The sun had set and yet still the stars were only just beginning to appear. This was not a problem. The Mariner did not navigate, he did not read signs in the sky. He simply sailed. Sometimes he looked at maps and willed the Neptune in a certain direction, but maps were more often than not wrong. Besides, it was more like destinations drew him to them. The Mariner owned no compass.
An intrusive chill settled in and the Mariner pulled his coat about him, grateful that his dark locks, which hung down to his shoulders, covered his ears from the worst. It was funny that he should be thinking about Isabel. Usually his thoughts were drawn to the events directly after, when he’d met Absinth Alcott. He’d had Isabel to thank for that meeting, or perhaps he should curse her for it. Ultimately her actions had led him from there to here, to this landless stretch of a hopeless ocean.
Perhaps it were the woman he’d seen in the water that had got him thinking of poor dead Isabel.
And then, as if summoned by his wandering mind, he heard her. The water sprite. The woman who had visited him the previous evening.
At first he could not see her, her presence only given away by her lustful gasps and giggles that echoed to his ears. He ran to and fro, searching the waters. Finally he realised his error; he’d been looking too far, assuming she’d swim over like before. This time she was already alongside the Neptune, laying upon the surface as if it were a bed.
Once again he was dumbfounded by her beauty. Entirely naked, she was spread before him, legs splayed and hands skimming across her stomach and thighs, stroking, teasing.
The Mariner’s lips felt dry. He ran his tongue over them, despite knowing this would lead to chapping in the wind. He didn’t care. Tonight he would plant his sore lips upon this woman of extraordinary beauty.
“Who are you?” he cried, but no reply came, unless it were from the wind, a force that seemed to gather with every flick of her fingers.
There was movement to her right. The black haired woman was on her back, the disturbance in the waves behind and out her line of sight. What was it? A shark? Alarmed, the Mariner opened his mouth to warn his would-be lover about the beast, but further events stole his words before they formed.
A second woman crawled out the water.
She did not look like the first, though if similarity could be found it would be in her equal perfection. This second sprite was more dainty than the first; smaller breasts, slender hips, darker skin and long brown hair. Yet somehow she wasn’t as real as her counterpart, though of course this thought was preposterous. She was there, as real as his own hand.
The brunette crawled across the sea towards her companion, hips swaying in the twilight. The Mariner marvelled at how solid the surface appeared under her hands and knees. A shifting floor, moving with every wave, pliable, yet firm nonetheless.
If the fresh arrival surprised the sprite, she didn’t show it. In fact, the brunette not only crawled to her, but straddled over the top as if to reach for her feet, and as she did so, the raven-haired goddess placed her hands upon her companion’s hips and pulled them close to meet her mouth.
The Mariner couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Two beautiful women, just a short jump away, one performing oral sex upon the other. And she was doing so with feverish intensity; her hands were upon the other’s buttocks, pulling them down and apart, giving her as much access as possible to her lover’s sex.
The Mariner felt like a spy, an interloper, a peeping-tom. Neither women had acknowledged his presence. Were they trying to shut him out? Was that it? Was that his punishment for not joining them?
The brunette’s jaw dropped down in a silent cry, smiling, though not at him, her gaze was out across the ocean, but it dared him to join them nonetheless.
It was then he realised why she didn’t appear so real. The brunette was lacking detail. While the first woman was as real as any he’d met in his lifetime (though admittedly none so well proportioned) the brunette was missing the finer characteristics. He squinted, trying to discern some tiny element, such as a solitary hair or freckle. He saw none. It was as if she were a very lifelike manikin whose creator had gotten lazy, knowing no-one would ever take a close up look.
Still grinning, the brunette lowered her body until it were fully on top of the raven’s, putting her own face between her lover’s legs, mirroring the actions of the other. They pleasured with their tongues, bodies writhing, breasts pushed against each other’s bellies.
The Mariner wanted them so much he was shaking, tremors running up and down his body. Struggling free from his clothes, the cold wind bit at his flesh, yet his groin was hot. On fire! His cock sprung free, eager and foolhardy.
A rope ladder was curled up by the railing. He hoisted it over and its bottom rung plummeted into the sea. Keeping his eye firmly on the women below, he skipped over and began his descent, as naked as his temptresses. Knees bashed against the hull as the ship rocked, but he did not care. The pain was far removed from his mind. All he could comprehend were their gasps; the way the brunette’s body moved like a wave grinding against her partner, the sight of the raven’s face, eagerly working between the thighs of the other woman. Soon the three of them would be together. They would see him, touch him, welcome him between them and make love under the stars, mocking the sea for ever daring to defy them.
He was close to the surface now. If he threw himself away from the boat, they could be close enough to touch. Water, broken by collision with the hull, soaked his flesh, and for a moment he paused, afraid that if he lowered himself any further he could become lost in the depths. To reassure himself he looked over his shoulder to view the women once more and see that the surface of the ocean was strong.
It held their weight, surely it should hold his?
The brunette had propped herself up whilst still enjoying the attention performed below. Steadying herself with one arm, she used the other to part her lover’s legs further, drawing her knees up to allow greater access. Up and down, the brunette slid her finger along her lover’s lips, drawing moisture. The Mariner watched in fascination, fingers numb, limbs gone blue. And with a sigh from all parties, she slid her finger down between the cleft of her partner’s buttocks.
Not being able to see the penetration he imagined, spurred the Mariner on. Regardless of any danger, he had to have them.
He reached the bottom rung and placed a foot into the ocean. The icy world upon which he travelled but never entered, reared up to claim him, passing above his ankle and scaling his shin. He was not deterred, his feet were already numb from the cold, and discomfort was far from his mind.
The pain, moments later, penetrated that numbness. It all happened within the space of a second or so. Almost the very instant he placed his feet into the water, the women, just as the previous night, lost all form, and fell into the sea. The splash drenched the Mariner, who felt such frustration he screamed, his hoarse voice carrying across the waves. They were gone, his promised lovers, reclaimed as if they’d never existed at all.
His scream died as it birthed. A sudden sharp, violent pain that erupted around his submerged foot, cutting off sound, paralysing his voice box, leaving him expelling air from his lungs in a silent hiss. He lifted it from the dark water, afraid and confused.
He was bleeding, blood issuing from a wound in his lower-calf.