A Rational Woman at Sea in a Fog

Suzanne had been raised in Minnesota. She had never seen an ocean until she moved to Berkley to attend university. She had been awed by her first contact with the ocean. What she had seen in movies had not prepared her for the bass roar in her ears and salt tang in her nose.

To her regret, though she had lived in San Francisco, surrounded by salt water, for almost two decades, she seldom saw the ocean, except as a glimmer of blue on the horizon from her office window or from her car when cresting a hill downtown.

Seeing the raw power of the Pacific pounding against the shore a few dozen yards away struck awe in her.

"Wine?"

Martin was carrying an uncorked bottle of red and two glasses.

"Sure."

"This comes from a little winery north of Sonoma," he said. "I'm no connoisseur, but people who know told me that it's is a good one so I bought a few cases. When you have a wine cellar, you have to put something in it."

She took a sip. It was as good as claimed. Nicely fruity, not too oaky, smooth but with a gentle tang of sharp, citrusy aftertaste.

"This is lovely," she said.

He looked across the water at the setting sun. "I like it here. I didn't get out much before. But now, with all my troubles, I haven't been spending all my time on the computer, so but I've been staying here a lot more. Mostly, thinking about my future." He looked at the raging water. "Even with the recession and all the real estate tanked, this place'll bring the SEC a few million." He drained his wine glass in a gulp.

She took his hand and raised it to her cheek. "No more about that. Tonight, I don't understand anything about business or the law. I'm just your cheerleader."

"Your word is my command," he said.

"We don't need any words at all," she replied and turned her lips to him.

He turned toward her but paused. To complete the kiss, she had to put her hand behind his neck and pull him the last few inches. Once their lips touched, he forgot his reticence and cooperated fully.

He was surprisingly good at kissing. His lips were soft and smooth, his mouth slightly open and relaxed. She made it clear that she wanted more than brushing lips and he accommodated. She felt the tentative touch of his tongue against her mouth. She opened her lips wider and slid her own tongue forward to meet his.

After a couple of minutes, she realized that he was stalled at the kissing stage. Unless she moved him forward, kissing was all she would get.

She was calling herself a cheerleader, and now he was acting like the shy high school nerd.

Without breaking contact, she took his hand and placed it on her chest. She liked having a man touch her breasts. It was not so much the physical sensation as the feeling that she was being appreciated as a woman.

She returned the favor by rubbing her hand over his chest. After a minute, she unbuttoned his shirt -- she was surprisingly dexterous at unbuttoning a man's shirt with one hand, considering that it had been a while since she had done it -- and slipped inside to slide her palm against his skin.

He took a deep breath when she began to massage his nipples in small circles with two fingers. Taking her cue from that, she pulled his shirt open and lowered her head to lick and suck his chest, brushing her lips across his smooth skin from one nipple to the other and back again.

He moaned and grabbed the edge of the bench with both hands.

The house sat on a dozen acres of private property. She was sure that there was no one within a half mile who could see them.

She stood before him and unbuttoned her red satin blouse, then tossed it on the bench.

His eyes were wide with wonder. On the way back from her meeting with the prosecutor, she had slipped into Victoria's Secret and bought a red lace bra.

She reached behind her back and unhooked her bra, but left it hanging in place, still covering her breasts.

Every man loves to see a woman strip for him.

She put her hands to the cups and lowered them slowly, arching her back and thrusting her chest toward him, teasing him with the promise of what she was about to reveal.

Her breasts were round and full. In her opinion, they were her best feature. Though she was keenly aware that they now rested a little lower on her chest than they had in her cheerleading days, they were still a credit to female beauty.

Martin's gasp was audible over the surf. Hearing it brought a flush of pleasure to her.

She stepped forward and bent down to press her left breast to his face. When the nipple touched his lips, he opened his mouth to suck it.

She enjoyed the gentle tingle that perfused her torso when a man stimulated her nipples but she loved, far more, the look of joy in the man's eyes when she gave herself to him.

Martin's eyes rolled upward to gaze blankly at the base of her neck while his entire mind was focused on what his lips and hands were feeling.

His face was copper in the dying fire of the setting sun. The picture was perfect.

She kneeled on the bench, straddling him, grabbed the back for stability, and let him play with her breasts for as long as he wanted.

It was a long time.

In her position, straddling his lap, she could feel the strength of his desire pressing upward through his jeans and her panties, against her own sex.

She wanted to give herself pleasure by rubbing against that protuberance but dared not for fear of making him climax too soon. Instead, she concentrated on his face and her breasts and reveled in the joy of the moment.

When she judged that he had sated himself, she pulled away and stepped back off the bench. As she stood, she took his hand and pulled him up with her. She hugged him hard, bare chest to bare breasts, and whispered, "Undress yourself."

He kicked off his cross trainers and slipped his jeans and underwear away in a moment. He wore no socks.

She took a moment to appreciate his slim figure before she stepped back and slipped her charcoal skirt to her feet and stepped out of it, revealing black stay-up stockings and red lace bikini panties that matched the discarded bra.

When she eschewed pantyhose for this evening, she had almost bought a black garter belt but demurred in the end. She worried that it would be too tacky. Stay-ups with a wide lacey band around her thigh seemed to be a good compromise.

The expression on Martin's face confirmed that she had made the right decision.

The crotch of her panties was dripping. Martin was visibly ready and she could wait no longer.

She slipped her panties off, leaving her shoes and stockings in place, and drew him down to the ground on top of her.

When she spread her legs wide, she did not need to guide him inside; she was completely open to him.

In their frenzied coupling, he did not last long. But she came first, so great was her need.

He rested on top of her while the last edge of the sun slipped below the horizon.

Though some inches taller than her, he did not seem to weigh much more. She could easily bear his weight, even when she was lying on firm ground. This, also, made her aware of his youth.

When their breathing relaxed to a more normal rhythm, she said, "You're a wonderful lover."

He kissed her cheek and pushed himself off. "I'd like to be better for you."

"I can't imagine how anyone could."

She stroked his chest and they said no more while they lay on the grass, listening to the surf and watching the light fade from the sky.

The air was damp and the night began to chill. The grass felt dewy. After a time, she said, "It's time to go inside."

He kissed her and helped her to her feet.

"I'd like a shower," she said. "I think I have grass stuck to my back."

"Can you stay the night?" he asked. "You can stay in the guest room if you want your own bed."

"Would you mind if I slept in your bed?" she asked.

"I'd like that." He hugged her close.

* * *

There was no food in the house -- Martin usually ate out -- but he served coffee in a glass conservatory on the east side of the main floor, a place that he called the morning room.

Suzanne assumed that it was called the morning room because it caught the sun in the morning but lost it to the shadow of the second floor shortly after noon.

"Good coffee," she said.

"I'm going to miss my coffee machines," he replied. "I'll probably end up drinking a lot of instant coffee for the next year or so."

Or twenty, she thought, reminded that she had not yet told him about the prosecutor's intransigence over his sentence. She would be almost sixty years old by the time he got out of prison. It was deliciously naughty for a thirty-eight-year-old woman to seduce a twenty-three-year-old man but she could not imagine herself as a sixty-year-old trying to show a forty-five-year-old ex-con a good time.

Maybe she would feel differently in twenty years, but, today, she expected that this weekend would be the only time in her life when she would be making love to Martin.

"I want you to make love to me again," she said.

"Okay," Martin replied, looking at her over the rim of the cup as he took another sip.

"I mean, I want to feel you inside me right now."

He put his cup on the coffee table. "Here? In the morning room?"

"Right here, right now."

He looked around the room. The floor was a mosaic of bright Mexican ceramic tiles. It was furnished with wrought iron chairs and tables. It was comfortable for sitting, but there was no comfortable place to lie down.

She did not wait for him to raise an objection, but stood and dropped her plush avocado robe to the floor.

She walked naked to him and reached into the folds of his robe to feel him. He was already hard and, after a moment of firm massage, became rigid in her hands.

She pulled him to his feet, then turned, spread her legs and bent to grab the end of the heavy coffee table with one hand. "Do me like this," she said, reaching between her legs to spread herself open for him.

He obliged.

When he was thrusting deep into her, she kept her hand between her legs, first feeling him slide back and forth past her fingers and then massaging herself to a fast climax, synchronizing the rhythm of her self-stimulation to his increasing tempo.

He groaned while she screamed with pleasure.

When he withdrew, she sank to her knees on the cool tiles and rested her head on the glass coffee table.

He sank to his knees beside her and rested his head on her back.

"Thank-you," he said.

She laughed softly and replied, "You're welcome, but I didn't do that for you. I did it for myself. I should be thanking you."

"You're welcome, too," he said.

After a minute, her knees began to ache a little. "I don't think our coffee is cold, yet."

He raised his head from her back and said, "No."

She stood, slipped the robe back on, and sat back down in her chair. After quietly enjoying basking in the sun for a few minutes, she asked, "Do you have plans for the day?"

"Nothing that can't be changed," he said.

"I have to go into the office and get some work done, but I can be finished in three or four hours."

"By three?" he asked.

"I can be ready by two."

"Would you like to spend the evening on the yacht?"

"I'd love it." She paused. "The evening or the night?"

"As long as you like."

"I'll pack an overnight bag."

"That would be terrific."

She hoped that meant that she'd get laid at least twice more, maybe even three times, before she had to drop the bad news about his plea bargain on him.

* * *

Though she'd been living by the ocean for almost twenty years, she'd never sailed on it. She'd had to drop into a boutique near her office and get some advice about what to wear. Apparently the size and mode of propulsion of the yacht made a difference. Some yachts were big enough to merit evening wear, others demanded salt-water friendly fabrics.

She had written a description of Martin's yacht as part of the inventory of his tangible assets, but could not remember anything except the estimated value. Nothing else had been meaningful to her work.

She told the clerk that the only thing that she knew about the yacht was that it was worth nine hundred and eighty-five thousand dollars.

The clerk raised an eyebrow but did not comment on the kind of woman who would know the exact price of the boat that she would be cruising on, but nothing else. Suzanne could see the clerk bite back a barbed comment and struggle to restrict her suggestions to clothing choices.

Armed with two new trim pants and blouse combinations and a conservative one-piece bathing suit in her overnight bag, Suzanne met Martin outside her office.

Today he was driving a little, ice-blue sports car.

"Is the car running?" she asked as he pulled away from the curb.

He laughed. "It's electric. No exploding gasoline in the engine. Just the quiet hum of an electric motor."

"This is really nice."

"This is the future. I'm going to miss this car."

She knew that cars officially became antiques when they're twenty years old. This car would be an antique by the time Martin got out of prison. By that time, everyone might be driving electric cars.

He steered toward the Golden Gate. "I'm moored in Sausalito."

The drive was quiet in every way than one. She and Martin had little to say as they crossed the bridge. She didn't ask him to put any music on and he didn't offer. Each of them had a lot to think about.

Martin's boat wasn't the biggest in the marina, but it was in the top quartile. As he pulled away from the mooring under power, she was struck by the peculiar paradox that a big boat was still a small space for two people to occupy. No matter how big the vessel, everything inside had to designed to be as compact and efficient as possible. No boat had even a single cubic inch to waste. The cumulative amount of planning required to outfit a boat was incredible.

In the bay, he asked her to help raise the sails. "Normally a boat like this would have a couple of crew members aboard," he said as they both manned a winch, "but I've had this outfitted so that it can be sailed solo. It takes a lot longer to raise the canvas and I can only trim one sail at a time, but it works out fine. She wasn't designed for racing."

"You've sailed this boat by yourself a lot?" She was surprised at his comfort in handling the craft. She had the impression that he had spent most of his short adult life sitting in front of a computer.

"Yeah," he said, understanding what motivated her question. "Wireless is wonderful. I spent a lot of time floating out of sight of land, monitoring my servers from the cockpit. The computer in there meets navy specs. Salt spray rolls right off it."

Which explained why he had the boat outfitted to be handled solo. What friend would want to be stuck on something this size for hours while the only other person aboard was glued to a computer for the entire trip?

"I've never been on a boat before," she said.

"The trick is to stay topside and keep watching the shore until you habituate to the motion. If you do get seasick, don't worry. It's normal. Just heave over the lee side." He pointed to the lower side of the tilted deck. "The mistake that most people make is trying to fight the motion by looking at something on the boat. Or worse, going below decks. That just confuses your vestibular system. You have to let the fishy parts of your brain see that you really are moving so that it doesn't think that all the motion you feel is from some poison that you ate."

He sounded like he had given this speech too many times before, but she understood what he was saying. She was not susceptible to motion sickness but, to be safe, she followed his instructions and kept watching the bridge as they sailed toward it. It soon filled her entire visual field.

The Golden Gate looks big enough when one drives across it, but one has to sail under it to appreciate how long and high it really is.

It took a while to pass through the Golden Gate Strait and reach the open ocean. Sailing vessels, even with a good steady breeze, are a slow way to travel.

Suzanne was standing next to Martin in the cockpit, appreciating the leisurely pace when he said, "Boy, we're really moving. We're riding the ebb tide out. When the tide falls, the bay tries to empty itself into the ocean and the water really rushes through here."

She laughed as she forced herself to re-calibrate her internal speedometer. If this was really fast, then how slowly did a boat this size usually sail?

She asked.

"About three miles an hour on average. About the same speed as a horse and carriage."

"Oh." She looked around. If she turned her face to the wind and watched the water spraying off the prow, she felt like they were racing along. But if she watched the shoreline and looked at other boats in the distance, she felt like they were crawling.

"To get back by ten tonight, we can only go about eighteen miles, total. Not more than nine miles away."

"Do you have to get back tonight," she asked.

"I've got nothing planned," he said.

"Can we stay out overnight?"

"I'd like that."

"As long as I can get back to the office by six tomorrow night, so I can spend a few hours preparing for the rest of the week, I'll be good."

He looked around. "This weather's going to hold for the next forty-eight hours. We can make the Farallones tonight."

"What's that?"

His indulgent smile annoyed her. She was too old to be indulged by a man this young.

"You've lived in San Francisco for how long?" he said. "And you've never noticed the islands out on the horizon on a clear day?"

"I've never been on an island, even on a lake."

"Sorry, you can't set foot on these islands, either. They're an ecological preserve. But we can moor there. There's plenty to see. Thousands of birds. Seals. Sharks eating the seals. Whales."

"I don't think I want to see a shark eating anything."

"Don't worry. If we sink, the sharks might eat me, but they'll leave you alone."

"Why?"

"You're a lawyer. They'll extend professional courtesy." He laughed.

She groaned. She'd heard that joke before and silently berated herself for walking right into it.

Then she smiled. Martin looked happy on his boat and she liked seeing him happy. He would have little enough to be happy about after this weekend. Little enough for the next twenty years. Eighteen if he earns the full amount of time off for good behavior. But he had not hope of an early release on parole. He was charged with a federal crime and the federal justice system offers no parole.

"Can we make love when we get to the islands?"

He smiled. "I'd like that very much. I've never made love on this boat before."

"Then I'll be happy to help your boat lose its virginity."

* * *

She loved seeing the sun set over the water. Even more than when they'd watched a humpbacked whale breach off their starboard side and that had been amazing.

To her surprise, he had given her the helm earlier while he went below to fix supper. Smoked salmon and cream cheese on bagels. With capers and red onion. Daniel's Cafe couldn't have done it better.

It was well after dark by the time they reached the islands and Martin dropped anchor. It took him a while to rig an extra line and float so that he could work the anchor free if it caught on a rock on the bottom.

She would have never known what he was doing if he had not been explaining every step. He seemed to like explaining things to her. She did not mind listening.

"You know a lot about this," she said.

"It's in my blood. My parents were avid sailors. We spent most of our summer vacations on Puget Sound. Great sailing up there. I've been doing this for most of my life. I started serving as crew for my father when I was in grade school."

Which meant that he'd been sailing for about as many years as Suzanne had been studying law.