Cabin Buddies

But there was one concern I couldn't put aside. "I'm afraid I didn't think to bring any protection. Do you think the gift shop might still be open?"

"It's OK," she murmured. "I'm protected."

We kissed again. She reached down and slipped off her last remaining piece of clothing. So now we both were naked, lying together in each other's arms, in the very bed where we were going to spend the night.

It wasn't that I didn't know what to do next, it was just that I was a little bashful to be the one to initiate it. And, truth be told, I was more than happy just to be doing what we were doing, lying together so intimately, so completely within each other's personal space, so fully accepting, so fully accepted. If that was going to be enough for her, it was certainly plenty enough for me.

But I didn't object when she knelt up, and straddled my thighs, and took my rigid penis in her hand, and glided her moist vagina down upon it.

Neither of us said a word. Partly it was shyness, but partly it was just because there was no need to muddle up with words what our entwined bodies were already saying so well without them.

--

The next morning's sun found its way in through our porthole once again. We had sorted ourselves out somewhat during the night. I was on my side, tangled in a bit of sheet. She was on her side, tangled in a bit of blanket. I could just make out the pale tan lines on her bottom and her back.

We'd become cabin buddies of a different order. At the Jack-and-Ciara level. That's probably what most people would have assumed all along, but I certainly hadn't, and I didn't think that she had either.

And yet here we were.

I waited a while for her to wake up, but she didn't. So I finally got up myself.

We'd just passed though the entrance in the seawall at Ensenada and were coming up to our docking site. The pilot, or maybe it was the captain himself, was standing on a little deck that jutted out from the side of the ship to joy-stick our massive vessel precisely up to the pier.

Molly was still in bed when I got back. She smiled and went to the bathroom, a little embarrassed to be still naked while I was already dressed. Her pubic hair, I noticed, was trim and attractive.

She came out wearing a towel and had her coffee. We checked the day's schedule. She was delighted to discover that they'd transferred Mrs. Pendergast's excursion ticket to me.

A little later that morning we went ashore. It was a strange sensation, stepping off the gangway into a foreign country. Somehow I expected every little thing to be different and exotic, but the first thing we encountered, sprouting up through a crack in the pavement, was a little tuft of grass. Nothing exotic at all, just plain old grass.

Our excursion van was heralded by a woman with a clipboard--a younger, more boisterous, Mexican Denise. There were three other couples in our group and a single unaccompanied woman about Ciara's age. I took a seat next to the window with Molly beside me with the unaccompanied woman next to her. Her name was Meryl. This was her first real vacation since her divorce. She was really excited to be having such an adventure.

We drove through the streets of Ensenda, our guide giving us a bit of local color in her prettily accented English. The scene was at once familiar and strange: traffic and lane markings and stop lights just exactly like at home, but unintelligible store signs in unlikely colors painted directly on pastel stucco walls. Beyond the city were dusty, cactus-strewn hills not unlike the Catalina hinterland.

Our destination was a site called the Bufadora, a cleft in the rocky sea cliff where

ocean waves sent up enormous geyser-like sprays. The sprays were so high that we got wet even at our vantage point fifty feet above the water.

The path back from the observation point was lined with gaudy souvenir shops, like the midway of a county fair. Meryl had tagged along with Molly and me. We stopped at one of the taco stands for lunch.

"So how did you guys meet?"

Molly didn't volunteer an answer. "Just here on the cruise, actually," I said.

"Really? See, aren't cruises great?"

After lunch we went into one of the souvenir shops and Meryl asked our opinion about all the little knick knacks she wanted to buy. When we got back to the van, I ended up sitting in the middle.

"The nicest thing." she said. "is that every day you make new friends."

We drove back through town, then out into the desert in a different direction to a picturesque winery. We sat around a table on a palm-shaded patio and sampled the different vintages. Meryl chatted on about Simi Valley and the cruise and her ex and the weather and the ship and the people she'd met. She got me to go into the little gift shop with her to help pick out a couple bottles.

--

Molly was quiet at dinner. I had to remind her that we'd made plans to see the comedy show with Meryl.

"I've got a bit of a headache," she said. "I think I'll go back to the room."

Meryl was waiting in the forward theatre. She was sorry to hear about Molly's headache and put her hand on my arm to convey her concern. The show turned out to be pretty adult-rated, pretty raunchy in fact. Meryl yucked it up

After the show she suggested we take a spin about the deck. The ship had set sail again and we were just passing the exposed wreck that lies up against the sea wall. Somehow Meryl managed to tuck herself inside my arm.

"Wouldn't you just love to go dancing?" she cooed.

"I... uh... Actually, I've kind of got to go now."

"But the night is still young. Let's at least stop by my room first."

"I've got to check on Molly."

"We can open one of the tequilas."

"Thanks, but..."

"It's just that... I was kind of hoping to get lucky tonight."

Christ Almighty. A guy tries to be a gentleman. I didn't need an etiquette book for this one. I finally managed to pry myself away,

--

When I got back to the room, Molly was in her pajamas, watching TV.

"Is your headache any better?" I asked.

She didn't look up from the screen.

I sat on the chair and twisted around to see what she was watching. A travelogue of some sort.

"You didn't miss much," I said. "The show was kind of..."

But she leaned in closer to the screen to make it clear that I was interrupting her program. Something about the way the locals made their tortillas.

OK. I got the message. She didn't like the fact that I'd gone to the show with Meryl. I went into the bathroom. I'd only been trying to be polite to a fellow cruise member. Was that a crime? Molly had been there when we'd made the plans. I thought that she'd been trying to be friendly too. That we'd sort of taken Meryl under our wing.

I came out of the bathroom and sat down on the chair again. The secret to the tortillas, apparently, had something to do with lime juice.

"I didn't expect to see you back here tonight," Molly said. In a sarcastic tone of voice. As if my presence was an imposition. As if she was sorry she'd ever offered to share the room in the first place.

I didn't even bother to answer. I got undressed. I crawled up onto my side of the bed. Where else was I supposed to go? I got under the blanket and turned toward the bulkhead. A guy tries to be a gentleman. And this is what he gets.

--

I woke up first again the next morning. I went up on deck. Did she really think that I'd found Meryl even the least bit attractive? She was a fellow shipmate, nothing more. I'd thought that we'd both been trying to be polite to her. Was that a crime?

I brought back coffee and a croissant, but Molly was still asleep. Or pretending to be. I banged around a little, but she didn't budge. Finally I got fed up and left.

So here I was again, back to my usual routine, wandering down empty corridors, drifting up little-used gangways, poking around lonely corners where nobody else much ever cared to go. Doing what I probably would have been doing if I'd gotten my single in the first place.

I came back to the room around lunch time, but Molly wasn't there. I wandered up to the pool. Denise was there, chatting with some people. She waved. Meryl was there, stalking about, but I managed to slip away before she saw me. But no Molly.

It was a long day. The ship had parked itself out in the middle of the ocean somewhere. Or maybe the rest of the world really had blown itself up and they just hadn't told us. I eventually ended up back in the little coffee shop at the tail end of the ship. The sky seemed a lot flatter though, the seagulls a lot more listless, my algorithms a lot less interesting. Finally I got up again and trudged back down into the labyrinth.

The casino was practically empty. The lower piano bar was closed. The little art gallery was still showing the same old photographs.

The gift shop was open. The same lady was behind the counter. What was it that Molly had asked to see? A necklace. It must have been... that one. The lady brought it out. A pair of crystalline dolphins on a slender silver chain. They sparkled in the light.

Molly still wasn't in the room when I got back. This time our towel had been folded into a seal, sunning itself on the bedspread. I moved it a little closer to her pillow and arranged the necklace around its neck.

There were still a couple hours until dinner. I thought it might be better if I wasn't there when she got back.

--

I got to dinner right on time. It was our last night on board, and the room was even more boisterous than usual.

"Where's Molly?" asked Ciara.

"She had a little headache. She might not be joining us."

Valentin our waiter was really joshing it up, angling for a big end-of-trip tip. He was just taking the drink orders when Molly appeared. She was wearing a pink skirt, a whitish blouse,... and the necklace. Her eye caught mine as she made her way around the table, but quickly shot away again.

Ciara asked her how she was doing. The couple on my other side were there for once. Tom and somebody. He was in air conditioning and gave me the full rundown. It was too noisy for Molly and me to talk, but every time I looked, she was still wearing the necklace.

It being our last night, the waiters were going to put on a little show. Just after they passed out the dessert plates they went into a huddle near the service entrance. Molly leaned over.

"Do you want to go back to the room?"

We got up.

"Oh, are you guys going to the revue?" asked Ciara.

Molly replied in the louder voice you had to use to make yourself heard. But the room was beginning to quiet down as the waiters were taking their places, and so the whole table heard what she said.

"Make-up sex."

The table burst into laughter. Molly continued her way out of the room, and I just followed sheepishly behind her.

"Can you forgive me?" she asked as we got out into the hallway.

"For letting everybody know where we're going?"

"For last night. I'm so sorry for the way I acted."

"It was my fault. It was all my fault."

"The worst part is, we wasted a whole day."

"We still have tonight."

"Yeah. We still have tonight."

As soon as we got into the room we fell into each other's arms.

"I love the necklace," she murmured.

"It looks really nice on you."

We kissed and shuffled toward the bed.

But my blood was pumping. I was thinking about our wasted day.

"Let's do something first, want to? It's our last night. Let's get our money's worth. Let's go to the show! Let's go dancing! Let's shoot for that royal flush!

"The bed will still be here when we get back. But let's make up for some of the things we didn't do today. Let's paint the ship red. OK? Want to? C'mon! Hup! Hup!"

--

Jack and Ciara were surprised to see us at the theatre.

"That was quick," Ciara said with a look of astonishment.

Molly blushed. I put my arm around her and pulled her tight. "You ain't seen nothing yet."

The revue was Motown classics, the Supremes, the Four Tops. "You can't hurry love, no you'll just have to wait..." The whole auditorium was singing along. The girls pulled Jack and me up from our seats to dance in the aisle. "Sugarpie, honeybunch, you know that I love you..."

Afterwards, the night was balmy, perfect for a stroll on deck. We could see lights off in the distance--the rest of the world was still there after all! We ran into Meryl, wrapped in the arm of a dapper, middle-aged gentleman whose smile was just as smug as hers was. We exchanged pleasantries. She gave us a little wink.

The nightclubs were hopping. We wound our way from one to the other, dancing one dance in each. But then we decided to forgo the casino and just head back to the cabin. And sure enough, the bed was still there, right where we'd left it.

--

We kissed. I ran my hands up along her sides, up inside her blouse. She undid my buttons and pulled open my shirt. I fiddled with her skirt and managed to slip it down over the swell of her hips. She unfastened my belt buckle and my button and my zipper. I slid my hands down inside her panties. She slid hers down inside my underpants. We pawed and shucked and kicked off everything that remained. And then she took off the very last thing that she was wearing, the crystalline necklace, and placed it carefully on the nightstand.

I backed her down onto the bed. I kissed the pretty spot where the necklace had been, and the spot next to that, and the spot next to that. She lay back and closed her eyes and let herself be kissed.

I settled myself down on top of her, stroking her full lovely body with my own, savoring her softness and her excitement, trying to fuse our unfortunate separateness into something more fulfilling. And somehow, in the midst of our kissing and our stroking, my penis must have slid up at just the right angle, and her hips must have been open to just the right degree, and we coupled, as adroitly as if that had been our conscious intention, as naturally as if we were two jungle cats whose lithe jungle bodies just instinctively knew how to fuck.

And somewhere in the midst of our coupling we sweetly came, but it was not so much a climax as just a sweet vista point along the way. For just as we hadn't consciously willed our engagement, neither did we ever willfully disengage, but just eventually nestled more comfortably down beside each other, still caressing, still softly kissing, still sweetly fused.

--

The loudspeaker blasted us awake early the next morning. Our luggage needed to be out in the hallway for pickup by eight o'clock sharp!

Molly wriggled a bit deeper under the blanket. "Uuunh," she groaned. "Just five more minutes."

I remembered the look on her face--when had it been? just four days ago--when we first learned we might have to share the cabin together. She'd been just as uncertain as I had. But now it was hard to imagine any other arrangement. Her lying in bed beside me, trying to squeeze in a few more minutes of sleep, leaving it up to me to keep track of the time, I wouldn't have had it any other way.

We hadn't begun to pack yet, but we'd kept things fairly organized. I gave her a generous five minutes, and then I gave her a little nudge. "C'mon, sleepyhead. Up and at 'em."

She groaned, but she dragged herself out of bed. We were both still naked. I slipped on a pair of boxers, and she put on a T-shirt. It rode up in back, though, so that her pretty bottom kept peeking out as she went around collecting her things and tucking them into her suitcase.

"Do you kinda wish that the rest of the world really had blown itself up?" I asked.

She was folding one of her bras. "Oh, I don't know. We'd probably get tired of eating cheesecake eventually."

"They'd run out. Then we'd have to eat whatever it is that Valentin eats."

"He gets cheesecake sometimes, don't you think? When they have some left over?"

"I don't know. He's pretty skinny."

"I wonder why Meryl didn't think of him."

"Yeah. Good question. Wrong table, I suppose."

"I suppose."

I crammed my sports coat in between my shirts and my underwear bag. She gave the zipper of her suitcase a final tug. "Besides," she said. "Your algorithms would miss you."

I slipped on my trousers and rolled the bags out into the corridor. There were a surprising number of people walking by, and every single one of them gawked into the room as they passed. Nothing is more titillating to a person walking down a stateroom corridor than an open doorway.

When I got the door closed again, Molly was sitting up on the bed with the sheet pulled up in front of her and a rather indignant look on her face. What a lot of nerve some people had!

I couldn't help but smile. "I wonder what they thought you were hiding back there."

She rolled her eyebrows.

But I was feeling a little playful. The final day's schedule was lying on the floor. I picked it up and pretended it was an official form.

"Customs inspection, Miss. May I see what you've got behind that sheet?"

She wasn't so sure she wanted to show me. She coyly raised the sheet a little higher.

"That shirt you're wearing, Miss. Did you purchase it abroad?"

She looked down behind the sheet. This old thing?.

"Regulations, Miss. It may contain contraband fibers." I held out my hand. "May I see it please?"

She huffed. Bureaucrats! Without letting go of the sheet she wriggled one arm out of its sleeve and then the other one. Then she pulled the shirt off over her head and handed it to me, all the while keeping herself demurely shielded from any and all prying eyes.

I inspected the shirt, inside and out. White cotton, picture of a bamboo stalk, slightly warm. I brought it up to my nose. Girl smell, subtle but intriguing. I turned it over. No detectable contraband fibers. I made a mark on my customs form.

"And what else do you have behind the sheet, Miss?"

"Why nothing, Officer. Nothing at all." Couldn't I tell that she was just an innocent traveler trying to get back home?

I took the edge of the sheet from her hand and gently pulled it back to see for myself. She'd been telling the truth. Nothing at all! She blushed. I made another mark on my customs form.

"I'm afraid our machine is down today, Miss. The rest of the inspection will have to be performed manually. Would you please lie down here on the conveyor belt for me?"

She huffed again. The things one had to put up with! But regulations were regulations. She stretched herself out on the bed, arms to her sides, completely nude, presenting herself for inspection, just the slightest hint of coy anticipation in her expression.

I proceeded to administer a thorough frisking. I ran my hands up her calf, feeling for any irregularities. I ran them up her thigh, letting one hand brush her soft pubic hair as the other swept over the full round swell of her hip.

I looked up and our eyes met. Looking back at me was the same pretty girl I'd had lunch with at the salad buffet, lying now before me, utterly nude, lips slightly parted, nipples blushing, letting me see and touch and pet and feel every square inch of her lovely body. I can only imagine what she might have read in my eyes, but I didn't read anything in hers that told me not to continue what I was doing.

I ran my hands up over her tummy, letting my fingers probe her belly button. I cupped her breasts and gently frisked her hardening nipples.

"Ooh, Officer."

But there was one part of her that needed to be inspected more thoroughly. I had her scoot down so that her bottom was still on the bed but her feet were on the floor. This brought her pretty vagina out of the shadows and onto center stage. The outer lips were flushed and slightly parted, revealing the swirly pink frills within. These were her most secret, private parts, and she was letting me see them, letting me run my thumb along their oystery ruffles, letting me daub my fingers with their musky secretion.