Island Retreat 3: Part 1

Here we go! 

Marla’s dress was light and soft against her skin. The sea air tugged at it, whipped it around her legs, but the act was not one of violence. It was a caress, a soft pull toward the future ahead. Spray erupted at the bow while the private charter bounced up and down on the waves.

“Might want to take a seat, missy,” their capain warned. His skin was stained dark by countless days on the sea, his face peppered by a short, untrimmed beard. A scar ran along the left side of his face like an actual pirate, though he had no drawl. It was only a soft Spanish lilt that Marla quite liked. His voice was mor emusical than his worn features might suggest.

“I like watching the water.”

“It calls. I knew a man who watched so long, one day he walked off the end of the boat and down into the water. Never saw him again.”

“Maybe it was a mermaid,” James offered, climbing into the cabin with Maggie on his heels. The two students were the reason for the journey. Their focus was more on their budding romance than the task at hand, Marla mused.

“No mermaids,” the captain said. He sounded disappointed.

“Have you ever seen anything strange out here?” Maggie asked.

She had James’s hand in hers. Marla tried not to notice too much. It was best that her eyes linger only a moment on the tawny blonde.

“Plenty strange, but never a mermaid, my dear,” the captain crooned. “And best you all stay off the bridge. We’re coming on some dangerous water. Reefs under the surface, hard to spot but they can take a bite out of the hull if we’re not careful.”

“Good advice. Come along, young learners.”

Marla shooed them back to the stern, a wide deck where bench seats lined the sides and ghear was stored. It was also where they took their meals on makeshift tables when the weather and waves allowed. And more than once Marla caught Maggie and James there at night with a waxing moon to light them, doing that perilous and hungry dance of young lust. Hand slipped into waistbands and under shirts, but Marla still entertained the notion that her college beauty was a virgin. While it was unethical for a professor to date a student, it was impossible for Marla not to admire the girl. She possessed an athletic body and generous curves. It was no wonder that she saved herself for an All-American boy like James. He was on the short side, but no shorter than Maggie,w ith a peaked nose and scruffy cheeks, stylish unlike the scrub on the captain’s face. He, too, was well-built, and ran track when he wasn’t pursuing Maggie or his studies.

“We’re only a day out,” Marla old them. “Enjoy the ocean tonight. We’ll be on St. Chris’s for two weeks with nothing but dried food and peanuts.”

“I can’t wait,” Maggie said. She had a perfect smile, lots of white teeth and a way of craning her neck to smile when she was filled with joy. Again, marla pulled her gaze away from the girl hanging on James’s shoulder. “I feel like Darwin at the Galapagos.”

“Same. It’ll be fascinating to see a closed ecosystem. Maybe we’ll even find something new. We’ll call it Maggius Jamesus,” the boy teased.

“I don’t care if we find anything. I just want to get home in one piece,” said the final member of their quartet. Selma Perez was climbing out of the lower cabin, looking no better than she had when the voyage began. Seat travel did not suit her, and she remained green around the gills since they set sail.

“I hope you feel better soon, Ms. Perez.”

“She’ll be fine. Maybe you two should enjoy the ocean while you can. We should be there soon.”

It didn’t take a careful observer to see the way Marla’s eyes lingered on Maggie. And Selma Perez was a very careful observer, despite her seasickness. When Marla’s eyes tore away from the pretty blonde, Selma’s stare awaited.

“It is a shame you feel bad. You don’t look well. Usually you’re so put together, but since we got on the boat…” Marla trailed off, allowing the sour expression to finish the sentence for her.

“Well enough to keep ane ye on the kids. You never know when you might find a predator. Or where.”

Marla enjoyed sparring with the chaperone, a biology professor in her own right. Despite the scientific background, she was a moralist of the first degree. Maybe it was the Catholic background, considering her Hispanic roots, or maybe she came to the bible-thumping on her own. Regardless of its origin, it was a real waste. Selma was thick in all the right places, naturally caramel skin and dark hair that ran in waves down her back and over her shoulders. Her lips were maddeningly full. And she had a nice rump and full tits that would have been a great deal of fun to experience first hand… or considering Perez’s cup size, maybe hands… but the professor was too prim and reserved for a sapphic romp. She might not care for men much either. Marla had never seen her with one, at least.

“Just wait until we land, Selma. Maybe we can pick this up over a drink.”

“You know I don’t-“

“We need to stop.”

The captain appeared from nowhere, a great big leathery ghost.

“What?” Selma asked. If she had pearls, she might have clutched them. “Why?”

“The reef’s taken a bite out fo the hull. We won’t sink, at least not anythime soon, but we’ll need to make repairs before we head into the deep waters on the way to your science experiment.”

“Evolutionary research,” Selma interjected.

The captain grunted. “As you say. There’s an island close by. We can dock there and we shouldn’t be more than a day.”

“I didn’t feel anything,” Marla said.

“Just a graze, but long enough that it rip wider. Then we’d be up to our ankles and you and your college kids would be bailing us out with buckets.”

Selma wrinkled her nose. She hated a trip disrupted like this. Or any disruption that deviated from expectation.

“How long will we be at this other place?”

“No more’n a day or two,” he told Selma. Then, to Marla, “There’s a house there. Might be good for you and yours to have. A hot meal.”

“I could stand that,” Marla said.

Selma tried to hold a look of disdain, but the idea of getting off the boat for a while suited her just fine. The real trick would be getting her back on once the nausea passed.

The approach to the island was rough. The bow rose and fell and the ship listed hard to starboard before righting itself. If the island welcomed visitors, it made them work for theior passage. Selma looked like she might toss herself overboard rather than endure much more of the aquatic roller coaster. And then, finally, the dock was in view. A long ladder of planks jutting out from a shallow harbor. There was no boathouse, no other humans to greet them.

The captain spun the wheel to thread the boat from the choppy waters to the relative calm of the harbor. The engine chugged and coughed until the old salt had the boat edging against the dock, the bang of wood on the hull sending shockwaves through each of the passengers.

Marla sat at the stern, looking at the horizon where the water met the land while the rest crowded around the port side where the captain unfolded a ladder to assist the passengers onto the dock. Only when she heard Maggie’s high laughter and Selma’s overserious warnings did Marla stir. Her dress was loose and blew around her legs while she climbed the ladder.

“The house is somewhere down that trail,” the captain said, nodding to a dirt path cut into the side of a verdant hill. The beachw as rocky and angry, and any dreams Maggie and James might have had to sunbathe and splash in the surf were banished quickly.

“I think we’ll wait here,” Selma said.

“Suit yourself,” the old man grumbled. He piled back onto the boat with a gait that looked more at ease on the sea than on the land. Marla stretched, her hands at the small of her back, while she looked up at the sky. Only a thin swipe of clouds decorated the blue.

“Are you sure you don’t want to go check out this house?” James asked Selma. “Is it some sort of resort?”

“I don’t care what it is. It’s not on our itinerary, and I don’t trust this old man to wait if he gets the boat fixed and we’re off at some dinner. He might just decide he’s been paid enough and go home without us.”

“Oh, he wouldn’t do that,” Marla countered. “We haven’t paid him at all yet.”

Selma grunted. “I need to excuse myself a moment. It’s been too long since I’ve been on land and I’m feeling a little queasy.”

Marla admired how the soft accent that seasoned Selam’s words made her sound adorable even when she was frustrated.

“We’ll wait here for you,” Marla assured her.

“I’m only going up over the edge of the hill.”

“Or do it right there on the beach. Give these kids a real education.”

James and Maggie stifled their laughter. Slema fumed, spinning dramatically and marching up the dirt path until she crested it and slowly disappeared in her descent down the other side.

“She is in a real mood,” James noted.

“And she is being a total stick in the mud. Why don’t you and Maggie do some exploring?”

James looked at Maggie. She had a look of concern, generating a little cleft between her borws. With her face set and her nose upturned in that delightful way Marla considered infinitely cute, she was the picture of blonde coed trying to decide whether or not to do something taboo.

Marla interjected. “There is no way this guy is going to take off without us. And what is Selam going to do? Ground you? You’re adults for God’s sake. Go. Explore. Have fun. Who knows what you might find? Or maybe you’ll just find a quiet corner. Either way, enjoy yourselves.”