The Heart of the Sea

Then something happened that broke the shutters, demolished the barriers and abandoned the safeguards. The wolf was released. Betsy had been wrangling with the sun-cream tube until it had splurted pale goo across her face and chest. Her grandfather's mental imagery had shocked sideways into a cinematic vision of his dick, hard and fat and thick, rubbing on her pretty face. Betsy's happy, greedy mouth had taken it in, sucking hard, urging him to feed her the volcanic nectar until he fountained his own pale gloop into her mouth, over her face, dribbling down to her naked breasts. She opened her spunk-sodden lips and asked, "Do you want some? I have too much!"

"Uh. What?"

Betsy was holding out her hands smeared in the semen-like cream, "Too much came out. Here, take some."

She took his hands and wiped the goo from her fingers on to his. Automatically he spread the cream on his forehead, nose and the back of his neck.

She asked, "You okay?"

"Ur, yeah. Just, um, I'll get us some cold drinks. It's pretty fuckin' hot, ain't it?"

He walked down into the boat's cool interior. Once out of sight in the kitchen, he unbuttoned his jeans, pulled out his stiff prick and slowly wanked himself calm again, 'What the fuck's got into you, man? Jesus fuckin' christ, control yourself!'

He opened the fridge, grabbed a bottle of beer, opened it and downed it in one long, spluttering glug, Holy guacamole, you need to get yourself laid, boy. You're goin' crazy! You better get some snatch 'fore you lose it and do somethin' stupid.'

Later, after they had both emptied a few beer bottles, they were lounging in the bronze rays of the setting sun. A few vessels had passed near-by, planes had scarred the cloudless sky with criss-cross vapour trails. She snuggled closer and rested her head on his shoulder, "Sorry I poked my nose in earlier, asking about you and Gran. S'none of my beeswax."

"You caught me off-guard, that's for sure. But it was a fair question. You know, you keep your head down, you work hard. You pay your debts, you buy your home, raise your kids. Somewhere along the way you forget. Forget the... frivolity, the spontaneous acts of love and romance that brought you together. You look up and thirty years have sailed by. Comes to a point, you figure you've done enough, you know? Given enough. You feel you've earned the right to have some fun with the time you have left."

Betsy chinked her bottle on his, "True dat."

"Caitriona, she wanted a social life again. Parties, friends, goin' out to dinner, concerts, theatre. She wanted some fun. She was entitled after givin' herself to her family for so long. She had a few affairs."

"Aw, shit, I'm sorry, Grandpa. That must've been tough. I've been cheated on too. It feels awful."

"Let's not call it that. I mean, I wasn't unbruised, no, but she just wanted some excitement. Then she fell in love with a guy. And I just thought it better to step out the way, you know?"

"Grandpa..."

"I only ever wanted to make her happy. If she was gunna be happy with someone else then, of course, I wouldn't ruin that. I never fell out of love with her, Betsy. I'll love her till the day I die."

She gazed at him in the amber sunset, she thought he looked so handsome and noble, "I wish someone would love me like that."

"Aw, hell, I bet a whole bunch of guys have fallen for you but you didn't even notice."

"Julien, you're a true gentleman."

"After all that, I'd had enough of people. I just wanted to be by myself, on my boat."

"You swapped one Caitriona for another Caitriona."

He chuckled, "Yeah, I guess I did."

"I gotta take a whizz," Betsy stood up, wobbled unsteadily then fell upon her grandfather, squishing her breasts into his face. He grappled her back on to her feet.

"That was the boat rocking," she declared, "'Cause this bitch can handle her beer!"

He watched her as she very carefully walked down the steps into the boat's dark interior, 'Goddamnit those fuckin' jeans look good on her tight ass!'

He took a drink then leaned back with his eyes closed. Betsy was before him, peeling down her skin-tight black jeans to reveal a flawless, round bottom decorated snugly by a pair of silk pink panties. She reached behind her and pulled them to one side and purred, 'Don'tcha wanna slide up in here, Grandpa?' He stood behind her. He pushed her jeans down to her ankles then he pushed down her panties and groped her soft, warm bumcheeks. He bent down and kissed her sticky asshole. His dick was stone hard and weighed a tonne. It needed to be driven inside her. 'Put it up my ass, Grandpa, this bitch needs it.' He spread her cheeks apart, the head of his cock nudged at her opening, she grunted in response, he poked forwards, the pressure opening her, she gasped, the head popped in, he followed and slid deep as she moaned like a wounded deer-

"You asleep there?"

He opened his eyes and Betsy was opening another beer and leaning back against the gunwale, which was another word she kept saying wrong to bug him playfully. His throat was dry, he glugged down the rest of his drink. He looked down at his crotch but his throbbing member was safely contained within his jeans. The bulge was prominently conspicuous so he sat up and let his shirt-tails fall across his lap. She stood silhouetted against a burning gilt semi-circle as it sizzled into the surface of the sea. He appreciated the curvature of her boobs that had only minutes earlier been pressed against his face.

"You know? I gotta say, and I don't mean to embarrass you, but you are a spectacular woman and any man who would cheat on you is a fuckin' idiot."

"I guess it was sort of my fault-"

"Don't rationalise it like that, he was just a fuckin' dickhead."

She chuckled, "What I mean is... I have never been truly in love. I've had crushes and I've liked certain people a whole lot but not... deeply. Do you know what I mean? Maybe they sensed me being uncommitted, unengaged. Distant. And the sex was never... no guy ever rang all my bells."

She sat back down next to him and confided, "I used to do something horrible."

"Oh yeah?"

"I would think about other men, while we were... you know?"

"Ain't no harm in that. Unless you tell him," he laughed, "We all have fantasies."

"It felt dishonest."

"Aw, Betsy, that just shows what a good person you are."

He waited a minute before he asked, "Who'd you fantasise about?"

She blushed and turned away, "Just guys I knew. Older men. The dads of my friends. Once, it was my boyfriend's dad."

"So you have a hankerin' for the more mature gent, do you?"

She chuckled as he adjusted an imaginary neck-tie and waggled his eyebrows.

"I'm afraid there will always be a barrier between us, Grandpa."

"Dang."

She took a swig from her bottle.

He said, "Would it help if I said your mother was adopted? And that we're not biologically related at all?"

She choked and sat up straight, clutching his arm, "Shut the fuck up! That's not true!?"

He held a poker face for as long as he could then broke into a wide grin, "Nah, s'not true. But would it have helped?"

Betsy bent over laughing. She laughed so hard that she sneezed beer bubbles. She laughed loud and long until her breath left her.

He chortled along, "That's the first time I've seen you laugh since you got here."

She wiped her mouth then kissed his cheek, "Genuinely, this is the best time I've had in a long time."

"You don't know how glad that makes me," he slapped his thigh and stood up, "Whew, I'm pretty buzzed. I'd better make some dinner or I'll end up crashin' the boat."

"Crash it into what? There's nothing out here!"

"Oh, I don't know," he said as he descended the steps, "A passin' dolphin?"

"Oooh, I'd love to see a dolphin!"

She stood up and leaned on the gunwale, calling drunkenly to the wine-dark ocean, "Hellloooo little dolphins, heelooooo! Come and say hello to me. Hellooooo!"

*******

She fell in love with Corsica. They would anchor off a picturesque stretch of coast and spend days swimming, lounging, reading, chatting about nothing in particular and then sail on to another luscious spot. The coast looked elemental, untouched, timeless. Betsy half believed that at any moment a pirate galleon would come cruising around the bend. She and her grandfather would take the dinghy to a small beach-front town and he'd gather supplies while she wandered around and shopped for interesting clothes and jewellery. Real life seemed a million miles away. At first, she was confused by the language, "All the signs are in French but they speak a weird, rapid Italian."

He put his finger to his lips, "Never say that! They speak Corsican. If they hear you sayin' that you'll be sat down for a two hour lecture on the horrors of the Corsican fight for independence against their evil oppressors."

She laughed but he wagged his finger, "I mean it. Trust me, it'll happen."

"Noted."

Gradually Betsy felt her old self blossom. The youthful firebrand she had repressed to create a grey mimicry of herself, one that smiled at work with people she hated, smiled at her boss' jokes about handjobs, smiled at neighbours that annoyed her, smiled at a landlord who refused to fix the plumbing. Her smiles here were not forced, not coerced, not fake. Here she didn't have to try. She just was.

Her grandfather watched her petals unfurl. One day she came back with her nose pierced, the next day she had blue streaks in her hair. Her hair was never tied back anymore, it flew wild and salt-infused as nature intended. She swam so much that she needed more swimsuits than she'd packed, "But the stores in town only sold skimpy bikinis. They're basically small triangular flags on a string!"

Her grandfather kept his voice level, "So you didn't buy one?"

"Oh, no, I had to. I bought three pairs. Can't keep wearing the same swimsuit every day."

And so he was rewarded with the sight of a voraciously plump, large-breasted, nearly-naked twenty-something sauntering around his yacht on a daily basis. He was discreet, though, and was attendant on his creepy, lascivious leering behind a pair of sunglasses and under the tipped down brim of his sun-hat. He relished the unrestricted views of her incredibly gropeable ass when her back was turned. On just such a day, Betsy had just pulled herself up the ladder from swimming in the crystal turquoise ocean. She padded over to where he was reading a thriller, wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him, "I'm having the best time, Grandpa. I do my best non-thinking in the sea. I think about zero problems. No one's bugging me or pestering me or whatever. It's, it's... I'm so grateful."

She kissed him again and stepped back then she laughed, "My tits made you all wet."

"I ain't complainin'"

She gave him a weird look then she grinned and punched him on the arm, "The restaurant tonight, is it a dress down or dress up place?"

"It's relaxed but playful. Wear something you can dance in."

She emerged a while later in a tight dress of thin material which majestically displayed all her gravity-defying contours. Around her shoulders was a woollen shawl, "What do you think?"

Her grandfather was blinking away various lewd imagery from his mind, he cleared his throat, "What do I think? Of?"

"The shawl? I bought it today."

"It's very nice. Suits you. You know, it can get a little cold on the island at night, so maybe... Do you have any stockings?"

"I have pantyhose."

"Sure. Or pantyhose. You don't have stockings? No, okay."

She stepped back down into the boat and he adjusted his flagrant erection, taking the opportunity to molest himself to thoughts of Betsy pushed up against a wall in an alley-way, that stretchy dress pulled down with her perky boobs bouncing, her stockinged legs wide apart while he thrust manically up into her tight, hot cunt. She never used his name in these brief flashes of filth, she always called him Grandpa, 'You fuckin' horny little slut.'

"Grandpa, that's not fair."

"Erm, um, what?"

He pretended to have been innocently waiting, "What's wrong?"

"I make all this effort and all you ever do is change your damn shirt."

"No one will care if you wear a tee-shirt and jeans."

"Nah, I actually like dressing nice for a change. I have no excuse at home, no one to dress up for."

"Well, I am proud to offer you a reason to look so breath-takingly glamorous."

"Aw, shuddup, Grandpa."

As they climbed down on to the dinghy, he made a show of decently avoiding looking up her very short dress. A secret peek however, revealed to him that under the taut black nylon crotch of her pantyhose was her furry slit. Lecherous thoughts of her pantie-less pussy bedevilled him all the journey to the restaurant.

It was a buggy, lifeless 'manghjatu' although every seat was taken. She wondered why there were so many customers. He'd been taking her to such lovely places, often the locals would know him by name and welcome him with open arms. She stirred the greasy mess on her plate with a fork, "The food's not great, Grandpa. Why'd you like coming here?"

"You're about to find out," he said, looking over her shoulder.

She turned in her chair to see a tall man in a shabby suit carrying a double-bass on to the stage at the back of the room. An aged man sat down at the piano and lifted the lid off the keys then a woman in her early fifties, wearing a spangly dress a couple of sizes too small to cope with her middle-age-spread, tottered up on stage in stiletto heels. Betsy shot her grandfather a look that suggested that this did not look promising but he just nodded sagely.

The piano chords stabbed swing jazz, the bassist plucked and the woman launched into a lush, lazy croon. Every customer was instantly up on their feet, dancing between the tables. Staff came out of the kitchen to carry tables and chairs out of the way. The music was effortless and inviting. Her grandfather was standing with his hand outstretched, beckoning her to join him. For a second, the grey, buttoned-down Elizabeth was about to refuse but then the new and improved Betsy took his hand. She jumped up and they swayed alongside the other dancers.

The singer's voice sometimes lulled and accentuated, sometimes provoked then retreated. The dancing crowd would join in with certain lines of the choruses. Her grandfather would hold her hand, with his other arm around her waist, for a minute then release her, momentary intimate clinches that she observed all around the room.

After three lively songs, a handsome young man with a violin joined the band. The bassist plucked sombre notes and her grandfather gathered Betsy to him. She noticed all the other dancers were now couples, even a mother and her young son had embraced. The violin sounded so sad and when the singer began, it was sensual sorrow personified. Betsy had her arms around her grandfather, he was respectfully slow-dancing at an appropriate distance.

"I'd love to know what she's singing," Betsy whispered.

He leaned in closer, "Respiru nantu à a mo pelle."

"But what's it mean?"

He spoke next to her ear, translating the lady's lament, "Breathe, just breathe. Your breath is on my skin. We cannot touch, you cannot hold me but when we dance, your breath is on my skin. In my dreams, your breath, your breath is on my skin."

Betsy gulped, 'Kiss me. What? Wait! What? He's your grandfather. What are you thinking?! This Corsican vinu russu is heady stuff! God, I hope they play a quicker song soon!'

She found it difficult to drop off to sleep that night. The air was sultry and she writhed on her bed, naked and clammy. She was curious about why he'd suggested wearing pantyhose when the weather was so stifling. She gave up on the idea of sleep. She had left her novel on the seat on the deck, so she dragged on a pair of jeans shorts and tippy-toed out of her room. As she passed the guest bedroom (her gallant grandfather had taken it even though she was the guest) she heard an unmistakable sound. Living with many brothers had enabled her to recognise the sound of violent masturbating. An unknown compulsion caused her to pause and linger and listen. She heard his voice, "Take it, you fuckin' dirty whore, you fuckin' skanky sexy little bitch! Suck it, yeah, like that, I'm goin' to, ahhhhhh."

Her nipples were hard as nails. She had no breath. Her lips were moist. In her mind she had felt the hard cock in her mouth. She had felt the urgent, twitching explosion. She had tasted the shots of warm spunk on her tongue. The crotch of her cut-off jeans were damp. Her stomach flipped. She scooched back to her room, closed the door and lay on the bed. She squeezed her pussy through the denim as realisation crashed over her like a wave, 'Holy fucking christonabike, I totally am getting a crush on my grandpa!'

*******

She awoke in a fug. The shower failed to clear her head. She had slept fitfully and had had many tense, baffling dreams. The tension remained in her neck and shoulders. She hesitated before dressing, feeling a disquiet that made her revert back to a concealing one-piece swimsuit rather than a playboy bunny bikini. She had been using one of her grandfather's large shirts as a kimono; she wrapped this around her, donned her shades and walked up on to the deck. She looked around but he wasn't there. She noticed a pile of his clothes, a shirt, jeans, socks and sneakers. She looked out to sea and found him, swimming at a distance with long, powerful strokes.

She was computing all the thousands of thoughts rushing through her mind but she was gradually settling on the fact that the red wine and romantic siren songs had done a number on her imagination. She watched her grandfather swim and shook her head, 'Silly, silly girl. You love the old coot, that's all. You've never felt this close to a man before. He is very charming but, no, not that way. Amore stupidu.'

Unthinkingly, she picked up his jeans. He seemed to have only one pair. She must buy him some, as a gift. She could see the permanent bulge dented the salt-stiffened denim, the shape left by his manhood. Her fingertips followed its length then curled around the tip. Instinctually, she raised the jeans to her face and inhaled his private scent. Sweat, his cologne and the sea. She lifted them further and pressed her nose inside, to the bulge. She breathed him in with her eyes closed then panicked and threw them down, 'The fuck are you doing!? Fucking weirdo! You want to get caught sniffing his crotch like a fucking puppy dog?? What's wrong with you?'

She ruffled her hair and looked out to sea. Her grandfather was returning. He performed a dive and the flash of bare buttocks told her he was skinny-dipping, 'What? What?!'

Her thoughts jumbled. She looked around the boat. Should she flee? Go back down and let him dress. But she was curious. Undeniably, she was curious. 'Jeez-louise, what's going on!? He's your grandfather! Mom's dad!!'

She sat down and tried five different versions of nonchalance. She was actually whistling when he pulled himself up the ladder and stepped on to the deck. His muscular body was toned and tight. His chest hair was white but it darkened in an ombré fade down his belly to black pubes. Despite the coldness of the morning sea, he was packing. Behind her shades, Betsy's eyes were wide with appreciation.

"Oh, shit, sorry," he said, cupping his genitals, "I didn't think you'd be up yet."

"You don't often go swimming."

"Yeah, well, s'already el scorchio out here today. I needed to clear my head. That fuckin' wine last night!"

He picked up his jeans. Betsy crossed her legs and felt unexpected surges of desire. He turned around to put them on, "Plus, we're going to dock in Bonifacio and then we'll be headin' off to the Adriatic for the anniversary party. And you don't want to be swimmin' there."