Lost Sailor

Lost Sailor

I hate people.

No, that’s not entirely true. I don’t hate people, per se. What I hate is the little games they play. You know the ones I mean. The ones where it’s, “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours. You scratch first”. Then when it’s your turn to get scratched, they’re gone in a flash.

This seems to be a realm well-populated by women. Not all women. Just the ones that I attract. Or maybe it’s the ones that are attracted to me? Whatever. It all boils down to the same thing. I give them what they want, and they give me . . . nothing.

Take Sally Johansson for instance. I gave her a roof over her head, food in her belly, clothes on her back, and all the devotion one man can shower on a woman. And what did I get in return? An empty house, an even emptier bank account, a lot of unpaid bills that I knew nothing about, and blue balls. She found herself a younger stud with more money, and the rest is history. Mind you, so is Sally, but I’m still working my ass off to clean up her mess. And my nuts still hurt a lot.

All that’s part of an explanation of why I’m sitting here on the aft deck of a 32-foot sailing sloop, by myself, on the west coast of Vancouver Island, with not a soul within a hundred miles. Well, maybe there are one or two, but I can’t see them, and they can’t see me. In my mind, they don’t really count.

Take last night, for instance. I was looking forward to dropping anchor in a small cove I frequent, about eighty miles north of the last marine outpost of any consequence. Usually I have the cove all to myself. No people, no noise, no disappointments in the morning. Just me and Mother Nature. If I wanted to stay up late and get drunk, no problem. If I wanted to just sit around naked, playing with myself, that was fine. Whatever I had in mind was what I’d do without having to answer to anyone or anything. No phones, no TV, no internet, nothing. Just me, by myself, at one with the rest of the Universe. In the isolation, I could sit back with whatever there was for liquid comfort and feel sorry for myself.

So it was with an undefined degree of disappointment that I found there was another boat already riding at anchor in my little secret cove. How dare they! Invading my space and making me feel guilty about my own selfishness. The nerve of some people!

In this particular cove, there aren’t a lot of safe anchorages. At high tide, it’s a fairly large expanse of water, but when the tide goes out, all the rocks that have a habit of punching holes in a fibreglass hull sit just below the surface, waiting patiently for their next victim. That other boat was sitting smack dab in the middle of the best anchorage in the whole cove, making my goal of isolation ever tougher to achieve. But I’ve been in that cove so many times that I can pinpoint exactly where I can and can’t anchor. Within six inches, and with my eyes closed, too. There have been several occasions when I’ve found shelter in this cove from a particularly strong storm, living proof that Mother nature is definitely female, and suffers from PMS.

When I got to one of the few safe anchorage places, I heaved the Danforth overboard and let it drag until it found a secure hold, then set the sea anchor off the stern. It sounds complicated, but I can do the whole operation in less than ten minutes. Something about having had lots of practise over the years, I guess.

Once I got the sails furled, I spent the next half hour settling in, getting something to eat and digging out the first of what would probably be many cold beers. These were the good ones. Imported. Two would give me a decent buzz on my way to daily oblivion. I had a couple dozen on board, just in case my math was its usual crappy self. The food was only to keep me from getting sick as a dog after I’d over-indulged. You’d think I’d have learned by now that the food always comes back up first.

It was quiet. Just the wind rustling in the trees onshore and the lapping of waves against the hull. This was what I had been looking for all week. Peace, quiet, and a chance to commiserate. But the silence was broken by the greetings of a female voice.

“Hello,” she called, “can I come over?”

Somehow, the word ‘No’ evaporated from my vocabulary. There was something soft and appealing in that voice. Despite a feeling that I knew so well, the one that tells me to shut the fuck up and run or hide, I invited her over anyway. You’d think that after twenty years of involuntary bachelorhood, I’d have learned.

You’d be wrong.

She rowed over in a punt-nosed skiff and tied off at the stern. I helped her climb aboard, noting that she was probably just a couple of years younger than myself, and those years had been kind to her. Maybe it was the exercise of sailing that had kept her fit and trim. Maybe it was all the men she’d fucked over the years. Maybe it was a case of “Check all the above”. At the time, I really didn’t care. She was definitely eye candy for a lonely old gypsy sailor like me.

As she climbed over the stern, I could see that her striped crew-neck shirt was all that stood between me and her breasts. They weren’t huge, but they sure were firm looking. Her pert little nipples gave away the fact that she wasn’t wearing a bra as they poked into the fabric and left definite outlines. Those breasts looked to be just enough to fill a hand, with maybe a little extra, just to make sure. The horizontal stripes of her shirt only accentuated her chest. She wore a pair of denim cutoffs that might just as well have been spray painted on. And those legs! They started at her ankles and went up to God knows where! I almost had to wipe the slobber off my chin!

“Hi. I’m Brandy. Brandy Bendall.” she introduced herself. The muscles in my jaw had ceased to function as I babbled incoherently, lost somewhere between civility and rampant lust.

“H-h-h-h,” I started, “hi. I’m Jerry. Jerry Wallace. Welcome aboard the . . . .“ Shit, I’d have to go look at the name of my boat painted on the bow! What a hell of a time to suffer from Alzheimer’s! She giggled a little, very definitely aware of the effect she was having on my oversexed and under-supplied person. She had the bluest eyes I could remember, and in that moment, they gobbled me up and spat me out. And I didn’t give a shit about anything else! I would have happily committed harikari for the chance to die in those eyes!

“Relax, Jerry. I don’t bite, ya know.” she crooned. “I was just trying to be neighbourly, and I could use some company tonight. Usually I’m quite happy being by myself, but tonight, for some reason, I wanted some company. But, if you’d rather be alone . . . .”

“No, not really.” A part of me wanted to throw her overboard and let her drown.