Letting Go, and Grabbing Hold

Lucy snorted in her sleep, rolling onto her side facing us. Her tiny face looked very cute and peaceful in her sleep.

Caitlyn looked at the girl, then at me, and jerked her head in Lucy's direction.

I frowned. "What?" I mouthed. I'm not sure why we weren't talking aloud, given that I had just described an erotic dream in detail right in front of the sleeping girl, but...

She just jerked her head at the tiny girl again, arching an eyebrow. That look I recognized. I scoffed, waving a hand.

"Why not?" Caitlyn asked bluntly.

I shook my head. "That's...it's just crazy, in like twelve different ways."

Caitlyn rolled her eyes upward. "Dear...Ash, you have got to learn to let go every so often."

"We've had this discussion before," I shrugged.

"Yes, we have." Caitlyn looked at me directly. "I'm not talking about your general life -- I know it's tricky in real life. Here you are on vacation, though. Middle of nowhere, lots of romantic views, stifling heat that seeps into you...what more invitation did you need to live a little?"

I thought about that. It was hard to deny the logic. "Well, sure, but...I mean, I can't just go about..." I looked at Lucy and made some sort of incomprehensible gesture.

"Why not?" Caitlyn demanded again.

"Just drop it, Cait," I sighed, leaning my head back and closing my eyes again.

Caitlyn just shrugged and leaned back as well, and we settled back into the peaceful quiet we'd been enjoying all morning.

At midday, we all gathered for lunch. Everybody was definitely more relaxed now -- Chris was laughing with Caitlyn and Carla about something, and Lucy was giggling with Tim and Robert. Don was off taking care of the boat.

After a while, I got up and wandered away from the others, standing along the side of the ship, looking out at the sea.

"Hey there, lovely," a voice said from behind me.

I half-turned. "Oh, hi Don."

He stepped up beside me. "Are you enjoying yourself?"

I shrugged, attempting a polite smile. "It's been great, so far."

He nodded, smiling. "Good. I know it's tough to loosen up at first. You'll get there, though," he said confidently. "They all do."

I couldn't help but smile for real this time. "You really enjoy making people happy, don't you?"

"We both do," Don said, smiling. "Have you ever tried it?"

"With mixed success," I said wryly.

He laughed. "No -- not for romance, or for love, or for a friend. Just to be happy -- for a time."

"Why is everybody being my therapist today?" I complained.

He laughed again, reached out, and brushed my hair back over my ear, and I was surprised all over again, wondering if I had forgotten everything I thought I had learned about flirting. Then he wandered away, whistling, and I stared after him, horribly confused.

I headed back to the others eventually, and we enjoyed another quiet afternoon of contemplation, sunbathing, and sleep. This time, when I woke up from my afternoon nap, there was only one person nearby -- Carla. She sat propped up nearby, reading from a thick novel.

She glanced over at me, smiling when she saw I was awake. "Nice nap?"

I smiled sleepily. "I'll say. The boat really does rock you to sleep, doesn't it?"

"Only if you want to sleep," she said, winking, "otherwise...well it helps other things, too."

I chuckled a bit nervously. "I wouldn't know."

"No? You should try it." She grinned again, going back to her book.

"I don't get on boats very often," I sighed, leaning back with my arms crossed behind my head.

"You're on one now," she pointed out.

I looked over at her. "Well, yeah, but alone."

"You're not alone," she said musingly. "There's Robert, or Tim, your friend Caitlyn is nice...Chris is taken, but Lucy's not."

I grinned. "Right...so all I have to risk is total embarrassment and being stuck on a boat for three weeks with a bunch of people who rejected me."

She just laughed, but I laughed with her.

After an otherwise quiet afternoon, we gathered again for a very pleasant dinner, and then lounged about the deck socializing. The cards came out again, and Robert and Tim got Carla and Lucy and Chris playing. Caitlyn went back to her sunbathing for what was left of the day's light, leaving me relatively alone again. I didn't feel like playing, but I sat nearby, watching the game, enjoying the general company without really joining in.

I sighed deeply, stretching and running my fingers through my hair, leaning my head back against the railing with my eyes closed, enjoying the swaying of the ship and the lively conversation nearby.

"Now, see, lovely, you don't look like you're having fun, now," a voice said very close in my ear, and I jumped, looking at Don, who had somehow snuck up and sat next to me without my noticing, his big frame seeming even more giant so close to mine.

I smiled. "No, I am, really -- I just feel like being quiet."

"Ah, well...there's a time for quiet." Don looked around, then back at me, lowering his voice. "No one's bothering you, are they?"

I laughed, shaking my head and touching his arm, trying to reassure him. He was such a conscientious host. "No, not at all. I'm just confused."

"Ah -- that's not all bad, you know." He grinned reminiscently. "Some of life's best discoveries are made when you're really confused." He winked. "Trust me on that."

***

That night, I lay again in my bed, confused and hot, waiting for sleep to claim me.

As I lay there, attempting to count sheep to see if that really worked, I realized one major drawback to the location of my cabin. It was next to the master suite. I couldn't hear much -- just a faint rhythmic thumping, and very faint voices.

I rolled over, pulling my pillow over my head, recalling my dreams from the night before. I remembered the wet heat of that night, the sensations of imaginary lips.

I heard a cry from the next room -- but the thumping didn't stop. I sighed in exasperation. They weren't helping.

I pulled the pillow down tighter, shuddering. My dream had been so realistic...that tongue on me, the hands on my thighs, holding me open. The warm, quick, excited breathing on my pussy.

"Ah...Don!" I heard.

I whimpered, rolling back onto my back -- the pillow wasn't muffling anything. Then, to my surprise, I fell asleep. At least, I think I did, because the dreams started again.

Once again, I writhed under lips that explored my legs, nibbling my thighs, and I eagerly arched my hips toward them. I felt hands holding my wrists, gently restraining me, so that those lips could tantalize me, sliding over my overheated skin. Not that I needed to be restrained to submit. Between Carla and Don's lovemaking in the next room -- in my dream, I could still hear Carla calling out in pleasure -- and Caitlyn's outrageous suggestion that I jump Lucy, I was in no mood to resist.

My pussy ached. I felt so warm, bathed in heat, bathed in sweat -- and soaked in need. I opened my legs wider, and that soft, supple mouth began searching my pussy, lips opening mine and a warm, wet tongue gently darting in, exploring. I moaned out, shuddering, my hips pulling away a tiny bit as if shocked at the power of that sensation, but the tongue just slid deeper, tracing my slit, and then plunged inside me.

I choked on a gasp, arching up. The sensation was so real -- was I awake? No, couldn't be. Who would be licking me in the middle of the night? My eyes widened -- it really did feel like real hands were holding mine down, though. I thought I could feel real shoulders -- smooth, silky female shoulders -- pressed against the inside of my knees. A real mouth tasting me, lips as soft as any I had ever felt, and a wonderfully wet, slippery tongue delving and diving into me. My thoughts fluttered quickly through shock, fear -- this couldn't be happening, or maybe it could, and if so who was it, and if so why were they doing this, and if it was real had it been real before and...and...and then that tongue traced a lazy circle over my clit, and need blanked everything else from my mind.

"Oh...oh god," I arched up with a gasping moan, my legs trembling as I spread them wider -- for now, I couldn't stop. There was time to figure this out later...right now, I was so close, well past the point of no return, when your body tells your brain to go shut up so it can explode.

That mouth sealed on me firmly, tongue lapping and swirling, and I lasted only seconds more, my legs tensing and my head thrown back as I cried out into the darkness, going into spasms and convulsing against that wonderful mouth, which devoured me with slurping, sucking licks as though I were the finest thing it had ever sampled.

I jerked, thrashing as my orgasm washed over me in huge, bone-jerking waves, and then went limp when it subsided, gasping and shaking, eyes wide but blind in the pitch blackness. I barely felt the weight lift off my bed, and I only dimly heard the click of my cabin door opening and closing. The last thing I remember thinking before I drifted off to an exhausted, sated sleep was wondering whether those noises were real, or if my dream were just making it up to drive me crazy.

There were no sounds coming from the next cabin anymore, for which I was grateful, but I couldn't really sleep. Instead, I lay there listening to the boat rocking in the water, wondering if I'd really been asleep.

***

The next morning at breakfast, I found myself searching every face for any sign of who might have visited me the night before. Those lips had been too silky, and the shoulders too soft, to have been male -- if they were real at all. I shook my head over my cereal -- leave it to my subconscious to confuse me even worse than I already was.

I knew it hadn't been Carla -- she and Don were as affectionate as newlyweds are after their wedding night. I looked at Lucy, but she seemed to be paying no attention to me whatsoever, talking to Don and Carla. I looked at Chris, but she was telling Caitlyn about her wedding plans -- hardly the conversation one would expect her to be having the next morning. Caitlyn herself looked bored, as if she couldn't wait for breakfast to be over so she could go sunbathe some more. Besides, I knew Caitlyn was straight, as was Chris. Logically, then, it had to have been Lucy -- or just a dream.

The only problem was how to figure it out -- what was I supposed to do, ask her?

"Hey, Lucy, you didn't happen to sneak into my room last night and lap my brains out, did you?"

Yeah, right. Except...I needed to feel that again.

Fortunately, I was soon distracted before I could horribly embarrass myself. Not long after breakfast, we reached the first of the islands on this lazy tour -- a tiny little islet that was obviously the top of some undersea mountain -- a spike of rock sticking straight out of some trees in the middle of nowhere.

We dropped anchor and went ashore, splashing up onto a beautiful white sand beach. The place looked like something out of a movie -- a few palm trees, a nice picturesque little mountain, a beach, and absolutely nothing else.

Caitlyn waded ashore and flopped onto her back, sighing as if she had found her permanent home. Lucy and Tim were still splashing water on each other offshore, while Robert wandered up toward the trees to explore. Carla and Don were still on the boat, doing whatever it is you do to make sure your boat doesn't float away on its own.

I stretched widely, with that lovely salt breeze caressing my face and whipping my hair around, felt the sand under my toes. I plodded up the beach to see what was around the corner of the island -- as it turned out, more beach. Go figure.

It was probably a measure of how relaxed I was feeling now that when Robert stumbled with a crash out of the trees to my left as I wandered up the beach, intending seriously to circumnavigate this island in the name of mankind, I didn't even jump.

"Graceful," I remarked, wincing as my natural sarcasm burst out of me at someone who might not find it funny.

Fortunately, Robert just laughed. "I know, I know, the Canadian judge would have really docked my score for that." He sighed, shaking his head. "I'd stay out of the brush, if I were you -- lots of prickly things." He balanced on one leg, pulling up one of his bare feet and looking mournfully at his now scraped-up sole.

"Thanks for the warning."

Robert glanced at me, and then up the beach, and I almost tensed up -- I didn't, I was still pretty relaxed, but I felt that twitch inside me like I wanted to tense up. I really didn't need to be hit on just then.

"Hey, Ashley, can I ask you something?"

I looked at him warily. "What?"

Robert grimaced slightly. "Listen, I was divorced a few years ago, so I'm kind of new at this."

I almost slumped. He was a divorcee -- emotionally fragile, especially for rejection. I wasn't constitutionally prepared for this.

He glanced up the beach back toward where the boat was. It wasn't that far away -- you could see a mast or something sticking up between the trees. "I can't tell as well as some guys can, but...do you think Tim might be gay?"

"Listen, I..." I broke off my improvised let-down speech and blinked. "What?" I looked at Robert more clearly -- he was flushed bright red. "Oh," I said lamely, sounding like a genius. How had I missed that? I can usually spot gay men a mile away.

He shrugged. "It's really no big deal," he said.

I grinned at him -- unlike him, I was now much more comfortable. "Yes, it is -- he is cute, isn't he? Wouldn't have pegged you for one to like the younger men."

He flushed deeper, and I almost hugged him. A handsome, sweet, probably rich, middle-aged gay man in good shape? How was he still single? "It's not like that," he murmured. "I just, you know..."

"You like him," I said teasingly, still grinning.

"Hey," he said in an injured tone.

I just laughed at him, punching him lightly in the arm. "I'm teasing. Honestly, I'm not sure if Tim's gay. I always thought I had a pretty good gaydar, but I didn't ping you at all, so I might just be generally on the fritz at the moment."

It was his turn to grin at me. "You do seem a bit scattered, if you don't mind my saying."

"Hey, I have a good reason," I said defensively.

"Do tell."

We wandered together back toward the beach -- both of us now feeling much more relaxed around each other, though for totally different reasons -- and I told him the whole sordid story. He made the appropriate sad, commiserating noises throughout.

"Well," he said brightly when I was done, "maybe they'll name the baby after you."

"Are you trying to make me sick up right here on the beach?"

We laughed together, and I felt much better. I realized that I had been seeing the whole group from behind a very weird lens -- a mix of emotional damage, need, desire, and general confusion. No wonder I'd figured they were bunch of whack jobs -- I was the whack job, and as an eloquent writer once put it: sometimes, when all you've got is a stick, everything looks like a kneecap.

By the time we got back to the part of the beach nearest the boat, people were just generally lazing around. Don and Tim were discussing marine wildlife of some sort. At my prompting, Robert went to join them. Lucy and Carla were busily hunting for seashells -- using Lucy's t-shirt as a bag. The sight of her in a bikini top and shorts served very nicely to wrench my mind back exactly to where I didn't need it to be.

Then Caitlyn appeared beside me, her eyebrows raised curiously. "So...you two were..."

I gave her a long steady look. "Well, we were having this really hot sex, when suddenly he realized I wasn't Tim and I realized he wasn't female."

Caitlyn blinked, and she gave Robert a surreptitious glance over her shoulder. "Wow, really? Never would have guessed that."

"Me neither," I said in annoyance, "and I can almost always spot it."

"Well, that makes things simpler." Caitlyn frowned, folding her arms across her chest. I found myself wishing for at least the thousandth time in my life that I could wear a bikini as casually -- and well -- as Caitlyn could.

"How does it make things simpler?" I asked, my thoughts catching up to her question.

"Well, it narrows your choices down to just one."

"My choices for what?" I asked pointedly, intentionally not understanding her.

Caitlyn looked at me flatly. "For getting you off until you can't walk normally, girl."

I blushed. "That's not what I'm here for."

"Well, then be here for that," Caitlyn said impatiently. "I don't want you moping around for the whole three weeks we're down here. You're a wreck."

I pouted slightly, folding my arms, and then looked sharply at her. "Hey, that reminds me -- why aren't you moping around? Your breakup was just as hard as mine."

"Nah, not really," she shrugged. "Things had run their course."

"That's not what I was hearing," I disagreed, "through those thin walls you mentioned."

Caitlyn lifted her chin. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"How many of your guys have you called 'darling', anyway?"

I had finally gotten her to blush. "None of your business." Caitlyn jerked her chin over at the others. "So, what are you going to do?"

"Nothing," I said firmly. "I'm here to relax -- that's it."

She rolled her eyes at me. "Suit yourself." She wandered away, and I glared after her. What made her so sure I wanted anybody on the boat?

Heading in the opposite direction, I found myself rather desultorily following Lucy and Carla up the beach, where their seashell collection had been steadily growing. Looking around, I spotted a pretty one they had missed and hurried to catch up with them.

"Here," I called, "don't forget this one."

They turned toward me, and Lucy smiled brightly as Carla grinned at me. "Nothing else to do, Ashley?" Carla asked with a grin.

I shrugged, smiling a little. "I can't seem to find the theme park, so..."

Lucy giggled -- not the brainless, whiny sort of giggle that annoys me, but an airy, breathy little hint of laughter that seemed to just bubble up inside her. I rather liked it.

"Well, join us," Carla said, gesturing for me to add the shell to the makeshift bag Lucy was carrying. "You have a good eye."

I slipped the shell carefully into the bag, glancing at Lucy's eyes as I did. Chocolate brown, melting soft...okay, I told myself, stop that!

I noticed Carla giving me a look, and gave her a rather exasperated one in return -- she just winked.

We wandered completely around the little island, collecting a respectable bag of seashells -- which I had no doubt we would leave behind anyway, since Carla and Don hardly needed fifty pounds of shells for anything. I caught Lucy looking at me a few times as we went, but my internal sense of those things was so badly screwed up at that point that I had no idea if she liked me or hated my guts.

Eventually, I noticed Carla more and more dropping out of the idle conversation -- and when she was talking, it was mostly to ask Lucy or me questions about ourselves. I figured out what she was doing, of course, but even though I gave her several warning looks, she ignored me and just kept doing it.

In a surprisingly short time, we reached the area of the beach where the others were lounging around, and Carla ran to join her husband, who was splashing around in the surf with Robert and Tim, doing I have no idea what. Lucy and I sat together in the sand, sorting through the seashells. What we were sorting them for, I can't even vaguely imagine, but we both seemed to feel that the bag needed order of some kind imposed on it.

"So, Ashley," Lucy said quietly -- she had a very soft voice, "do you have someone special back home?"

I shrugged. Neither of us was looking at the other. "No, not really. I broke up with my girlfriend recently."

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said, looking distressed at having asked.