Androshorts: That Bloody Woman!

"Yeah," Dave was waiting for the apologetic recognition, instead Debs smiled, "Took my Mum as well in the same way." She looked out to sea, "Well, I think she'd be very proud of what you're doing Dave," she stood and stroked his hair and kissed his forehead.

The weather changed and had them locking down the boat at night, bringing down all the sails and just drifting. She suggested that there should be someone on watch at night and he offered to take the majority of those night time shifts so she could be awake during the days when the real sailing was required, with the few occasions when she would go to bed first and then change over, what the Royal Navy referred to as 'Hot-bunking', they avoided the busy sea lanes alive with container ships and the occasional liner, not seeing any other living thing for days. It was one awake and one off as they went through a single busy patch of ocean she couldn't avoid.

She would set the alarm and they would take four hour watches, with a bit of a handover as one woke and the other prepared for sleep. She took to pecking a kiss on his cheek when it was her turn to sleep, and he had to confess that he missed sleeping with Debs; her warm body against his, that sound of another person breathing, even the occasional wake up moment when he would just watch her sleeping in the gentle light cast by the various bits of equipment responsible for their direction and tracking their slow progress across the Atlantic.

It was also keeping them in touch with the rest of the world by radio and satellite and they reported in each day. He was pleased that at the beginning of their third week the weather changed, the sun was back up, sails were at their maximum and they were making up for the lost time and it promised to be another few nights of remote control sailing relying on radar and satellites to keep them safe.

That night when they made the bed she stayed in her bikini insisting that the sea lanes were getting close, the nearer they got to the Caribbean but the radar was clear and while he knew he should go on deck he didn't want to. He'd scoured the horizon and there was nothing around them for as far as he could see, that in this clear weather had to be twenty miles.

He just wanted to be in her company. He really liked the way that she just curled up with him wherever they were, on the sofa, on the large seat on the stern well or even better when they lay down together and she just raised his arm and pulled it around her.

He lay down on the bed, and she stirred seeing him there and grabbed his arm as they generally did on those occasions they could sleep together. He slid closer to her and felt her face brush against his. He saw that her eyes were open and without even thinking about it kissed her before she could ask why he wasn't on deck.

He was waiting for the tirade but it didn't come. Not only did he not get the tirade, she kissed him back and soon she had her arms around his neck and was pulling him to her.

It was great and soon he was hands all over her, as soon as he touched her bottom she flinched away from him.

"Easy Dave," she said, "I... I just need a little time to get my head around... this."

"OK honey," he said, "no rush, hand strictly above the waist, honestly."

"It's complicated..." she said.

"No problem," he said, "Can I keep on kissing you though?"

"Yeah," she said with a soft smile, "think you'll get away with that."

They kissed and cuddled some more, with Debs purring softly at his caresses, while he struggled to control his ardour and desire. They cuddled some more falling asleep as they did so.

He slept with her in his arms, really enjoying the warmth. He woke to the sound of her scream in his face.

"Debs, honey, whatever's the matter?"

She leapt from the bed, probably still slightly unsure of where she was and what was going on. The boat lurched and she had to put a hand to the bulkhead to steady herself was obviously enough to ground her.

"Another bad dream," she said sitting back down on the bed.

He reached for his water bottle and handed it to her.

"What to talk about it?"

She looked very undecided, and her bottom lip gave a bit of uncontrollable wobble.

"No, I don't think I do," she said.

"Oh," he said, remembering their heart to heart of a few nights previously, and expecting her to carry on from where she had left off with his brother's very systematic bullying of her, "Come here honey, back to sleep now."

"Sorry Dave," she said, "I'll just get some fresh air up top." She rolled out of bed and away from him, opening the hatch and letting in the fresh salty air.

For the rest of that day she was more distant that she had been since they first started. He smiled as she came out on deck in one of her great bikinis, after only a few minutes she went back inside and returned in a T-shirt and shorts and even though it was the sort of weather she had lived for since they set out she stayed covered up.

She rarely spoke during meals and then only a few words, and he hated it.

He came up with a plan.

It was bright warm day and she was head down and into the charts and the satellite equipment, and next they were undertaking a tack, and he took his chance.

The boom thing she had made so much noise about flew across the boat and instead of ducking as he had for the last few weeks he grabbed it and went with it, sweeping him over board and into the Atlantic.

"DAVE!" screamed Debs seeing her crewmate fly into the water. "MAN OVER BOARD!" she screamed to no one, grabbing the floatation device at the stern.

She threw the ring as far as it would go happy that it landed just over and behind him, fortunately for him he had somehow managed to grab a thin rope and was pulling himself towards the boat with it.

"DAVE! DON'T LET GO!" her face was a picture of pure panic, "PLEASE!"

"It's OK," he shouted back pulling at the rope and getting momentarily closer to the boat that was still shifting through the water, and she pulled a couple of lines and the sails fell around them and the boat slowed.

As he got closer to the boat she reached down and grabbed at his hand and pulled at his arm, again with an air of desperation.

"Dave!" she panted as he was almost out of the water, tears pouring down her face.

"Hey Baby, it's OK," he said as he pulled out of the ocean and back to the safety of the boat.

She hugged him pulling his wet body close to hers, feeling the cool water soaking her T-shirt.

She wiped some beads of water from his face, looking into his eyes and finally kissed him, pushing her face hard into his.

"Why Debs, I didn't know you cared!"

"What?"

"I was rather getting the feeling that you'd rather gone off of me, at one point I thought you might actually let me drown."

"But you said you couldn't swim!" she howled clouting his shoulder, "you said..."

"Of course I can bloody swim, you don't think that I'd sail the Atlantic if I couldn't swim did you?"

"Bastard!" she growled at him, "I think I aged a few years in those seconds you were in the water. You said..."

"That was because I just didn't want to come on this bloody trip!"

"And you didn't think of telling the captain that..."

"Captain?" said Dave, "What's that make me, first mate?"

"It makes you the other person on the trip. I need to know whether you can swim in the same way I need to know if you're diabetic, or epileptic. It's important," she growled at him again, "Dickhead!" she grinned at him for the first time in days.

"Sorry Debs," he said thinking how he could turn this to his advantage, "I'll pop down and get changed," he stopped, "Ah fuck it, the sun is up, I'll dry off here." He stood up, stripped out of his wet T-shirt and trousers, standing in just his stretchy boxer shorts.

She looked at him seeing his tanned hairy body, lean and muscular and she approved; for the first time in days.

After a few slugs of water to rinse out his mouth, he drank some.

She looked at him again, her face flushed and her heart pounding. Dave saw it and sat down in the stern well pulling her down to sit next to him.

"Debs," he said looking across at her, "Honey, we were getting on so well then... well I thought we were really getting along, then... then it all went wrong." He touched her cheek and she closed her eyes and rubbed her face. "Whatever I did I'm sorry, I will do anything to go back to how it was," he moved his face closer to hers, "Just tell me honey, whatever..."

"It's not you Dave..." she began.

"Then let's work through it, together. I thought we were doing quite well, and..."

"We were," she said, "I was starting to have real feelings for you and it brought it all back, when I was younger..."

"Are you sure about this Debs?" he said, "they are trained people back home..." He knew, his wife had been one of them.

She nodded, the tears starting to run down her face.

"Harry..." she blubbed, "That bastard brother of mine used to interfere with me, he would come into my room and..." her face was a mask of horror and long stored fear.

"Debs Baby," he said gentle hands on her shoulders.

"I have to Dave," she said keeping her resolve, "I have to shift this, I have to get it out into the open and purge my soul. This secret has been destroying me for too long."

"OK Honey, let's do this, get it all out. I can't think of a better place to leave it than in the middle of the Atlantic."

So she started.

Her mother had developed pancreatic cancer, and just as it had with his wife a few years before it had already sentenced her to death before it was even discovered. Debs still felt that without the diagnosis her Mum probably would have lived longer, because she went down hill so fast after they were told the terrible news.

They stopped attending school as Mum's condition deteriorated and Debs spent every available moment with Mum and her older sister back from University while Harry spent his mother's last days in town, going to the army cadet hut or to Daddy's Regimental Headquarters where he was based following the end of his tour with the SAS and the end of his command of the 1st Battalion of his regiment and where Daddy spent most of his time. The Colonel took some days out of his hectic schedule to watch his wife die.

Mum died, in her own bed with her family around her, but for Harry. He was downstairs watching TV despite his big sister's admonitions, while their father insisted that Harry was just 'grieving in his own way, which was not all so it seemed.

The funeral happened and for once was nothing to do with the army, although Daddy did wear his uniform, despite Ellen and Debs asking him not to for once but, after all, they were only bloody women.

Ellen went back to University to catch up with her studies, leaving teenagers Harry and Deborah at home on their own, old enough to take care of themselves now surely insisted Daddy.

To Debs it seemed that the death of their Mother inspired something in Harry but he did nothing about it for a few weeks.

Like all bullies he was fired by her reaction, or lack of it and left to his own devices his mischief started as just that. Tormenting his younger, smaller sister still grieving for her beloved Mum, the person that had railed him in and kept a lid on his excesses. The verbal bullying moved into threats of violence and eventually became real violence during that first weekend that their father left them on their own when he went away with a reserve unit of his regiment.

She came home from school to find the note from Daddy telling them that he was away and that there was plenty of food in the fridge and he would see them both on Sunday evening.

At the bottom of the note, in Harry's obvious and quite immature script and word usage, was a P.S. telling her that she was to do what Harry told her. She argued that it clearly wasn't written by Daddy and she as going to her room to finish her homework.

"Not until you've cooked my fucking tea," said Harry, sounding every bit like their father.

"No w..." she started say but was cut short by his angry face and the back of his hand hitting her face. She sat stunned, that had quickly become his signature move.

She ran to her room and away from him. She came downstairs later to make herself a sandwich and there he was in the living room, lounging in Daddy's chair,

"Where's my fucking tea woman," he said waving an empty cup at her.

"Still in the cupboard I expect," he stood up with a snap, and she felt the first of the real fear that she had for Harry. "L...look," she stuttered, "we both had a meal in school today so a sandw..."

She feel the pain in her cheek again as he stepped across to her at speed,

"I might want another main fucking meal," he snarled again.

"Cook it then," she snarled back again, waiting for a further blow to fall.

Harry was really angry at his sister's lack of respect for him, something their Father insisted on and had done for many years. He raised his hand as if to slap, then laughed at her flinching, and while she concentrated on his raised hand, he punched her square in the face and she dropped instantly.

She stayed hungry in her room pretty much until her Father's return, showing him her black eye.

"Oh yes," said Daddy, "Harry told me you caught your face, that looks nasty." He folded his arms with a whimsical smile, "you really should take more care going around the house." Her face flared, "look, don't try and make out that Harry did it," he said with a raised finger, "he's already told me that you had a falling out over whose turn it was to cook, so none of your shit Miss Deborah!"

"He punched me!" she exclaimed.

"And why would he punch a little girl for heaven's sake? He's a gentleman!"

That was that. Harry was stood behind his Father, silently holding his sides and laughing at his sister and rubbing his knuckles. Worse still he now knew that he REALLY could do anything he wanted to her and his chances of any kind of retribution was almost zero. He would now hit her whenever they were alone or at the very least out of sight of their father.

After his physical assaults and the lack of any sort of response or even recognition from their father, Harry had started to 'grab her', to grab her in a way that made her really uncomfortable mentally as well as physically.

It started as the occasional painful squeeze of her firm boobs, and grabs at where he figured her nipples would be. She grabbed back once and cried out, he punched her just as her Father entered the room. She told her father, already knowing what he would say. He shook his head and walked out of the room mumbling 'women' and sighing once more.

Harry could still do no wrong it seemed. The perfect Harry, the man that would take the Conroy family name on to even more greatness, to be the next Colonel Conroy.

Not only did her father not see his bullying, he actually made things even worse for her.

Aided by his three weeks out of lessons while his mother died, he was now really struggling in the crammer college he'd been sent to after failing to get the necessary grades to get him into the army as a private soldier let alone the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst. Believing that it was because of his mothers death, his previously doting father finally started to come down on him for something. This just led to Harry's rage increasing and of course she suffered for it.

Her school success was just something else for him to resent her for. Their eldest sister Ellen was already at University and unaware of what was going on at home and as she headed towards a master's degree her successes affected no one.

In the same way Debs learned not to talk about her high grades as it would just be something else that annoyed her idiot brother and would just result in more pain for her. Her Father blew it for her again by telling Harry he should be more like his clever sister Deborah who had scored so fantastically in her latest exams. She hid in her room for a week, sneaking out for her cold meals, if her father hadn't already thrown them in the bin.

Harry had finally cornered her in the kitchen as she wolfed down her food, and unable to put down her plate he pinched, punched and jabbed at her and she cried out.

Her father came silently into the room and saw what her laughing brother was doing.

"Now then Harry, I don't think that Deborah wants you to tickle her!"

"He's NOT TICKLING ME DADDY!" she howled, "he's pinching my... my breasts."

"Deborah!" shouted her father, "you will not use language like that in my house, what would your mother say!"

The misery of her life and the usage of her late mother's disappointment in HER was enough and she ran away crying.

"Women..." sighed her father.

But his educational problems continued; Harry had finally come up against something that his bullying and scheming couldn't alter. No matter how much he growled at or about the school teachers about his low grades and threatened his classmates, in that silent room full of chairs, desks and younger, silent, university-bound college students it was just him, his memory and the exam papers and it wasn't going to end well. He blew his mock exams to such an extent that the college wasn't minded to put him up for his second time around, second year of college study, not confident that he would get enough to set him up for any university let alone Sandhurst.

Her father paid for private tutors in every available minute and it suggested some light at the end of the tunnel but her possible freedom was at risk because of Harry's stupidity and she saw her misery continuing until he was gone off to Sandhurst.

So she made the decision to help her brother pass his exams to get shot of him. So two nights after her father's passing off of Harry's last assault she entered his bedroom with some notes books.

"Well well, the genius Deborah comes into my room," he said, "to what do I owe this great honour?"

"To help you pass your exams Harry, nothing else," she said.

"I don't need you fucking help you ugly fucking dyke," he sneered.

"I beg to differ," she said.

"Well... well what's in it for you?"

"Harry," she said looking annoyed, "if you don't get into Sandhurst, I have a real concern that Daddy will insist I go." She folded her arms, and only subconsciously noticed him looking at her breasts raising up, no way was she giving him the satisfaction of knowing how much she hated him being in her life.

"You? Get into Sandhurst?"

"I've got more chance than you have right now!" she snapped back at him.

"OK," he said, "try me."

She had read his reports from both the specialist tutors and the private teachers, and suggested a different lesson each night, staring with mathematics. He insisted that she always sat in her bedroom, in the same chair and he sat in another with his note pad on his lap. She could not understand why, he never took notes.

Into their second week she asked him when he was likely to start trying to study. He laughed,

"Never, you dumb bitch!" he rocked back in his chair, obviously pleased with his own cleverness, "you're sat there just so I can stare at your big tits. The sunlight goes through the window there and makes your blouse and those tiny bras you wear virtually transparent!"

She looked down. It was true, her large red nipples were very apparent as the hopelessly small bras she had long since grown out of and that barely covered her nipples at the best of times and had rode down as she had sat there; and probably had done for the last few nights. She had told Daddy that she needed new bras but he had just said that as soon as Ellen came home at Easter, she could buy her more. Now her obnoxious brother was taking advantage of the fact.

"But look what a great effect your shitty body has had on me!" he said reaching down and pinching the material of his trackie trousers around his erection.