"Her submissive desires" - читать интересную книгу автора (Zo Bo)

CHAPTER EIGHT

Steve Lark was a man of many talents, unfortunately keening his wife happy wasn't one of them. He did manage to captivate his lovely young daughter though, and as a result of her great love for her father, his life lacked very little in the way of creature comforts.

Stephen Lark had been an excellent athlete in high school and thus won many scholarships and financial assistance during his academic years. He played in the popular sports and was considered professionally competent to go on to the really big money and more intense pressure. Sometime during his senior year though, he became interested in college because of its academic advantages, and as a result of this change of values, he ignored the pro offers and went on to get a Master's Degree in education. After finishing his education he was immediately hired by one of the up and coming colleges in the Ivy League, and for the next ten years he was quite happy to teach and submerge himself in the academic environment.

During his second year at the college be met, courted, and wed a lovely girl who was a product of the academic world. Christine was knowledgeable, poised, and very prim and proper. His admiration for her good qualities didn't cloud his appreciation of her lovely figure and frothy beauty. Their lovemaking was practically null before the wedding, but afterward they shared each other's bodies with wild abandonment, and he delightfully discovered that beneath that poised facade there beat the heart of a true harlot. They were good for each other, and the results of their passion bore fruit three years later. It was unfortunate that at the news she was pregnant, Christine began to change in small ways. They were chalked up as eccentricities belonging only to those special women who carried new lives deep in their bellies.

When the baby was born, people naturally assumed that. Big Stephen Lark, All American, would produce a son, but alas the baby was a girl. Christine immediately sheltered the child from her robust father, and Sandra Christina was installed in the Lark household.

While it was true that Steve had entertained visions of teaching his son how to kick a football, or laying down a perfect bunt he quickly got over his disappointment when he looked at the beautiful little blonde, blue-eyed baby that lay in his strong arms. Sandra, or Sandy as he called her, was a captivating child, and from the day she was brought home, she tended to favor her father's attention instead of her mother's. This brought some pained remarks from her mother from time to time over the next few years.

By the time Sandy was walking, she was her daddy's shadow. He took her everywhere he went. As she grew, she preferred doing things with bin, rather than the more ladylike activities that her mother often forced on her. She wasn't a Tom Boy, but at the same time, she simply preferred to be with her father. He had completely forgotten about the possibilities of a son by now, as Christine had informed him that she didn't care to go through the agonies of all that bother again, simply to satisfy his ego. It didn't bother him greatly, and he settled down to simply loving his daughter with all the affection in his large body.

He and Christine stopped sharing many mutual interests as she submerged herself in the political life that abounded on the campus and in the homes of the other professors. They finally stopped sharing the same bed, too. It came a blow to Steve because he was hoping that Christine would rediscover the passion she once possessed, but for some unknown reason it was never to return.

He tried a few discreet affairs but found them not only uncomfortable, but undignified as well. Sneaking around on a small college campus was not the easiest thing in the world to try, so he quit them after a few months. He cast around for a way to satisfy the cravings in his heart and body, and after discarding liquor and drugs, he suddenly discovered an untapped talent he was unaware of. He began to write. As a young man he'd traveled during the summers, and he'd always enjoyed writing down what he'd seen and how he was effected by the people and places he'd stayed in. At the urging of an English Professor, he submitted one of his manuscripts and surprisingly it was encouragingly received. He again wrote from memory and again it was snapped up. By this time he had gained some small amount of fame at the college, and Christine was warming to him again while basking in this glory. During the summer following his second sale, he traveled with his family and by September he had enough material for two more books, which he wrote the following fall and winter, and which were again sold, this time at a substantial price.

Steve realized that he had at last found something to take up the slack that he found in his life. He didn't mind that Christine wasn't sleeping with him as he stayed up late most nights anyway. His need for sex, when the demand became too bothersome, was usually satisfied by a weekend away from home, gathering more information or visiting with his publisher. If Christine doubted his excuses for these weekends, she never made a point of it.

The following summer he was invited to go to Europe by a wealthy family whose child attended one of his courses. He decided to accept the invitation, and so in June, the whole family flew to France. Christine was in her glory, both before the trip and then during the whole summer in Europe. While Steve was busily obtaining material, he met some lovely people, and one of these individuals asked that he sail back to the States aboard his three-masted schooner. Steve snapped at the chance, but Christine had her doubts.

The lovely forty-eight footer left in mid August and finally sailed into Cape Cod in mid September. Steve had discovered a whole new world, but Christine had discovered another part of his life that she never intended to share with him again. Sandy had enjoyed the entire summer, regardless of what her parents did, just so long as she was within sight of her father. She had proven to be a much better sailor than her mother had, and she told her father that the wanted him to buy a boat for them so they could sail all the time.

The summer resulted in two more books and the result of the last book was a brand new fifty-foot, three-masted schooner that Steve bought. Christine flew into a rage and didn't cool down for a month. Finally, when Steve told her she could stay home if she liked, she took him up on it and did just that.

The next summer found Steve and Sandy aboard the Happy Gal, sailing this time for South America and around the tip and into the South Pacific. Sandy had been able to contribute to the boat's name, and she was fast becoming very possessive of her new toy. She seemed happy to be away from her mother and never mentioned her to Steve. Steve seldom thought of Christine, and in fact was hardly troubled when a letter reached him in Bali that had been waiting for him for a week. It was from Christine, and she was informing him that she and a minor diplomatic officer from a delegation they had visited the previous summer, had again found each other's company more pleasing than anything they had previously experienced. She very casually told Steve that her lawyer would be sending him the necessary papers, and that it was perfectly all right with her if Steve wanted full custody of Sandy. Christine also added that she considered all of the furnishings and what funds currently in the bank to be hers by right.

She closed by asking him to say hello to Sandy for her. Steve balled the scented note paper up and threw it forcefully into the nearest gutter he passed. His anger was not for the fact Christine had become involved with another man or that she was so casual about disposing of her marriage after ten years, but the off-handed manner with which she treated Sandy sent him into a rage.

Going back aboard the boat he found that Sandy and Jerry, the college boy he'd signed on as crew, were down on the beach. He quickly poured himself a large drink and sat down to consider his life. When Sandy and the college boy crewman returned, they found him asleep in the canvas chair, with an empty bottle lying at his feet.

That had been a major turning point in the lives of both Stephen and Sandy. The next morning Steve took Sandy aside and asked her if she'd like to live on the boat all the time. He explained that her mother had gone away to live somewhere else and that they wouldn't be seeing her again. Steve also told Sandy that, unless she really wanted to go back to her school, from now on he would teach her while they lived aboard the boat all the time.

Sandy's face was puzzled for a few minutes trying to comprehend her mother's strange conduct, but then she seemed to have arranged things to her satisfaction, and she smiled at her father.

"Daddy. I love you. Let's just stay on the boat and I'll be your wife. I can fix your food and wash clothes in a bucket and do everything."

Steve smiled at the beautiful little eleven-year-old child and thought to himself, Well, you can't do everything, darling.

Thus started a new life for the both of them. In late August, Jerry took off for the States, and Steve cast around for a new crew member. He decided never to go back to the East, and to simply have some of his personal papers and items sent to general delivery in San Francisco. After that decision he felt free and clean inside at last. He wrote his publisher and informed him of his new marital status, and as soon as he received Christine's lawyer's letter, he signed the papers and in thirty days he was no longer married.

Steve made inquiries around the yacht club where he was moored about a possible hand to help him sail to California. He was introduced to several people who said they'd make the trip, but to his discerning eye they all showed faults that he didn't want to have to put up with for a month's sail. Finally, during the middle of September, Steve was seriously considering flying back to the States and leaving the boat until he could find someone who would be satisfactory. One night as he and Sandy were eating their dinner on the aft deck and enjoying the beautiful early evening sea breeze, a figure was seen walking down the long dock in their general direction. When the figure came under a light, Steve saw it was a middle-aged woman, in levis, sweat shirt, and windbreaker jacket. She was wearing a bedraggled pair of sneakers and a battered baseball cap covered most of her hair. When she stopped at his boat he saw that she was smiling brightly down into the boat at them.

"Hi there. Are you Mr. Lark? I was told I could find you down here and that you were still looking for a hand to help you sail her back to the States. Mind if I come aboard?"

Steve was sure she was going to ask him for the job, and he was just as sure that he would turn her down, but his, surprise and curiosity compelled him to invite her aboard and have a seat at their table.

Sandy, who had developed into a great little hostess, immediately asked the new arrival if she'd like something to eat or drink. The woman declined food but asked for a cold beer. Sandy immediately hopped below and returned a few minutes later with a cold can of beer and a frosted glass, which she expertly filled for the visitor. Sandy then piled their dinner dishes on a tray and excused herself to go below and begin cleaning up.

"That's some gal you got there, Mr. Lark. You must be pretty proud of her," the woman said. Steve noted that her voice was deep and mellow. He saw a face that had spent many days in the sun, yet it hadn't lost the fine features that had once meant an attractive woman. Her eyes were grey and her hair, now visible with her cap off, was bleached by the sun with a few noticeable streaks of grey in it. The woman appeared to be in her late forties or early fifties, and her hand, when he shook it, was firm and dry, but had not lost its feminine softness. She wasn't a calloused woman, simply a person who had lived in the out of doors at sea a great deal.

Her name was Elizabeth Gower. She said that she'd been waiting for almost a month for a chance to sail back to the States, and that she'd just heard of his boat. It seemed that she and her husband had lived in Bali for almost ten years. He'd been a retired merchant skipper, and after leaving the tankers and freighters he'd sailed for forty years, he'd bought a sail boat a little smaller than Steve's, and he and his wife had sailed the world over for five years until they finally settled here on the island. About six months before Steve had arrived they had gotten caught in a storm and lost one of their masts to heavy seas. In an attempt to bring the crippled boat into safe waters, Buck, her husband, had been knocked over the side and his life line broke. She said that she never saw him come up. She had managed to bring the boat home, but that she didn't have the heart to have it fixed or to stay here any longer.

Her story was a dramatic one and certainly spoke well for her experience and ability. Steve was a good sailor, and he knew how much it must have taken for her to bring a damaged boat back from a storm such as she described. He was also taken with her forthrightness, and open manner. There was warmth and confidence that radiated from the woman. He simply couldn't imagine sailing with her as a crew member.

"Look Ellie, I certainly don't doubt you're capable of taking on the job, but you're a woman, and while Sandy is female, it's a lot different living in close quarters with a small child than it would be living with a woman whom I don't think is going to be married tome when we set sail. I'm afraid it just wouldn't be very comfortable for you. Why not just fly back? You've said you don't have the desire to fix your boat up again and use it."

"Listen Steve, I love the sea. I just don't want to fix up the Tramp again. Buck and I bought her and sailed her together for fifteen years. I know that Buck is happy whereever he is, and so I'm not that broken up inside. We had a good life together. I just don't want to go back alone, by boat or plane. Besides, I love the feel of this boat already, and I think I'm old enough not to blush if I see you in your shorts, or you catch me on the pot some night. Hell, we're both grown adults, and sailors to boot. We can adjust, at least I can, I really would like to sail back just this one last time."

"What are you going to do after you get back to California, Ellie?"

"I have a son there who's going to fix me up with a little place of my own over looking the Pacific. Buck and I bought the land years ago, and the boy has built a home there for him and his family to use in the summer. I'm just going to take it over and live there year round. I'll be able to keep busy, don't you ever doubt it. Hell, I'm a little salty, but I still can smell pretty good when I want to, and I can cook up a meal that would bring tears to your eyes. That's another reason you should take me on for this trip. You won't have to do all the cooking. I don't figure Sandy can do that much in the galley just yet. She's a little small to be able to even see the top of the stove."

Steve smiled. "You'll be surprised about that little gal. She may only be eleven, but she's going on twenty-one. I may have a precocious child on my hands if I'm not careful. She's been living with me on this boat now for almost five months, and she's beginning to get a little possessive."

"Oh boy, I've seen some of those situations. You're going to have a hell of a time some day when you decide to remarry or get interested in another woman. She may get too close to you, Steve, and then you'll both get hurt."

"Well, I'll worry about that when the times comes. I sure don't figure on remarrying any time soon, and as long as I have enough to keep me busy with the boat and trying to write full time now for a living, maybe I can exclude other women, as you put it, from my life until Sandy grows up. Right now she needs all the love I can give her. Her mother never did show her much affection, except as a center piece for her social gatherings with the other campus hens."

Ellie shook her head and smiled. "I think you may be a little quick to judge your ability to abstain my big young friend. Wait until you've spent a little more time at sea before you go excluding women from your life."

"Well to get back to your immediate problem. Do I have the berth on this cruise or do you still worry about my virtue and abilities?"

"Ellie, somehow I suspect I may have to worry about my virtue. I have no doubts that you're a better sailor than I am. If you think you can live with a bachelor and a eleven-year-old woman-child, and help sail a boat three thousand miles, then the berth's yours. I'll pay you the standard crew's fee of course, but you have to provide your own personal items. There's a cabin you can use that Sandy has moved into, but she can sleep in the salon with no trouble at all. Does everything sound all right with you? I'd like to take her out for a shakedown in the next couple days and get the tap root of her, and then maybe we can head home early the following week."

Ellie smiled and finished her beer. "Sounds good to me, Skipper. Don't worry about my living with you here, I'm real adaptable. My Buck and me saw a lot of the world, and not always under the most comfortable of conditions. I'll take care of myself, and I'll help look after little Sandy down there. She sure is going to be a heart breaker when she fills out."

Steve stood up when Ellie climbed back upon the dock and waved as she strolled away. She was quite a woman, Steve thought. He could imagine her fifteen years younger and maybe little less muscle, loving away the nights with her Buck aboard their boat Tramp.