less than a half hour after before cast-off, and we all literally conga-lined our way on board, through security, and up to the main pool deck, where we made asses of ourselves circling the pool, singing the pirate ditties we had all been made to learn before and after jumping off of the fake pirate vessel. None of the four of us had any bikini dislocations, but there were malfunctions aplenty among our fellow passengers. One guy even lost his shorts. Unlike many of the dislodged bikini tops, his loss was truly unintentional, and the poor, embarrassed bastard had to stay in the water, which was too clear for comfort, while some alternate trunks were found somehow.

Back on the Wanderer, when the line finally broke up, I looked at my watch and exclaimed, “I got to go. Harry Potter trivia is in fifteen minutes!”

Sophia giggled, “Oh, I’m in! You know I’m a Potter-head.”

And that is how, to my chagrin, I went to see Dale with my three drunken friends along for the ride. He didn’t need them boozily hitting on him. Damn them.

Dale had grabbed a circular booth already, one designed to hold four cozily, meaning the five of us were crammed in very cozily. Dale seemed bemused but quite happy to have four women in bikinis mashed up around him. Damn him.

We somehow lost, despite how big into Harry Potter that Sophia and I are, and how surprisingly much Dale knew on the subject as well. But none of us were the kind of fucking nerd who knows what specific page numbers Snape called for in Potions class. Damn those fat chicks over across the bar.

My friends, to their credit, mostly left Dale alone. That honestly shocked the shit out of me. But when Kimmie let out a huge, involuntary yawn, we girls all took it as a sign that we needed a pre-dinner nap. Adrian, of all of us, felt the need to tease Dale a little, catching me in the cross-fire.

“Daisy says you sit near us at dinner. Are you ready for pajama night?”

He looked back uncomfortably, mostly at me. “Uh, no actually. I missed that there was one, and I don’t, um, have any PJs with me.” He was turning a little red. It was cute.

“That’s okay,” Kimmie giggled, piling on once it started. “Pajama Night is really about what we women are wearing, isn’t it? You guys can just wear what you usually do to bed…” she added slyly.

Dale turned fully red. “Ah, no. I don’t think I’ll be putting in an appearance.”

I couldn’t resist. I eyeballed him and murmured quite loudly, “That’s a shame.” He looked at me, a little stricken, and I let my gaze tell him that I was sorry. I shooed my friends away to leave him alone, and then I made my own escape, kicking myself for making him feel bad.

I may have been drunk after the cruise, but my girlfriends were schnockered. I wondered if any of them would even remember Dale or any of the trivia experience. I found it would suit me if they did not.

Kimmie and I did not actually nap when we got back to the room however, opting instead for long, hot showers to get the sea salt, general grime, and sticky rum punch residue from our bodies, and the cobwebs from our brains. I went first, and when Kimmie finally came out of the shower, naked as per usual, she took one look at me in the white satin PJs I had on and said, “Oh, hell no, girl! No way. You are wearing that black number you had on the other morning.”

“Fat chance,” I laughed. “You already conned me into going around the Top Deck with my tits hanging out, you are not going to get me to walk around the rest of the ship with my ass hanging out in that thong! Besides,” I added triumphantly, “I left it at home!”

Kimmie just smiled, fists on her hips. “No, you didn’t,” she replied, equally triumphantly. “I put it in your blue suitcase for you!” she crowed, pointing at my bag.

Sonofabitch. It was in there. I looked pleadingly at her face, and she just grinned. I didn’t know why, but I knew I was going to lose this argument. I often lost arguments with Kimmie. “I can’t believe I’m going to walk around a cruise boat all night in a half-transparent teddy with nothing over my ass,” I sighed. Kimmie pumped her fist in triumph. “I swear, bitch, you are going to have me flaunting my bod on this voyage more than I have over the rest of my life.”

Kimmie stopped at that comment, then drawled, “I find that difficult to believe.”

I smiled weakly. I had had a definite weakness in college for overly tight tops… and the boys who were attracted to them. But actual exposed skin had never been my MO.

Caving completely, I ditched the PJs and put on the teddy. Kimmie also slid into a sheer, pink, frilly babydoll with matching panties that covered a hell of a lot more than my bottom did. It still was rawly sexual, with only the frills on her bust hiding much of anything.

“Dammit, Kimmie,” I appealed one last time. “It is Pajama Night, not Lingerie Revue.”

Kimmie just picked up the day’s printed schedule from our nightstand. “‘Pajama Night’,” she read. “‘Wear your coziest PJs or most daring nightwear to dinner and to the party on the Plaza after.’ There. Black and White.”

“Fine,” I said. Then I went to the closet and grabbed one of the cruise line’s provided white robes. As I tied the fairly short and thin robe around me, I tossed the other to Kimmie. “Even if we hadn’t discussed these robes for dinner earlier, we are wearing them now.” Before Kimmie could object, I added, “I’m not sitting there at our table with those swingers without this robe, and neither are you.”

“Wait. The swingers?”

Oh yeah.

I explained the swapping Adrian and I had observed, and which Kimmie and Sophia had missed.

“Fuuuuck,” Kimmie breathed. “That is so fucking hot!” I rolled my eyes, but Kimmie straightened suddenly. “Sophia won’t miss it a second time, will she?”

“Maybe?” I mused, amused.

“Then I’m going to tell her in advance,” Kimmie said gleefully. She thought a second longer. “She has got it bad for Etienne. When we were back with Raphael and Juan last night in her room…”

“Wait, you two took them both back to Sophia’s cabin, together?” I interrupted.

Kimmie grinned almost sheepishly. Almost. “Yes? But we ended up all talking, in between, you know, and when she brought up Captain Delicious coming to our table, she spent more time talking about Etienne than about our scrumptious skipper.”

“Where was Adrian?” I asked, still incredulous about the whole parallel fucking thing.

“Dunno? She didn’t get back until after I left,” Kimmie grinned.

I just did a little showy golf clap.

“What?”

“I’m trapped on a voyage with three sluts,” I said wearily. “I might as well enjoy the spectacle.”

“Slut?” Kimmie scoffed. “I prefer to think of myself as a cougar-in-training.”

A pillow fight ensued. A brief one. This wasn’t some 80’s teen skin flick.

“We do need to be careful with Sophia,” I said, remembering her Emily In Paris fetish. I explained Etienne’s wife’s willingness to let her husband have away games, but her fairly tart insistence on controlling the ‘opponents’.

Kimmie nodded. “We’ll warn her on that as well. But mark my words, once we do tell her, she’ll be sucking up to the wife before dinner is over.”

*

The four of us met up for a quick shot before dinner. The Shot of the Day, we decided, was to be the Pink Panty Pull-Down. The bartender accepted our order without comment. I doubted he knew what was supposed to be in it, but that was okay with us, we didn’t either. It was just a name we liked to say to jerk bartenders’ chains. We’d never had two bartenders make PPPDs that tasted remotely similar.

Kimmie did indeed tell Sophia what they had missed as we tossed our shots down. I added the warning about the wife, couching it in indirect terms. Directly warning Sophia off of something was usually a counter-productive idea.

Our friends had also thankfully gone for robes for the dinner table. I guess we all have some shreds of class. If not many… Sophia shot forward to make sure she could sit right next to Etienne’s wife, who was back sitting with her husband that evening. I couldn’t help myself and sat next to her to hear the shit-show.

Our dining companions had also embraced the concept of Pajama Night. Etienne wore silk pajamas that were unbuttoned enough to show off some appealing chest hair. His wife wore a silk gown that was mostly transparent lace, with little opaque motifs in random locations that just happened to include the strategic ones. It had to have cost more than my dress from the previous night.

Antoine and his wife went casual. Both wore baggy gray sweat pants. He had on a wife-beater that showed off some highly impressive musculature. His wife had on a little button-up top that didn’t reach her waist, and which couldn’t button up more than halfway over her significant chest.

I hoped I could be half as hot as those two women when I was in my thirties.

The meal was delicious, but I hardly noticed.

To begin with, Dale never showed up at his table. He had evidently meant it about not having jammies, and had opted out of Pajama Night. Too bad. I’d have been amused to see him in whatever he did sleep in…

More to the point, Etienne’s wife decided to be absolutely charmed by Sophia! She even remained charmed when Sophia’s robe started coming loose and she kept leaning over to talk to Etienne. I didn’t know yet what my friend was wearing, but from what little I could see, it did not include a lot of topside coverage.

Kimmie tapped me on the shoulder, and I leaned over to let her whisper in my hear.

“Goddamn! Sophia may get what she’s after,” she murmured.

“I know. I can’t believe this shit,” I said. I might be behaving this trip, but I was going to get more vicarious sex than I could handle.

“I just hope she’s ready for the conditions,” Kimmie went on.

“Conditions?”

“Look at her,” Kimmie said, subtly indicating Etienne’s smiling wife. “If Sophia gets a green light, the offer is going to be a package deal for both of them.”

I took a look again. The Frenchwoman was indeed taking a very long and interested look inside Sophia’s robe.

Fuuuuuck.

Dinner ended, and the little potentialmenage a trois beside me seemed mutually unready or unwilling to close the deal. The French all rose and bid us adieu, with a suggestion that we might see them dancing in the Plaza later. Sophia was, of course, especially glad at the prospect, though oblivious to all the implications. Etienne’s wife smiled back in friendly but slightly predatory fashion. Etienne himself was possibly uninterested, maybe playing it cool, and most likely just ignorant that he was being dangled as bait.

“We better tell her,” I told Kimmie. She just nodded.

Lots of people had opted for robes at dinner, and many, to start with, clung to them up on the Plaza deck, where a disco group with a rather homely but serviceable singer and three damned hot dancers stood on a balcony to perform. Colored lights swirled everywhere and a huge actual mirrored ball had appeared from the ceiling. But as the evening went on, most of those robes vanished. Most had been put into the hands of the check stand the boat was providing, the rest left along with the more shy or timid of the wearers.

Our robes, of course, were among the first left at the robe check, at Kimmie’s unsurprising insistence. At first, I thought that this experience, wearing what was practically a stripper outfit in a crowd of people, might be worse than the Top Deck. But once we were dancing, things weren’t too bad. I even found myself dancing here and there with guys on the floor, strangers all.

However.

The bars were doing a land office business all around the Plaza, as were the shot girls circulating the dance floor with test tubes filled with Lemon Drop and Red-Headed Slut shots. After about an hour, the crowd was denser, the music louder. The band did not know any disco songs that weren’t about sex, either.

The crowd was getting thicker, and more boisterous, and more, well, drunk. Including me, but not enough drunk, thankfully.

It was hard to move, much less dance, on a floor this packed without bumping and brushing against others, but I started to feel that I was getting brushed a lot more than most. Maybe that last was my imagination, but the fact that I was getting brushed by more than simply the hips and backsides of oblivious fellow dancers was surly not. I was getting a little irritated that there seemed like there were some fingertips being included in what was contacting me.

I didn’t like it. But I tried to ride with it, since it all was playful, I was safe around my friends in such a large crowd, and no one was taking any major liberties. I took steps to be more careful.

Then a whole hand, palm and five fingers, was on my bare ass cheek, and giving it a quick squeeze.

No. Fucking. Way.

I froze just an instant in disbelief, then spun around.

It could have been any of four guys (or maybe that one girl) who had copped the feel. None seemed to be paying attention, and all were looking elsewhere. Making a scene would not help, since I had essentially no legitimate suspects.

Instead, I turned to Kimmie, who was dancing nearby, and yanked her away from her current dance partner.

“This outfit you made me wear is getting things out of hand,” I shouted at her over the music. She looked at me, somewhat tipsily, somewhat puzzled. “Are you getting touched out here?” I asked hotly.

“A little. It’s crowded,” Kimmie said. She laughed, “There was one guy who was heading back to his buddies with some drinks and I felt his boner drag across my tummy when he squeezed by. He knew I felt it too. He was so embarrassed!”

“Yeah? Well I just had some anonymous hand outright grab my bare ass,” I replied snottily.

“What? Fuck that,” Kimmie said, eyes suddenly focusing. “Do you want go?” she asked me seriously.

I paused. Aside from the grope, I was actually having fun, in spite of my state of near-undress. Sure, I was getting a lot of looks, but as long as it wasn’t fucking touches, I kind of… enjoyed them. More than usual.

Since when the fuck was I a closet exhibitionist?

“Actually no. I don’t want to let some perv ruin what is admittedly kind of fun,” I shouted. “But I also do not want to be groped again.”

“Let’s just dance together,” Kimmie said. “We can watch each other’s backs. And let’s find Adrian and Sophia.”

And so the two of us danced, face to face, keeping an eye out behind the other, and finally wound our way along to rediscover Adrian and Sophia. “How the fuck did I, out of all of us, end up the sluttiest dressed?” I complained instantly.

Adrian and Sophia laughed, but Kimmie clued them in on what happened, and they were both pissed at my tale.

“That’s fucked up,” Adrian said. Then she looked around. “I mean, there are plenty of guys here who would be welcome to do some groping on me, but they better fucking ask first!” She was a little louder than she should have been.

Less than a second later, a short but very nice-looking dude leaned over to her and with a wide grin said, “Would you like to dance?”

“What did you say?” Adrian said, certain, as were we all that this guy had heard her.

“I said, would you like to dance?” he grinned again. “After that, if you want me to ask you anything else, just let me know.”

Sonofabitch, his line worked. Adrian winked at us and said she’d be back. We all looked at each other as she moved away. Maybe she would be back. But I wasn’t giving odds. He was really cute, and had just the kind of game Adrian liked.

For my part, I was losing energy, and despite my determination to not let it mess up my evening, I was kinda losing the dancing feeling. Sophia had not seen Etienne and company, and I was unsurprised that I had not seen Dale. This was not exactly the atmosphere for a lone guy with a girlfriend back home.

I danced another few songs to be sure I was done, then told Kimmie that I was heading back to the cabin to crash. She fist-bumped me and said in my ear, “Go chill. If I find Mr. Right Tonight, I’ll go somewhere else with him.” She straightened up, then leaned in again, “Unless you’d rather I bring him back so you can watch?”

What was with my friends this trip?

DAY FOUR

Kimmie had actually been back in the cabin by midnight, no performance partner in tow. It was just as well, she said, since we had snorkeling at our next port of call.

The island had some truly nice reefs, still undamaged and available for snorkeling and diving. The four of us had a great time, and even saw several sea turtles. But the water was choppy for the first time on the trip, and everybody was kind of battered by the time the speed boat that took us out made it back to the dock before lunch.

Sophia and Adrian had both apparently been up much later the previous night, doing nefarious deeds they surprisingly chose not to share, and each just grabbed a sandwich before heading back to their cabin to crash.

Kimmie and I sat and enjoyed a decent lunch and felt our backs ache. I considered my spending on this trip and decided I had been pretty good so far. “I think maybe we two old women should get a massage, if they are available,” I suggested, stretching my back. My legs hurt too, from a lot more dancing than they were used to lately.

“You are a genius!” Kimmie said enthusiastically. “If they don’t have any slots, we should consider bribery or possibly poisoning a couple of people who do have reservations.”

It turned out no felonies were needed to get a rubdown. Since we were still in port, there were two slots available for massages, though not quite at the same time, alas. I let Kimmie go first, and sat naked in the women’s sauna to wait for my turn. When the host came to get me, she said, “I’m so sorry. I did not mention, but the only therapist I have available for this slot is Pasquale… he’s a… he. Are you comfortable with that?”

I might have been enjoying the sauna, and feeling its benefits, but I was still sore. I’d have taken a skilled goat walking on my back.

On the other hand, why did Pasquale have to be so damned hot? This might not actually be totally relaxing.

He invited me to undress to my comfort level and lie down on my chest under a sheet, and stepped out of the room. My comfort level was going to be naked, since that was what I was under my robe. Also, I got massages often, though never from a guy before. I tossed the robe almost before the door closed behind him, and slid under the top sheet onto the padded and gloriously heated table. I stuck my face in the hole in the brace and nearly fell asleep in the seconds it took for Pasquale to knock and come back in.

Massages on a cruise turn out to be crazy expensive, but this one started out worth it from the beginning. Pasquale was good, asked all the right questions, and quickly adjusted to just the pressure I wanted and needed. I exhaled softly and prepared to take a nap on and off.

But that didn’t happen.

Why did his hands have to be so darned big?

I was thinking too much about sex on this trip. Especially considering that I wasn’t in the market.

All was fine at first, as he worked over my back and arms. He went low on my back, but never came near my glutes, which honestly was my only complaint. I’ve had women go a lot lower in the past, and my back could have used it.

When Pasquale pulled the sheet gently up over me to my neck, and moved to lift it off of my legs, that was when things got difficult for me.

To be clear, Pasquale was totally professional. Not a damned thing out of bounds. But his touch was so nice, and I was starting to relax so well, and this was such a horned up vacation, and thoughts of Dale of all people were intruding into my head as Pasquale caressed me. My body started to wish for some fantasy/porn scenario.

I was almost enjoying that for a bit, until her started to reach the tops of my legs.

Again, Pasquale was totally professional. He worked my thighs well, but never once actually touched even my ass. I even let out an approving noise when he got close once, before I realized what I was doing, but he was not going there.

If his hands has strayed between my legs, he would have found no massage oils needed there. And while his fingers did work the insides of my thighs, and it sure felt like he was getting close to things verboten, he never really did. I was halfway to begging him to before he lowered the sheet again and told me that he wanted me to roll over. As he was moving into position to lift the sheet, I was tempted to just roll over on my own, knocking off the sheet before he could grab it.

Again, this was not actually a porn scenario, so I waited patiently for him to lift the far side of the sheet so I could turn over out of his sight.

As he worked my neck and shoulders, I found myself imagining that is was Dale standing over me, running his own, also fairly large, hands across my skin. Pasquale rubbed gentle circles around the base of my throat, but I imagined Dale instead sliding his fingers down my chest, under the sheet, and grasping my breasts. He would massage them gently, rolling my nipples, which were damned sure hard as rocks under that sheet in real life, between his fingertips softly.

Stop thinking about Dale, I scolded myself, at which point I found myself imagining Pasquale sliding his hands down to grope my tits, as scenario that was at least physically possible at the moment.

Like I said, my high-beams were on full, and covered only by a light sheet. I decided I hoped Pasquale was enjoying the view.

But come on. Dale? He was off the market, and I was not in the market. If I was going to fantasize, why not ask the Captain to do my massage? A guy like him would probably just dispense with the sheet entirely. Standing over me and exploring every curve of my torso, his hands would move lower, caressing my sore abdominals, then sliding even lower to my mons. His strong, mariner’s grasp would oh, so delicately touch me there, maybe even tickle me.

My mind’s eye looked up, and it was back to Dale standing over me.

I jerked my eyes open to banish the image. Pasquale looked down at me, his good looks doing nothing to calm me down, and asked if something was wrong. In real life, his hands were still well above my tits. Again, I fought a psychotic urge to pull the sheet downward. I just said I was having a blissful time.

I was not having a blissful time. I was horny as a goat. And when he moved back down, exposing first one leg and then the other in turn, his fingers worked deeply into my quads. When he started lifting the first leg up to move it around, working the hip muscles remotely, he was very careful push the sheet close to keep me fully covered.

Come on guy, give me a break. Take a peek. Right then I needed to be gawked at. Once he smoothly lowered my first leg, covered it, and swung around the table to the other side, I was dying. When he lifted my other leg, and once again made sure I was showing nothing, I couldn’t help opening my eyes and checking out the front of his pale blue scrubs. The was no sign of an erection, not of any great extent.

I was a fucking hypocrite. Here I had been for two days, whining about being looked at or hit on, and now I was feeling hollowly unfulfilled because the masseur wouldn’t take a peek at my snatch? He couldn’t even give me a courtesy erection?

I flounced inwardly in disgust. I found myself picturing Dale again involuntarily, as Pasquale dug his skilled, amazing-feeling fingers into the flesh of my thighs. Dale would do me right in this fucked up scenario. He’d slide those marvelous fingers upward fully, shove aside that sheet, and give me the happy ending that I so richly…