Moree's Awakening

"I'm liking what I'm seeing in you, Moree," he assured her and approached the man to strike up a conversation.

The man introduced himself as Henri. He was a local fisherman and dive guide. Peter and Moree talked with him as he loaded his boat with scuba gear. He explained that he had been hired to guide a group of six divers over a trip to the reef. But, they were now an hour late and nowhere to be found. He'd sent his crew, Anthony and Marcus, to find them.

"There's my crew," he said, motioning down the pier towards the shore. "But, nobody is found."

Moree looked down the pier to see two men walking toward them. Both were in shorts with sandaled feet; just like Henri. And just like Henri, both were chiseled and muscular without an ounce of fat.

"Come, I will take you diving," he offered in a heavy French accent. "I will not wait anymore for them. They lose their money," he said.

Anthony and Marcus jumped into the pastel blue boat and began prepping to leave the pier. "Are you coming?" Henri asked assertively as though this was his last offer and stepped in.

Peter and Moree exchanged a look and Peter jumped aboard. Moree took Henri's outstretched hand and gingerly stepped onto the gunwale of the boat. As the boat rocked away from her she panicked. Feeling she might fall into the water, she fell into Henri's arms instead.

He held her tight to his chest, causing the soft skin of her face to brush against his olive skin and wiry hair. She had never been embraced by a common working man and even though this was by accident, she felt a sense of the forbidden as the smell of his sweat filled her nostrils and the strength of his grasp filled her senses.

Henri released his grasp on Moree and busied himself with reading the boat for a departure to the reef. Henri powered up the small engine and slowly steered the boat out of the harbor and into the blue green ocean.

Marcus instructed Peter and Moree on the scuba gear as the small boat cruised through the gentle waves. Henri talked nonstop; first with Anthony and then with Peter and Moree, seemingly paying little attention to his navigation as though he could find his way to the reef with his eyes closed.

The trip went by so fast for them under the hot sun as they drank cold rum coolers from the ice chest and watched the sea gulls dance above the boat.

Just as Marcus finished up, Henri announced their arrival at the reef by cutting the engine and throwing a heavy metal anchor into the ocean as though it were a loaf of bread. "We have arrived," he said.

Forty feet below them under crystal clear water lay several long bands of copper-brown coral. As Peter and Moree looked over the boat they saw the beauty of the upcoming dive and a sense of excitement welled up inside them.

But, for Moree, the excitement was chilled by anxiety. She was afraid and couldn't bring herself to don her gear. "I can't do it," she told Peter. "I....I just can't go with you." she told him.

Try as he might to convince her, he couldn't. But she insisted he enjoy the dive. "I'll wait here in the boat and drink rum coolers," she assured him. "I don't mind."

"Anthony...Marcus, you go with our friend Peter. I will stay behind," Henri insisted with the same tone in his voice that he used back on the dock when he offered up his last invitation for the dive trip.

Peter geared up and with the sound of three men diving into the ocean, Moree and Henri were finally alone.