Androshorts: That Bloody Woman!

"Hey Debs!" he said, "it's OK Baby," he said using the same tone and the same words he used for his daughter Kathy, "just a bad dream."

She came around giving her head a bit of a shake.

"Was I talking?"

"Oh yeah," he said, "well whimpering mostly," he grinned at her and still in Dad mode stroked the single tear from her cheek.

She broke eye contact but was evidently touched by his tenderness and concern.

"What did I say?"

"You were trying to convince your Daddy that everything was OK on the trip," he said.

"What?"

"Well I only listened to your half of the conversation but I get the feeling that he was giving you a hard time for sleeping."

She took a deep breath,

"Yeah," she said, as the remembrance came back to her, "tough bloke my Dad."

Dave took the duvet and pulled it up to her chin, tucking her in. Still parental, even though the girl his was tucking in was three years younger than him and, he had to admit, classical gorgeous with light brown hair verging on blonde that would look incredible if she didn't insist on keeping it only an inch or so longer than his; and then there was those deep blue eyes, high cheek bones and lips that just begged for...

He snapped out of it.

"Tell me about him," Dave switched the tiny light above them.

"Haven't you heard of him?" she asked surprised, "he's famous in the sailing world."

"Yeah well," he said leaning back to take the bottle of water held in a small frame, "He'd have to famous in the world of personnel and human resources for me to know about him." He flipped the top and drank from it.

"Oh yes," she said, "keep forgetting that," he handed her the bottle and she took it, propping herself on one elbow, "He's sailed around the world four or five times now, lost count to be honest. Took up sailing when he was at Sandhurst and got the bug, and seeing as he sailed so did his family, although I took it more seriously than the rest of my family." She took a deep breath, "Lieutenant Colonel Sir Henry Conroy MC DSO, late of the Welch Lancers and the Special Air Service," she took a sip from the bottle and handed it back, "thanks," she said, and continued. "Won his military cross in Iraq with SAS, Distinguished Service Order for commanding his infantry battalion in Afghanistan, knighted for services to disabled veterans sailing."

"Oh yeah," said Dave, a faint recollection of something in one of the Sunday supplements. "He named a boat..." Dave stopped himself.

"After my dead brother," she completed the sentence for him.

"Sorry," he said, "didn't think that one through."

"No problem," she lay back down on her pillow, and after he replaced his bottle he did likewise. "Harry... my big brother was killed by a roadside bomb in Sangin province, first tour of Afghanistan, he was a Lieutenant in whichever regiment it was that absorbed the Welch Lancers. Can't remember for the life of me."

Dave was sure he could read some animosity between Debs and her late brother, and she cleared the matter after her next breath.

"Harry was part of a convoy of trucks," she said staring at Dave but all the way through him, "simple resupply mission apparently; eagle-eyed driver of the little tank at the front stopped because the road ahead looked all wrong and called on the convoy to back up a bit so they could call in the experts, when Harry demands to know what the bloody hell is holding everything up, gets out of his nice armoured truck, storms to the front of the slowly reversing convoy to give the first driver a bollocking when the device was command detonated. Killed him instantly apparently." She dropped her eyes.

"I'm so sorry," said Dave.

"Why? You didn't kill him." There is was again, that anger.

"Well..."

"Sorry Dave," she said with an ironic smile, "that was unfair of me." She stretched and her great boobs contained in her sports bra appeared above the duvet again. "Stupid bastard was doing what he did best, showing off and throwing his dumb fuck, bullying weight about." There is was! "If he'd followed procedures, stayed in the truck and let the experts deal with it in their specially designed super tank, he's still be alive and trying out for the SAS as we speak."

"Shit," said Dave with a sigh.

"Precisely," said Debs.

"And he bullied you I guess?"

"As soon as he reached puberty," she said, "My eldest sister was away at University, I was the youngest working hard to get the right qualifications to join my sister at Mum's Alma Mater, while my much longed for brother was already turning into his father and bossing the world around." She pulled the covers up to her neck again and Dave read this as being defensive, so without asking he moved closer and slipped an arm around her pulling her to his chest, and she obviously didn't mind. She closed her eyes and laid a hand in his chest, and carried on.

"Daddy was one of those classic, old school 'Fighting Tommies' - survival of the fittest, 'lead me, follow me or get out of my way' type men and saw nothing wrong with it; when I told him that Harry had started to hit me, he told me to hit him back -- harder. I did, once; so he waited for his time and two nights later pushed me down stairs breaking my arm and my collar bone. Daddy laughed as I lay there crying and pointing out what Harry had done, and just told me not to let the enemy get behind me." She shuddered, "Trouble was I didn't know I had an enemy, I thought I had a big brother.

Mum went spare of course and ripped into Harry. Dad sided with my brother who grinned and said I must have slipped, while I added that if I had 'slipped' the thump between my shoulder blades hadn't helped."

As Dave lay there looking at the pretty girl next to him and opening her heart he suddenly had the explanation why she was the way she was, and why she struggled dealing with other people and just jumped in with her first decision, however inappropriate it was, it was how she had been raised. She hadn't had a family, she was part of a competition.

She continued, "There was even a fist shaped bruise in my back to help matters along; when they found that Dad insisted that HE should take me to hospital to get my broken bones fixed, the Doctor found the bruise almost straight away."

Dave could see her eyes screwed shut at that particular memory,

"Dad told the Doctor that there was a Newel post on the stairs that must have caused it and the Accident and Emergency Doctor, an expert at that kind of thing, gave him one of those 'yeah right' looks. After he left the cubicle Dad got right down in my face and told me that we had to keep this in the family..." she stopped and opened her eyes looking up and into Dave's face, "No, actually he said we had to 'keep it in the Regiment'!" she giggled, "Close ranks and straighten up Deborah! Those were his very words." She shook her head, "You don't grass on your own! He snarled at me, and I replied 'even when my own had been punching me, bullying me and generally messing me around for eighteen months'?" she shivered yet again, "Dad looked really angry but then the Doctor came back in and saw what was going on.

He pretty much told Dad that he had made a note of the injury and the bruise and it was on file. Dad was annoyed at this and said that anything about my family was hush-hush' as he was in the SAS. The Doctor said he didn't give a shit and he was doing his job. Dad was pissed because in those days the army was getting tough on family problems and any sniff of domestic violence was stomped on good and proper." She sighed and closed her eyes again snuggling closer into her bedmate, "suffice it to say that Dad and I have never really been that close since..."

"Fucking Hell Debs," said Dave, "What did your Mum do?"

"She watched Harry like a hawk, but common to bullies the world over he just got cleverer and more sneaky. How's this for an example; he left the house for a sleepover at his friend's house, but climbed out of friend's bedroom window, ran through a whole mess of back gardens, used a ladder and drainpipe to get onto our conservatory roof and into Mum and Dad's room, snuck in behind me as I was doing my homework with my headphones on and whipped the chair from under me. My face hit the desk and I landed on my arse and bruised my coccyx. He laughed, slapped my face as I made to stand and left the way he came, and was running the back-garden steeplechase to his mate's bedroom window when Mum found me with a bloody nose, a red cheek and a sore arse when she came up to investigate the noise.

Dad was all defence for my Darling brother and even rang the friend's Mum to prove that Harry and best friend Julian had been in their room all evening and she could hear the bangs and bullets of the computer game they were playing. I'm pretty sure that Mum believed me and Dad had this weirdly proud smile on his face when I pointed out how Harry had got in and out undetected with the locked front door and everything. Dad said that I was showing off and trying to get Harry into trouble when he was clearly three streets away and playing with his friend and our house was locked up tight and secure because of Dad's 'job'. I was told not to cause trouble.

The next time he went to his mate's house I went straight to Mum and Dad's bedroom window and found it unlocked which was out of the ordinary; so I closed it, tight, just as Dad always did, and a couple of others." Debs had a bit of a smile on her face, "I waited in the garage with a book, and an hour or so later heard him take the ladder from the side. I slipped out and saw Harry negotiating his way across the roof of the conservatory and once he was around the corner and out of sight, I quietly took the ladder away and hung it back on the garage where it always was.

Dad found Harry in the garden an hour later with a badly sprained and swollen ankle from when he'd landed badly trying to jump clear. I was long since back in my room doing my homework of course and only came down when I heard Mum asking him in a loud voice how the hell he had made it into the back garden when he was supposed to be spending the night at Julian's place, and how he had twisted his ankle so badly in a garden he'd been playing in since his fourth birthday."

"Sweet revenge?" said Dave.

"No sadly," her palm went rigid on Dave's chest, "about two months later I was walking home from school when I was jumped from behind, a bag put over my head and pulled tight and I was punched in the face, twice. Blacked both of my eyes." Her hand relaxed again, "A neighbour found me and brought me home and the police were called. The neighbour said that she saw two boys in grey trousers and white shirts running down the street from me but couldn't see their faces. Harry wore black trousers to school of course. His friend Julian went to the Grammar and they wore grey but that wasn't mentioned.

It was written off as 'mischief' and the police promised to increase patrols and to do some work with the Grammar school and find out if anyone had 'issues' with kids from my school, the posh fee paying one.

Harry came into my room that night with a cup of tea Mum had made for me,

'How's the face bitch?' he said with a giggle and drank my tea, blowing pretend dust from his knuckles.

I told him that I knew it was him, and his friend Julian, I could smell his appalling B.O.

'Couldn't have been me Darling Deborah, I was working in the library revising, you can check the signing out book!' he got right in close to me, 'And you'll never be able to prove anything against me because I'm too fucking good! There is NOTHING YOU CAN DO ABOUT IT! Your arse is mine Darling Deborah; now you do as your told, keep your mouth shut and we'll all get along fine.'

I didn't realise that it would get worse -- much worse."

Dave was waiting for the next part of the story when the shrieking bleep of one of the many electronic devices seeing them across the Atlantic commenced.

"Shit," said Debs, patting his chest then throwing the duvet off of them, "winds up, need to re-arrange the sails or we'll end up in the Falkland Islands."

And that was that; by the time the sails were sorted and they were making even greater speed across the reasonably choppy Atlantic, the sun had come up and they were back at their daily chores.

He couldn't complain really, those chores consisted of checking the batteries that were kept charged by a small wind turbine, but more than that the seven solar panels dotted around the upper deck area, so small as to be unnoticeable among the deck clutter and brilliantly polished decks. He even found himself polishing the brass portholes and various loops, hooks and bits and pieces dotted across the boat.

"So is Grumpy finally getting to like sailing?" said Debs, lounging in the large stern well, not realising quite how fantastic she looked. As Lisa had once said, she did have great tits and a fantastic arse and the bright orange string-bottomed bikini she was wearing just emphasised it.

She had changed from her underwear into her bikini and looked fantastic, and he couldn't think for a second how she had done it without him noticing.

Like a large ocean going recreational vehicle the 'Montego Bay' had a separate bedroom with bunks and a small bathroom with a shower and toilet and she must have gone into one of those. They had limited their showers to one every few days to save the water and more importantly the filters that they pumped water through, while the tanks full of fresh water that were topped up back in the Canary Islands were kept for drinking and cooking. OK perhaps she was more than growing on him, they were just over half way through their trip and they had settled into a routine.

He straightened from his polishing and wiping of the solar panels, and looked her up and down with an appreciative eye, following which he nodded his approval; she returned his look with a nod.

He made his way back to the well and dropped down into it across from her, and wearing his shorts already, removed his T-shirt.

"Well well, Grumpy's tan is improving!" she said looking him up and down this time, AND she was obviously liking what she was seeing, "you've shifted a few pounds since we've been working this trip."

"Didn't eat for the first week if you remember," he looked at her trying to be stern, "Working?" he sat straighter, "no one said I was going to be working, wouldn't have come if I'd known." She smiled at his joke, he smiled back. "You look fantastic by the way," he said.

"What?"

"In those bikinis," he said hoping she wouldn't think him inappropriate, "If you were going for the gorgeous, confident yet still sexy yachtswoman, you nailed it sweetie."

She flushed, but with a really sweet smile to go with it.

"I was actually going for the practical, easy to pack, 'would normally be sailing through to the Caribbean naked if I wasn't sharing a yacht with the nice bloke from the office' look."

"That's probably another great look," he grinned, "Please, if you'd be more comfortable..." she pursed her lips trying not to smile, "I'll get the tea shall I?" he said.

"Let me," she said standing straight and turning her fine arse to him. He grinned, just as she looked back at him, shaking her head.

And that was how it went. He wore shorts and occasionally a T-shirt while she wore one of five bikinis. All of which held her in place and shaped her beautifully. Occasionally she would roll out a mat and lay flat to lose the faint tan lines she had on her back. He would rub sun screen onto her back and she would do the same for him. They got closer, as friends initially with just an air of sexual tension between them as they lounged around in swimwear before dressing, adding the occasional T-shirt as the evenings cooled.

As he slowly warmed to sailing she told him how she had got into the sport then the lifestyle.

"My parents were both into sailing, how they met in fact, at some joint services sailing club in Cyprus where he was based and she was teaching at a service school. We all grew up with it and went down to our yacht in a really quiet little marina in Hampshire, sailed all around the Solent, knew bits of the Isle of Wight and Lymington in the New Forest better than I knew the town Daddy was based in. Soon as I graduated Dad got me involved in his charity work with the veteran's of course, he did credit me with half of his knighthood in his interview speech."

She talked more about her Father with that same guarded tone she used for her brother; her elder sister and brother were very much 'his' children and fiercely independent while she was Mummy's Girl and more feminine and less competitive.

His degree level psychology started to kick in and the nasty manager he'd met in the office started to make sense. She'd been raised like it, and her lack of self-confidence was better explained in the way that she dealt with people, in her 'its my way or the highway' attitude to her occasionally poor decision making.

He felt himself having slightly more patience with her and she eased up on him, and herself for that matter, and her teaching him to sail improved by leaps and bounds. They became 'friends' and life was much nicer for them both and there was even some banter in their dealings, and the looks they shared across the boat, the well deck and the dinner table.

As if to improve his mood he was finally able to use the built in camera in on the deck, and have a satellite skype chat with Kathy his daughter who was really pleased to see him and talk to him. He brought out the tablet computer and connected it so they could all see each other.

He got through quite quickly to the Worldsail HQ where his daughter had been brought by his parents. Her pleasure at their first chat in weeks was obvious and she seemed even more impressed when he introduced his crewmate Debs, who walked behind him to get to the cabin. With the change in the weather he was shirtless and Debs was back in a bikini.

Debs stopped and bowed down to get into the picture in the top right hand corner of the screen and smiled, her great cleavage more than evident as she grinned at his daughter and waved.

"Wow Daddy, you have a really great tan!" said Katherine, then after Debs had gone back out on the deck, "Who is that!?" she whispered

He was shocked that his fourteen year old daughter could have such thoughts about him as he sailed across the ocean.

"That's Debs," he said, "You met her before we sailed." He said with grin.

"Not looking like that I didn't!" giggled his daughter.

"Yeah well, it's much hotter now."

"And so is she!" hissed Kathy with a giggle, "Lucky old Daddy!"

"Don't worry Kathy," said Debs reappearing at his shoulder, "We have other ways of keeping cool..." with that she emptied a bucket of freezing sea water over him. Katherine screamed with laughter at this nice lady having such fun at Daddy's expense. To make matters worse she sat on his lap and took over the conversation, and arm around his neck and chatting sweetly with his daughter.

After a while he put an arm around her and just let it go, chatting about the voyage, the weather, the food that was just starting to get boring and his desire for a roast dinner. After thirty minutes of chat all three were blowing kisses to each other and saying goodbye until later, Debs insisting that in less than two weeks he'd be skyping her from Jamaica and then flying home. They disconnected the cable and went back into the cabin as the evening cooled.

"Your daughter is lovely," Debs said.

"I think so," he grinned proudly, "the image of her mother."

"I'm guessing that you lost her to cancer seeing as Stuart is sponsoring Cancer Research."

"Yeah," he said, "ovarian, had gone metastatic before they'd even found it." He sighed, "But that's life isn't it."