The Cruise

The mood at the table became more relaxed from that moment. The other passengers felt comfortable with the knowledge that we were okay discussing our past and present status.

We joined the day trippers on our stopover in Auckland. While there was a certain amount of musical chairs going on, this part of the scene did not include us, we sat together on the bus, in the restaurant at lunch, and on the return journey. There was no comment when we headed for our cabin on our return, no sniggering remarks about us heading off for an afternoon delight before dinner. It was accepted that we enjoyed each other's company to the full, and that included making love. Ours was not what could be considered a normal ship-board romance, it had a hint of permanency to it.

We were warned before we went ashore in Vanuatu, that if we found ourselves at a kava ceremony, we should just wet our lips and pass it on. To do more could have dire consequences. We confined ourselves to the more mundane tourist pursuits, collecting a few souvenirs and generally watching the locals go about their everyday routines.

Lombok was a case of more souvenirs, sampling the local cuisine catching a show with local dancers and musicians that was quite spectacular.

While sailing between these destinations we kept pretty much to ourselves between meals and the entertainment. We did venture into the casino on one occasion. I fed a couple of coins into a machine and won a stack of money, which I shoved into my pockets and we left, resisting the temptation to stay and feed the whole lot back into the machine.

"Simone." I interrupted the general flow of conversation at dinner.

"Yes Gordon, what is it?"

"We had a bit of luck on the pokies (slot machines) this afternoon and thought that we should share it with you and the rest of this table. Could you arrange for champagne all round?"

"Sure thing." She signalled to a waiter. "Could we get four bottles of champagne and proper flutes, please? Not the cheap stuff either."

"Certainly Simone." He went off and returned a few minutes later with four ice buckets and a dozen champagne flutes. He and Simone proceeded to open the bottles without spilling too much.

"I would like to propose a toast." Simone stood at the head of the table. "To Gordon and Natalie, may they have a great life together. Cheers."

"Cheers." the rest of the table chorused.

"Speech." Some bastard said. This was taken up by the others at the table.

"Unaccustomed as I am to public speaking." I began. "I realise that when I first got here I was a miserable old fart, but that was before I got to know Natalie. I can honestly say that we have moved out friendship up several levels to the point that, if she'll have me, I would like to marry her."

"She'll have you." Natalie said as she stood beside me and kissed me. "There's no getting out of it now, you do realise that, don't you?"

"Where's the ring?" Simone said. "You can't do this without a ring. And I think that you should be a little more creative with your proposal, don't you?"

"Give us a break, we've only just decided on this." What they, and Natalie didn't know was that I had every intention of formalising our relationship this evening. I just needed to know that she wasn't going to say 'no'."

The dance had been going for half an hour when the music stopped and a spotlight was trained on us. The MC grabbed the microphone. "Gordon, the floor is yours."

I went down on one knee, produced a small ring box from my trouser pocket, opened it and held it in front of Natalie. "Natalie Williams, will you do me the honour of consenting to become my wife?"

She kept me waiting for fully half a second. "Yes, yes."

I stood and placed the ring on her finger. It fitted as I knew it would, I had traced one of her rings so that I got the size right when I had slipped into the jewellery shop while she was having her hair done for this evening. We kissed to the delight of the crowd and the band broke into some song or other. I didn't recognise the tune, but it seemed appropriate to the occasion.

A steady steam of people came to our table between dances to congratulate us, and offer us a drink. We had to start declining drinks, we were getting a little 'tired and emotional'.

Some bright spark (Simone?) had decided that the two single beds were no longer appropriate, and they were magically replaced by a double bed.

"Did you sleep well last night?" She asked, with a smirk on her face, as we arrived, still a little the worse for wear, at breakfast.

"Did you arrange for the change of furniture?"

"Yes. You're too old to cram into a single bed. I just thought that you should be more comfortable for the rest of the cruise."

"Thank you for that."

"If I hook up with Marjorie, can I get a double bed?" George asked.

"Dream on." Marjorie said, "What makes you think that I'd want you?"

"Way to hurt me." A crestfallen George replied.

Our next port of call was Darwin, a truly cosmopolitan city in the tropical north of Australia. Being closer to Asia that the major Australian cities, Darwin has embraced a lot of Asian influences in its culture, way of life and cuisine. Thankfully we were in the dry season and not having to swelter in the extreme humidity that the 'big wet' brings. It was warm to hot as we strolled through the food stalls in the open air market, tasting the variety of foods on offer.

Most of the buildings in Darwin are relatively new. Having withstood the ravages of being bombed by the Japanese during WWII and being almost totally flattened by Cyclone Tracy in 1974, a new city has emerged from the destruction, an almost brash city to go with the casually eclectic population. This was obvious in the peoples, a melding of the white, Europeans, indigenous Australians, Chinese and Indonesian peoples, the borders becoming blurred with each new generation.

Natalie and I discovered that we had the same tastes when it came to food, especially the tropical fruits, so much fresher than we get back in Sydney, and so much tastier. This combined with the seafood that seemed to be in endless supply, we were in food heaven and in danger of stacking on the kilos. It was almost a relief when we re-boarded the ship for the trip down the west coast.

It was back into what had become our familiar routine for the trip down the coast. The stop at Geraldton was short, just enough time to go on shore and visit the town and take in the history of that part of the world before having to return to the ship for the trip to Fremantle, or Freo as it is known to the locals.

Fremantle is the entry point into Western Australia and Perth, the administrative centre for the vast mining activities in the north of the state. It has a history dating back to the early settlement of the colony, as a penal colony, where the detritus of England was dumped. The south west of the state is relatively fertile and was, until recently grazing and cropping land. With the discovery of vast gold deposits in Kalgoorlie, the state's economy was on the rise. The discovery of iron ore, nickel and natural gas enhanced that, and became the state's major source of income. More recently the wine region around Margaret River has become an increasingly popular and important tourist destination. It was to there that we travelled in a tour coach for a day of wine tasting and food.

"Gordon, darling Gordon, I have a confession to make." The ship had just left Freemantle heading for Hobart. We were in bed, and she was snuggled against me.

Fuck, it was bullshit about her being a widow, she has a husband waiting for her back home, or at the very least a man friend. "What is it?"

"You know when I told you that my boss gave me time off, and actually encouraged me to come on this cruise?"

"Yes." Where was this heading?

"Please don't get angry. You know my boss, very well."

"Oh yes, what is his name?"

"Phillip Sinclair."

"Phillip Sinclair, my son Phillip Sinclair?"

"The one and the same. He, and his brother Peter and sister Gillian, had been concerned that you were withdrawing deeper and deeper into depression over your loss. That bit about the cruise company not being able to refund your passage was so much bullshit. As for how I came to be there, you can blame Phillip for that. It was he that suggested that I take Sylvia's place. It was he that explained the situation to the cruise line, and arranged that I should share your cabin. I think he told them that we were both too old to get into trouble."

"Huh, what do they know?" I said as I found a breast to caress.

"The plan was that I get to know you and take your mind off your loss, if I could. I was reluctant at first, but the chance of a free cruise and the opportunity to meet my boss' father was too good to miss. You're not angry, are you?"

"No. How could I be angry? Okay, I'm upset that you and my conniving children should go behind my back like this, but the outcome has been worth it." I kissed her.

"Hmm, I agree." She kissed me back. All conversation was put on hold for at least half an hour.

"I am so glad that I gave in to the pressure to come on this cruise." Natalie said to my neck.

"As am I."

"Do you remember, it seems like years ago, when I told you about my meltdown at work, and my boss deciding that I needed to get away from it, and recover from my loss?"

"Yes."

"That was only a part of the reason for my meltdown. The main reason was that one of the men that my husband had met at the gym, took it upon himself to relieve my sexual tension caused by my loss. He invited me to dinner, and during the course of the evening dropped the bombshell that my husband had cheated on me, with his wife. I was furious, how could he have done that? I thought that our marriage was strong, and I could think of no good reason that he should go behind my back with another woman. I was told by this man, Geoff, that he had gone home during his lunch break, to pick up some papers that he had left behind that morning, only to find Rob's car parked in the driveway. He snuck around the back of the house and let himself in through the patio door. He found them in bed, making love in his bed. He snuck back out and went back to work."

"Did you believe his story?"

"At the time, yes. He was convincing, I'll give him that. But then Lawyers are paid to be convincing. He told me that he confronted his wife that evening and she admitted it. She also told him that they were in love and that they were planning to live together until the divorce and then marry."

"What happened then?"

"It must have been the shock of the news, helped along by more wine than I usually drink, but, on his suggestion that both of us had drunk too much to drive home, and that we should stay in a hotel for the night, I found myself in bed with him. In the cold light of sobriety the next morning, I came to realise that I had made the biggest mistake of my entire life, I had allowed this person to have sex with me. There was no love involved, there was no physical attraction involved. It was a wine fuelled revenge fuck against my dead husband. I felt so ashamed that I couldn't think straight. That was what caused my meltdown, but I couldn't tell my boss, your son, that."

"I can appreciate that."

"What made it worse, was that I got a phone call from his wife when I got to work. She set me straight about what had happened. She and Rob had not had an affair, had never made love, that was all in the mind of her insanely and obsessively jealous husband. She had commented that Rob was a handsome man, she had met him coming from the gym with her husband, and he blew that innocent remark out of all proportion, until it became, to his thinking, a full blown affair. She also said that theirs had not been a happy marriage, a combination of his insane jealousy and lack of finesse in bed had seen to that. I didn't tell her that I had to agree with her about his lack of skill in bed. There was no love involved and his performance was technically flawed, consisting of shoving his cock into my totally unprepared pussy and pumping away until he came, thankfully in quick time. My point of comparison was Rob, and there was no comparison, Geoff was the inferior lover in every way."

I could see that the memory of this was telling on her psyche. "I was thinking." I said by way of changing the subject. "What do you say we have a bit of fun at my kids' expense?"

"What do you have in mind?"

I outlined my plan. Her face lit up as the details were discussed and the final plan formulated. This was going to be fun. It relied on the co-operation of members of the crew, contact with the authorities by way of the ship's communication centre to get the necessary paperwork under way, and slipping away from the tour group in Adelaide to sign documents.

A quiet visit to the ship's Chaplain somewhere between Melbourne and Sydney completed the formalities, all we needed now was to be able to pull it off, and this meant leaving the ship separately and waiting for the right time to spring it on the family.

We were up top as the ship sailed through the Heads and down the harbour to our birth at Circular Quay. "Well, my Darling, are you ready for this?"

"As ready as I'll ever be." Natalie kissed me as only she could, with a passion that I was looking forward to for a long time to come.

"Okay, let's do it." We went below and finished packing, being careful with the bottles that we had bought from Hart's micro distillery in Hobart. These were to be a part of the celebration that we had planned. A call to a restaurant within walking distance from the Quay finalised our immediate plans.

Peter and Julie were waiting for me as I walked through the arrivals gate. "Hi Dad, did you enjoy the trip?" He asked hopefully.

"It was okay I guess." My reply was non-committal.

"Did you meet anyone?" Julie asked.

"Oh, I met dozens of people. It was hard not to, we were allocated to a table for meals and it would have been rude of me not to acknowledge the others, wouldn't it?"

"So there was no-one special then?"

"Was there supposed to be?"

"No, not really. We just thought that you might have met someone that you liked better than the others."

"A woman you mean?"

"Yes, we were hoping that you'd meet someone that would take your mind off Mum for a while."

"Sort of like a ship-board romance? Did you honestly think that I was that heartless that I'd have it off with another woman so soon after your mother died?"

"We were thinking more along the lines of a companion."

"Where are you parked?" I needed to change the subject for a few minutes.

"We parked at the station and caught the train in."

"Good. I reserved a table at a restaurant. I needed a meal where the table doesn't move." This wasn't entirely true, apart from one day when a storm rolled through, the tables were amazingly stable. "It's just around the corner."

We trooped around the corner, Peter dragging my wheelie bag for me. While we walked I pressed the call button on my mobile phone that was hidden in my pocket. I let it ring for a few seconds, before cancelling the call.

I stalled as long as I could over ordering, until I saw her arriving. "By the way. I want you to meet someone special." They both had a puzzled look on their faces, and turned as she reached our table. "Guys, I'd like you to meet your new mother, Natalie."

"What?" They chorused.

Natalie kissed me and smiled at them. "Hello, Gordon has told me a lot about you."

"He's told us nothing about you." Peter said.

Julie went and gave her a hug. "You're that Natalie, the one that Phillip told us about?"

"Yes, I am she. His plan worked out well, better than well, perfectly. So perfectly in fact that we decided to get married. It took a little organising and persuasion with the crew, from the Captain down, but we managed it."

"By the way, Phillip knows about it, he's flying in tomorrow for our wedding reception. Now, I think that we should order, the waiter is getting tired of waiting for us."

I'll give Peter and Julie this, once they got over the shock of the news, they behaved impeccably towards Natalie. "Dad," Peter said as Julie and Natalie did that girl thing of going to the toilet together. "While we hoped that you'd meet someone who could take your mind of Mum, and Phillip had told us that Natalie would be a capable distraction, she has exceeded our modest expectations. I don't know how she did it, but we couldn't have asked for a better result."

"She did it by not trying."

"You'll have to explain that one to me."

"She never pushed herself onto me, she let the conversation flow, allowing me to divulge information in my own time, and when it was comfortable for me to tell her. I found myself liking her almost immediately and loving her not long after that."

"I know that you were supposed to take Dad's mind off his loss, and you've done that very well, but how did it get from distraction to marriage in a couple of weeks?" Julie asked Natalie as they washed their hands.

"I liked him straight away, and we just seemed to feel comfortable with each other. It was on that first night when we were on the top deck looking at the stars, and he put his coat over my shoulders and his arms around me that I knew that this was going to be more than a distraction for the both of us. That simple gesture was all it took, it was in that instant that I fell in love with him."

"How soon did you, you know?"

"Make love? That same night. We told each other that we shouldn't rush things, but the attraction was too strong, Let me tell you that I couldn't have asked for better. It has been fun being with him and planning our little surprise."

"Little surprise. Major surprise. Don't get me wrong I'm happy for you, both of you." She kissed Natalie. "What do you prefer, Mum or Natalie?"

"Either, I have no preference. Mum sounds great, but I won't tell you not to call me Natalie."

"Mum sounds great to me, as if you've always been with us."

"This wedding reception that you've planned, where is it going to be held?"

"At my place." I said, "There'll only be the immediate family, you and your kids, Phillip and his family. We plan to have a separate celebration with Natalie's family later."

"Why not invite them to this one, kill two birds with one stone so to speak. What do you think Natalie?"

"You can call her Mum, she's okay with that." Julie told him.

"I agree, you can meet my family and get to know them, while they can do the same with you. I'll make a couple of calls when we get home to our place and see what I can organise." I liked the way that she said 'our place' as if she'd lived there for years instead of just moving in.

The meal was a casual affair, the conversation floated from topic to topic with no uneasiness evident. When it was over we all caught the train to where Peter had left his car and they drove us home.

Our evening meal was from the freezer, it was something that Sylvia had stored for emergencies, and I think coming home to a house with no fresh produce on hand qualified as an emergency.

The final hurdle was approaching, bedtime. In the back of my mind I was having an affair behind Sylvia's back, cheating on her, and this was something that I would never have done while she was still alive. Could I do it now? Would there be any discomfort about me sharing the matrimonial bed that for years had been Sylvia's preserve, or would we take it in our stride as so much of our relationship had happened.

Natalie came into my arms as soon as she had slid under the bed clothes. "Are you ready for this?"

My answer to her question was to hold her to me, to kiss her lips, her face, her neck, her breasts, her nipples. She held me there with a gentle touch on my face for several minutes, while she luxuriated in the attention, before releasing me to continue my journey south. I arrived at the Promised Land and hovered around it for some time, taking short forays to the entrance before retreating to continue my teasing. "While I love this, I want you inside me soon, very soon." She grabbed my head and gently guided it north until my cock was at the entrance. Taking it in hand she placed my cock's head between her lips and pushed down on him. Any hesitation I might have had disappeared as he slid into her moist pussy. Any hesitation I might have had about sharing my bed with Natalie disappeared with her sigh on him fully penetrating her. "Stay there for a minute, I want to savour this moment. My darling, this moment is as perfect as it gets." I had to agree with her, it was every bit as good as making love to Sylvia as possible. In one way it was better, it had almost totally erased any depression I might have felt at my loss. The memories will still be there, but the knowledge that I, we, had been given a second chance at happiness made it, if anything better.