“ Bailey’s and coffee.”
“ It’ll have to be instant.”
“ That’s fine.”
She filled two cups with water and added a teaspoon of instant coffee to each and stirred. Then she put both cups in the microwave and set the timer for two minutes.
“ I’ll be right back,” she said. “I’m going to let my hair down.”
Rick watched as she left the room. He tried to imagine what she would be wearing when she returned. Would it be a sexy negligee or a simple tee shirt with nothing on underneath. His anticipation was high, but was soon dashed when she returned, wearing the same clothes she’d had on when she’d left. She had, however, let her hair down.
She took the coffee out of the microwave and added a generous portion of Bailey’s Irish Cream, then handed a cup over to Rick.
“ Have a seat,” he said.
She drew a chair out from the table and sat down across from him.
“ I’ve been thinking about you a lot lately,” she said.
“ And I you.” He sipped the hot liquid.
“ You wanna smoke a joint?” she asked.
“ I didn’t know you still did that.”
“ I don’t, not in over fifteen years.”
“ Then why the question?”
“ One of the girls left it on their dresser. I confiscated it.”
“ What did you say to them?”
“ Nothing, I don’t think they’re smoking, I think they were just curious. Besides, even if they do smoke a little grass occasionally, I did when I was their age. It won’t kill them.”
“ They didn’t say anything about it being gone?”
“ No, they know I found it and I know they know.” She smiled and pulled the rolled marijuana cigarette out of her blouse pocket.
“ So you didn’t just let your hair down?” Surprisingly Rick found himself eager.
He watched in anticipation as she struck a match, then lit and inhaled the sweet tasting smoke. Holding her breath, she handed the joint across the table to him. He took a long drag and passed it back. After three hits he was as stoned as he’d ever been.
“ This stuff is a lot stronger than what we used to get,” he said.
“ Yeah.” She got up from the table. “I’ve been thinking about this for a long time.” She pulled her blouse over her head. She wasn’t wearing a bra. “Let’s go to the bedroom.” She held out her hand.
He followed her up the stairs and into her bedroom. He watched as she crossed over to the nightstand. She picked up a Zippo, lit it. The lighter fluid smell wafted over and zapped him, reminding him of the time when he used to smoke and of how intense your senses are when you’re stoned.
She bent to light a candle and the combined effect of the lighter’s and candle’s light, both flickering, turned her breasts into twin nippled, bewitching yellow moons, casting a spell that shot straight through to his loins. Still leaning forward with her breasts dangling, she lit an incense stick and then she straightened, clicking the Zippo shut.
The pungent smell of the incense overpowered the sharp smell of lighter fluid and reminded him of his hippie days in the ’60s. Civil rights workers marched and fought in the South. John, Bobby and Martin were shot. The North Vietnamese were fighting America to a standstill. He grew his hair long, smoked dope and demonstrated in front of draft boards. Then his older brother was killed in Vietnam and he joined the Army and it all changed.
“ Brings you back,” he said.
“ To a happier time?” she questioned.
“ To a different time.”
She came over to him and started to unbutton his shirt. He was speechless. He felt so good and Christina looked so right, topless in the flickering candlelight. When she reached the final button, she crossed around behind him and pulled his shirt off.
Then she pressed her body into his, rubbing her breasts into his back as she lowered her hands to undo his button fly Levi’s. The sound of the buttons popping open echoed throughout the room.
“ Are you sure you want to do this?”
“ Hush.” She went down on her knees dragging her breasts down his back and buttocks as she pulled his Levi’s and boxer shorts down.
“ I’m hung up on the shoes.” She laughed as she untied them. “Raise your foot.”
He raised his right leg and she pulled off the shoe and the right pant’s leg.
“ Raise the other one.”
He complied and she repeated the procedure, leaving him standing naked with her behind him on her knees. She put a hand on each leg and spun him around. Then she surprised him by taking his stiff penis into her mouth and before he had time to think, he was spurting and she was swallowing.
“ I’m sorry,” he said. “I couldn’t hold it.”
“ That’s okay.” She smiled. “We have all night.”
“ No one’s ever done that to me.”
“ Really? Ann never did that?” she asked, getting to her feet.
“ No, never.”
“ Why not?”
“ I don’t know. We never did that kind of stuff.”
“ How often did you guys have sex?”
“ Almost every night.”
“ Was it good sex?”
“ It was always great.” He felt a pain in his heart. He would never be over her death. She was the first thought in his mind when he woke and the last before he fell asleep. Their sex, by some people’s standards, may have been routine, but it was full of love, and love, he thought, was never routine. If more people enjoyed the kind of sex life he’d shared with Ann, then the world would be a better place.
She took his hand and gently led him to the bed. They cuddled in each other’s arms and kissed. She broke away and stripped off her skirt and panties, allowing Rick to revel in her body.
“ I haven’t been with anyone since Ann died and it’s been only Ann for the last twenty-five years.”
“ Then I’m going to do my very best to make this special,” she whispered, lowering her lips to his, while at the same time reaching between his legs, making sure he was hard again. She let go of him and rolled onto her back, guiding him into her and they began a long, slow, easy kind of love-making that continued for the better part of an hour, ending with them climaxing together. And at that final moment, for reasons he didn’t understand, a picture of Judy Donovan flashed through his mind.
Chapter Seven
The engine changed from a smooth rumble to the rough chugging of idle. They were there. It was still dark. On Fridays the Seawolf left the Palma Pier at midnight on its weekly overnighter for the serious anglers. Judy, like most of the fishermen, slept till they reached the fishing grounds.
Steeling herself, she rolled off her bunk onto the deck, put on her shoes and headed for the galley. Coming from the warmth of below to the cold of a morning at sea snapped her awake. Sometimes she asked herself if it was worth it, but J.P. loved to go out on the all day boat.
Drinking a cup of coffee, she picked up her rod with its five hooks and headed toward the bait tank, trying not to slip on the slimy deck. She set the coffee by the tank and, with a quick count to three, thrust her hand in, grabbing for an anchovy. The bait net was gone. She latched onto one of the fast moving little fish and jerked her hand out of the cold water, spilling her coffee.
She baited one of her hooks, repeated the process four more times, then sighed when a smiling man returned the net without a clue that he had committed a gross rudeness by taking it away from the tank. She felt like telling him, but instead took her rod over to her position.
Looking overboard, she saw a school of silvery mackerel swim by and uttered one word, “Shit,” under her breath. They’d try to steal her bait before it hit bottom, where the unsuspecting cod lay waiting to become dinner. She hoped she had enough weight on the line to get her hooks down before she lost her anchovies. Crossing her fingers, she dropped the line into the water and watched it sink.
She smiled when the bait slid by the mackerel without a strike and she spun out her line. Five hundred feet to the sea floor. Then she wound up five turns and waited. She thought about a cigarette as she watched the gulls soar overhead, backlit by the rising sun, but it had been almost a year and she didn’t want to start back up. Settling in to get comfortable, she felt the first quick tug, then another, then a third. She started winding.