Slidell

Slidell
By: Felix McCliche (john@metalcraftmarine.com)

Slidell By Felix McCliche Copyright © 2005

If you travel from Mobile to New Orleans there's a wonderful steak-house in Slidell, just inside the Louisiana state line. And that is where I am this afternoon, enjoying my meal, and although I'm chatting with my friends, Ted and Pauline, I'm thinking of you. You're probably boarding your plane now, ready to flit east and south. I wonder what your wearing. Probably that short traveling skirt and a loose blouse and jacket? Did you insert those Ben-Wa balls? Will you flirt with the other passengers? Will they have champagne on your flight? How eager for me will you be when our complex trajectories intersect at the Maison St. Charles?

The other advantage of traveling from Mobile to New Orleans is that I can stop and visit my friends Ted and Pauline, who have been living on their boat since Ted's retirement a few years back. This steak dinner is my way of thanking them for their hospitality.

I arrived at Ted and Pauline's boat - Big Shoe - yesterday afternoon, an afternoon as hot and steamy as it can be in southern Louisiana at the end of July. Pauline met me on the dock as I unstrapped my bag from the Interceptor. She gave me a kiss as soon as I had my helmet off.

"You've got to be way too hot, honey. We better get some of those clothes off before you get that cold beer." She grabbed one of my bags and turned away and started walking to the boat. "Ted's gone off to do a survey. Well, I think that's what he said; I'm just thinking that he was looking for an excuse to get away from me; complains I'm wearing him out. Good thing you're in town for a bit."

Ted and Pauline are old enough to be my parents, but although they've provided lots of parental type advice, they aren't my parents. Which is a good thing, because I believe incest is still illegal in most states.

At sixty, Pauline still has the body that caught the attention of a young sailor more than forty years ago. She still looks good in a string bikini, which is what she was wearing in that oppressive humid heat. Her hair was still quite blonde, although she might have been cheating at that. I didn't know for sure, since she keeps her pubic area smoothly shaved. I felt the heat myself; on the bike the air movement kept me cool, but here, right beside the ocean, almost no breeze. I stripped off my jacket and dropped it in the cockpit beside my helmet.

Big Shoe is a 44-foot sportfisherman. She's not a "goddam yacht" Ted is always quick to point out. "She's a fishing boat." It's a nice boat, they've had her for about a decade. She's just right for a couple, with space for occasional visitors. But she is a fishing boat, which has become Ted and Pauline's passion. Well, they have a few other passions ...

"I've got the air on inside, so come down to your cabin and get some clothes off you." I followed her happily. She opened the door to the quarter-berth. "Now sit down and I'll help reduce the stress of travel." She knelt in front of me and undid my jeans and pulled them off and gave a little smile when she saw I wasn't wearing underwear and that I was already hard and she undid her bikini bottoms so she pushed me back on the bed and straddled me and I saw her vaginal lips were already moist and she wriggled a bit and used her hand to work my penis into her and then settled down onto me.

She smiled. "That feels good." Her hands were on my chest and she rotated her pelvis so my penis was pressed against the front of her vagina and slowly moved up and down, all the time smiling. "I've been horny all morning thinking about you.. I already fucked Ted twice. Can't wait till he gets back."

I reached up and undid her top as she rocked on my penis. She had small firm breasts that hadn't been affected much by 60 years of gravity, but now they were adorned, rings in each nipple. I fingered them, and she smiled. "What do you think? I had them done about six months ago, during Mardi Gras. There might have been a bit of gin involved, but on sober second thought I figured it was a good decision. Makes the nips more sensitive. And of course Ted loves them." All the time she talked she was riding my penis, up and down, rotating her pelvis and I could feel her pleasure as she quivered. I moved a hand down her belly and began probing at her sex, but she pushed my hand away and buried her own fingers in her sex. "Nothing personal honey, but I been doing this a lot longer than you and I'm a lot better at it." She began moving faster and faster and I gripped her hips as she stroked her clitoris and began an orgasm. "You come for me now, baby," she said. "Come right now!" I've always been obedient to parental authority so I grabbed hard and ejaculated inside her as she quivered.

"That was good, baby," she said. "It's been a while." She was still rocking on my softening penis, still stroking her clitoris. "I think ... " she said ... "I think ... oh yes, oh yes!" And she came again, straddling me, quivering, giving me a minute to admire her body. She couldn't weigh a hundred pounds, barely over five feet tall, very sharply defined pixie features on her face, her eyes glued to mine as she rolled through another orgasm and then collapsed on my chest.

Ted and Pauline enjoy a relationship that I call loving, casual infidelity. He's a big man, well over six feet, built like the amateur boxer he was. But he was a U.S. Navy commander, Captain of a destroyer, with a career that started during the Viet Nam years and ended with retirement just after the invasion of Iraq.

"They wanted me to stay," he'd told me at last year's boat show in New Orleans. "Hell, the brass even offered me a desk job close to home. But I was sixty-four years old, and I wanted a bit of rest. And there are lots of bright young fellers out there, and the old farts like me were restricting their advancement. I've done my service for my country and I'm proud of it, but I was getting tired. You know what it's like running a destroyer? People think it's glory, but 99 per cent of the time it's just like you're running a company with about 300 employees and you spend your time managing personalities. And every once in a while you get to make the guns go ?bang'."

He'd made a lot of guns go bang in the Gulf of Tonkin, a deck officer in support of the aircraft carriers, and then he'd served as gunnery officer on the New Jersey, that last great battleship with the 16-inch guns that bombarded the north from 15 miles offshore. Since then he worked his way up to the Captain's Cabin, and roamed the world in a destroyer.

Pauline worked in marketing in the marine industry, which was where I met her a decade ago. I'm no salesman, but I can work a booth on occasion, and she was working for a competitor, and I noted their booth was a lot busier than ours. It took me a while to figure out she was offering ... services ... which I couldn't provide. You've got to remember that at that time I was 30 and she was 50, so I sort of wondered. But as I age I can appreciate her more. So on the last night of the show I invited her out for a drink, and one thing led to another, and let's just say that since then the two companies have begun working more co-operatively than competitively.

I was worried the first time I met Ted, but Pauline just giggled. She introduced us about three months after we had become occasional lovers; his ship was in port in Norfolk, and I was there to assess the new design for the Inshore Boat Unit. He smiled, was friendly and hearty. "I'm glad to hear you've been entertaining my bride when I'm at sea." Now, I don't know for sure that Ted had lovers other than Pauline, because he never told me. Sailors, however are considered to be single when they're at least one day's sailing away from home port, so I'm pretty sure Ted had his adventures. But I do know for sure that Pauline has other lovers than me and Ted. Many of them. As I say, loving, casual infidelity.

Pauline stirred as I slid out of her, kissed me and climbed off. "I better clean up. Between you and Ted I've had a gallon of come pumped into me today. I'll have to see how many more gallons I can get." She headed for the toilet, but kept chatting. "I know I promised you a cold beer, but I'm hoping I can buy you one in town if you can give me a lift, ?cause I also gotta pick up a few things for dinner. Ted's not going to be back with the truck till about six."

"I only brought one helmet."

"Sweetie," she stuck her head around the door, "this is Louisiana. And beside it's only a five minute ride, all slow streets. And there's something I want to try."

I changed into shorts and a T-shirt and went forward to the main cabin. Pauline was going through the closet. "Figure I better wear something more than a bikini if I'm going shopping." She took one of Ted's shirts, long, white, tailed, silky, and put it on, leaving enough buttons undone to show some cleavage. She doesn't have a lot, being trim and small-breasted. Then she took one of Ted's ties, red and flashy, and tied it as a belt around her waist and turned to look at me with a question on her face.

"You look ravishing."

"Well good. Maybe I can get ravished some more," and she laughed. She slipped on some sandals and rummaged in a drawer. "One more thing." She pulled out a silver vibrator, just six inches long, the kind designed to be fully inserted, and she bent over, pulling up the skirts of her shirt. "Slide that in there, will ya honey?" Her slit was still moist and the vibrator slid in easily. "Now you see the switch? Flip it on for me." I pressed the button and she twitched as it started up. "Now I'm ready to straddle that machine."

We rode slowly into the market area and Pauline pressed against me, her arms around me and legs widely spread and I could tell she was rotating her hips to press her clitoris against the seat and after a few minutes I heard her gasp as she had an orgasm. I found a place to park and she was still panting as she dismounted.

"Oh baby, that was good. But I gotta get this thing out or I ain't gonna get much shopping done." I stood in front of her as she stood against the wall and reached between her legs and dropped the glistening vibrator in her purse. "I gotta convince Ted to get himself a motorcycle," she said, laughing again. We walked through the market area and she picked up some vegetables and a baguette. "I already got steaks thawing; we just need some fresh shrimp."

People in the market knew her well; they'd been keeping Big Shoe in Slidell since they bought her 10 years ago. And then in the last couple years had been living on board all the time. "This is my new boyfriend," she'd say. "Decided to kick old Ted overboard." The woman behind the seafood counter laughed and said: "Whereabouts? I'll go fish him out!" It was a cheerful, pleasant shopping trip, and I constantly admired Pauline for her casual sexiness.

"How's the wine cellar?"

"Not very full. Wine don't keep too good on a boat. It don't like the movement. No shortage of beer and Bourbon, though." I hate Bourbon, although on my first trip to New Orleans I made a point of having a glass of Bourbon on Bourbon Street.

I found a liquor store and bought a couple bottles of Wolf Blass. "I believe you owe me that beer now," I said, so she took my hand and led me to a little bar open to the waterfront where we settled on a couple stools with a view of the river.

"Hey there Pauline," said the bartender, a young black fellow with spiked hair and a broad grin. "You bring in your grandson? Maybe I should I.D. him?"

"John," she said turning to me, "that child's name is Harper and I instruct you not to tip him. Grandmother! Oh my!"

"I wasn't gonna tip at all Granny; you said you were buying the beer."

She laughed and turned to Harper. "See if he was really my grandson he'd be buying his old Granny a beer instead of trying to look down her shirt."

"Well, it's definitely a shirt with a view," said Harper. "Michelob? You sir?"

"Make it two," I said.

We sat and chatted about the boats and their travels - they'd spent the two months after the Mardi Gras down in islands, poking around the Bahamas, catching bonitos, enjoying the rum. "But you know that Ted, he just can't stop working. There was this Coast Guard cutter that somehow or other wound up in Nassau for repairs and most of the crew had been sent home so they needed a qualified skipper to get her back to Jacksonville, so he abandoned me for four days."

"That would be terrible, to be abandoned in Nassau. How ever did you keep yourself amused."

"Oh, I met a few people." Her eyes twinkled.

"Should only be a two day run up to Jacksonville. What was he doing the rest of time?"

"Well, you know what they say in the Navy: ?Don't ask; don't tell'. But you can guess. Probably playing golf. God I hate that game. Waste of a good day's walk."

We laughed and chatted some more and drank a couple more of those watery American beers and then she reached under the bar to the inside of my thigh. "There's something else I wanna try, now that you've got the bike here. Are you ?up' for it yet."

"Always ?up' for you Pauline."

We packed our purchases in the saddle-bags and then Pauline directed me away from the water and to a secluded park about two miles inland. We followed a trail till finally she tapped my knee and said "in there." It was a bit of a picnic spot, totally surrounded by trees, quiet as anything when I shut the engine off. All the way there Pauline had been caressing my penis through my shorts and it was quite firm when we swung off the bike. She undid my shorts and took me in her mouth and made me as hard as I've ever been. On her instructions I put the bike on the centre-stand and then she straddled it, sitting on the front, leaning forward to the handlebars. She took the vibrator out of her purse along with a tube of lubricating cream that she smeared on her backside, and then slid the vibrator into her vagina.

"Now you get your cock into my ass," she said. I straddled the bike, crouching on the rear pegs and began working my penis into her back door, gently, slowly. "Oooh, that's good baby. I like it this way. Hell, I like it any old way." She laughed. "Ted don't do this too much more. Not ?cause he doesn't like it, but we used to use it as birth control. Don't have to worry about that anymore." While she talked I slid all the way into her and was moving slowly. "Now reach down and flip the switch on that vibrator."

I found it, and effect was instantly electric, I could feel it through her flesh against the underside of my penis and she gasped as I began moving quickly. Normally I try to be gentle with anal sex but in this case I couldn't resist and gripped her hips and began pounding with full strokes and she began moaning, begging me to pump harder and she began to come, the muscles on her arms standing out as she gripped the handlebars and I could not hold back and came deep inside her. But she kept quivering, even after I'd slid out of her.. "Oh! Oh! I can't stop coming!" She stiffened again, and I knew her clitoris was pressed against the leather of the seat. "Turn it off, baby!"

But I didn't. I slowly withdrew it from her and her spasms decreased until I pressed the tip between the seat and her clitoris and she reared up until I took it away and pressed, still vibrating, against her anus and slid it about halfway in and put my hand against her sex, thumb inside her and one finger on her clitoris until she had another climax, and then I slid it completely inside her backside until her rosebud closed over it.. She lay there, panting on the motorcycle, hands still gripping the handlebars, so I kissed her naked buttocks and rubbed her back through the shirt, then pried her fingers off the handlebars and sat her back, know it would embed the vibrator even more deeply. Her eyes were glazed, and she was still quivering.

"You gonna leave that there, baby?"

"Sure, why not?"

She laughed. "You know baby, I might have to ride side-saddle for a while." She took a cloth out of her bag and cleaned herself up a bit, then combed her hair in the motorcycle mirror. "We must reek of sex."

"We probably do," I said as I buckled my belt. "But I've got a quart of Castrol 50 weight if you want to make us smell even better?" As far as I'm concerned there's nothing sexier than the smell of Castrol coming from a hot four-stroke engine.

"Let's just stick to sex. And we can wash that away with another beer."

So we rode back to the little bar, Pauline squirming a bit on the seat behind me, and just perching herself on the edge of the bar-stool. Harper gave us a look that said he knew what we'd been up to but quickly placed the beers on the counter. It was getting livelier with the 5 o'clock crowd, and lots of them knew Pauline and I got introduced and the talk turned automatically to boats and for the best part of an hour I forgot all about sex.. But you know me and sex ... and I realized that a bunch of the folks in the bar had had their way with Pauline. Or maybe she'd had her way with them. I could tell she was still experiencing a bit of physical discomfort, but after we'd been there for an hour she came over to me and said: "I think we killed the batteries, so I'm gonna go to the ladies room and see what comes out."

She came back in a few minutes, looking refreshed and more comfortable, giving me a quick kiss on the cheek. "That was interesting, baby, but I think the next time you try that I'm gonna do the same to you." Her eyes sparkled.

"Gramma, the suns going down and it's going to get chilly. Maybe we should get you back to the boat and wrapped up in a warm shawl?"

She giggled. "Yeah. Time to cook some supper."

There was, of course, no need for a warm shawl on that hot Louisiana night. We unloaded the bike, I was set to work chopping vegetables and making strawberry dacquiris while Pauline cleaned the shrimp.

"I'm not even going to light the grill till Ted comes back," she said. "He said six, but once he gets down into the bowels of a boat he could be gone for a week. Dunno know what you fellas see in there." My mind was working on euphemisms ... throbbing shafts, thrusting pistons, nipples to be greased ... but I kept my mouth shut. She'd been in sales ... still was vaguely in sales, working shows occasionally ... so should know exactly what we saw in there.

"Now tell me, Pauline, when did you first start having other lovers?"

"Start? There was no starting point. With me and Ted that was just sort of a given."

"Even when you were first married?" That's not the kind of question to ask of your mother, but when she's a lover as candid as Pauline it works just fine.

"Well, I guess it was in Norfolk. ?Bout a year after we were married. Now you may be aware that I quite enjoy sex." I nodded. "Well he'd just come back from Nam and was going through some more training so he was almost always home. And let me tell you, we fucked like rabbits." Subtlety is not one of Pauline's strong points. And as I continued with my kitchen patrol, she told the story of her encounters.

"At first he'd just be gone for a few days at a time, or maybe a week or so, and that was fine. But then he got posted as Nav officer to ... let's see ... was it the Rochester? Don't matter. They were going to the Med for two months of NATO exercises. I often wondered about that. I mean NATO is ?North Atlantic', but in the middle of February you get sent to Italian waters with all them Corsican girls and the Sangria wine ... but I'm getting off topic."

Pauline had gotten to know a number of Navy wives by then and their husbands were all sailing along with Ted. There was an element of loneliness, and there was one girl "Sheila? Shirley? Something like that" that she had been quite close with. After a couple weeks of being husbandless they sat around with a bit too much Bourbon and wound up in bed together.

"Now let me tell ya son, you may think you know how to make a woman come, but nobody can eat pussy like another woman!" This went on for a couple weeks, but Pauline got bored. "And then I discovered the Seals."

"Pauline I was going to post this as a story on the web-site eroticstories.com, but they don't allow bestiality."

She swatted me with a tea towel. "You know what I'm talking about. The U.S. Navy Seals. See, they don't work on the same schedule as the fleet. They're the spooks, you know, flitting into the combat zones at night, swimming ashore, blowing up stuff, and getting out before the break of day, always risking life and limb. Or so they told me."

"They just told you that to get you into bed."

"Maybe, but who cares. I got them into my bed."

So after that Pauline got into the rhythm. The day the fleet sailed, with Ted aboard, she'd go down to one of the bars swarming with sea-widows and just a few stray men.

"My rule was: ?Go ugly, go early.' Pick up a guy who didn't look like he'd ever had a date in his life and take him home and give him a good workout. If you wait too long in those situations you'll find yourself in a bar filled with horny women and the nearest available man half-way across the Atlantic." I laughed, but she just said: "You shoulda joined the Seals."

I would have learned more but we heard the rumbling sound of Ted's old Dodge diesel, and Pauline opened the fridge while I stepped onto the aft deck to greet him. "Good to see you John. Hope you've been keeping that girl entertained?" He grasped my right hand and put his left on my shoulder, just like Bill Clinton does. "Doing my best sir. It's been a while."

As I've said, I'd been nervous of Ted at first, but it soon became clear that he was used to the flings Pauline had, and besides, we developed a genuine affection for each other, Pauline or no Pauline.

"We had a great afternoon," Pauline said as she slipped a beer into his massive hand. "John took me shopping, and I introduced him to all our friends."

Supper was long and slow and relaxing. I was still sweaty from the exercises of the afternoon and the day on the bike and the Louisiana heat. With the sun setting the aft deck was comfortable. I asked Ted about retirement.

"Retirement?" he snorted. "You know, today I got paid twelve hundred dollars to look at some rich man's yacht and tell his insurance company that it wasn't going to sink tomorrow. You coulda done the same, ?cept you ain't got the right letters after your name." In his time in the Navy Ted had gotten his Naval Architecture degree; thirty years at sea might count for something, but in the private sector putting NA after your name counted for a lot more.

We talked about boats and business and what I was doing in Mobile.

"You ain't talking to that McCarty fella are you? His business ain't worth shit!"

"Well, I was talking to him, but I'm not now. I share your opinion."

"Yep. His shop is good to look at, but underneath there ain't nuthin' there." He paused. "And speaking of good to look at ... " he reached over and unbuttoned Pauline's shirt, exposing her nipples. "You seen these? Well of course you have! You've been here all afternoon." He caressed the right, and I reached out and caressed the left. Pauline wriggled and sighed. "They're just downright beautiful. You know when she first did it I thought she was a bit off her rocker. But the more I see, the more I like."

We continued caressing and Pauline wriggled in her seat and sighed some more. "I think I need to be taken to bed. You boys want to flip for me?"

"I believe the Captain of the vessel has first rights," I said. "Besides, somebody has to clean up the dishes." They both laughed. "And I mean it," I continued. "You two lovebirds run off; I know my way around."

Big Shoe is an efficient vessel. The main cabin is at deck level with a galley and seating as well as the lower control station, a perfect socializing place in bad weather. Forward and downward is the head with shower, a smaller sitting room, the main stateroom, and the quarterberth, which was my cabin for the night. I cleaned up and finished off the wine, watching a baseball game on TV (I sighed at the fact I couldn't find the Blue Jays), all the time noting the sounds from forward. There is no privacy on a boat; by the time I'd tidied the galley and secured the boat and had a shower there was still a mild rocking induced by the forward cabin. I was dropping off to sleep ... it must have been midnight ... when the motion stopped. I was half-dozing when I heard the shower running and then stop and then my cabin door opened. The light was dim, but it was clear Pauline was naked.

"Honey, I forgot to give you a good-night kiss." But her mouth didn't approach mine; she pulled the sheet off me and took my penis into her mouth and quickly, expertly sucked me. "Sleep tight," she said as she kissed me, the salty taste of me on her lips.

I slept tight until first light when there was another tap on the door, and no matter how much I like sex I was beginning to feel a bit worn out. How DID Ted cope? But it was Ted's eyeball that appeared around the doorframe. "You know it occurs to me," he said, "that of the three of us on this boat, one of is getting fucked twice as much as the other two." I rubbed my eyes; it was too early for algebra. "So I figure the other two should go out and get some fresh snapper!"

"Geez, Ted, I'm sorta worn out."

"Not that, you Canadian idiot." I liked his pronunciation: Canajun Ijjut. "Red Snapper. I know a spot on Pontchatrain that's darn near for certain. I'll run the boat, you fish."

"Okay. Just give me a couple of minutes to wash up." I went to the toilet and heard Ted up on deck arranging gear and was going to go up the companionway when I glanced into the main berth and saw Pauline laying naked in the sheets and beckoning me, arousing, so I went into their cabin.

"Don't talk," she said. "Just fuck me. Hard and fast." So I did. I mentioned I follow instruction well. I threw her legs over my shoulders and plunged in, holding her tight, pounding as hard as I could, and came in less than two minutes. I'd watched the digital alarm clock by the side of the berth. I had no idea if it was gratifying for her; I was just doing as I was told. I buttoned my shorts and went up on deck to help Ted with the lines and then he pulled the boat away from the dock, playing one engine against the other till we were pointed for open water.

"Better make a pot of coffee," he said from the fly bridge.

"I feel more like I need something with an eyeball in it, but coffee's probably okay."

I brewed a pot and poured it in two covered mugs to climb to the fly bridge. We were up on plane, going maybe 25 miles an hour heading northwest, Ted absolutely confident at the wheel. He took a long sip and lit a cheroot.

"You fucked her again this morning, dindja?"

"I was only doing what I was told, sir. I'm not the captain or the first-mate. I must follow orders."

He gave me a sly grin. "Dunno know what I'm gonna do with that girl." He called her "that girl" after 40 years of marriage. "See how clean and sparkling this boat is?"

"Sure is Ted. Awful shiny for a fishing boat. You do a good job."

"No I don't. You know, Pauline's got her money, and I got mine, but I always pay the marina bills. They charge for gas and dockage and such, and there's extra charges for pumpouts and water filling and deck cleaning. This boat's got the shiniest decks in the marina, but I ain't never seen a bill for deck-cleaning."

"Are you complaining?"

"Hell no! But next time I have to go away I think I'm gonna hire about half a dozen big black deck hands with ten inch cocks and tell them they have to satisfy her every hour, on the hour."

"You'd probably have a mutiny within a week."

He chuckled again. "Maybe you could be one of those deckhands?"

"Sorry captain, I'm afraid I don't have the right ... equipment."

"Now speaking of equipment; have you seen those new fibre-optic gyro-compasses? There was one on the boat I surveyed yesterday. Thirty thousand dollars they said! Just to tell you which way you're going. I tell ya."

"I know Ted. Back in your day you had your sextant for star-sights and had to eat biscuits full of weevils." We laughed, and talked about equipment until he throttled back The land around Pontchatrain is flat, with the only visual aids being the causeway and the electricity towers and the buildings of New Orleans to the south, but Ted knew exactly where he was going, dropping to idle and shutting off one engine and setting the autohelm.

"We're going about two knots, only got about 30 feet of water, so use that red spoon, and I'd say let out about ... oh ... a hundred feet of line."

I obeyed orders. We caught no snapper, but got two sea bass instead. "Hello breakfast," Ted said as he netted the first one for me. After the second we figured we'd had enough so Ted took us over to one of the shrimp boats working the shallow water and after negotiation a bucket of shrimp was swung our way, with a ten dollar bill put in the bucket for the return trip.

"I'll go clean these fish," said Ted. "You know your way back to marina."

I love driving Big Shoe. She's not a fast boat, but is tough as nails and can run all day at 25 knots. She's especially nice to drive when a sleepy-headed Pauline wearing just a T-shirt climbs up to the fly bridge and kneels in front of you and opens your shorts and takes your penis into her mouth.

"Mmm," she said during a break. "You taste like me."

When I throttled back coming into the marina she buttoned me again and scooted to the main cabin, emerging on the foredeck in a moment in her bikini, dropping the bumpers over the side and preparing the lines. I'm not as good a skipper as Ted; I'm used to little boats, but I know enough to not get in trouble and when Pauline snubbed the bow rope I was able to pull the stern in comfortably and even jump down onto deck to tie up the stern. I'm always amazed by the fact that Ted can dock the boat solo, but then he's used to dealing the 400-foot warships, so a little 44-footer can't be too much trouble.

We were tied up well and listening to fish and shrimp frying in the galley when Ted came out of the cabin with a red drink in his hand.

"I believe you Canadians call this a bloody caesar," he said, handing it to me, "but I made an addition just for you." A pair of fish eyes floated on the surface. I looked in Ted's eyes and then tipped the glass back and swallowed it in one long gulp.

Breakfast was pleasant, and then Ted made a proposal.

"I need another set of hands," he said. "Maybe two sets. And I need somebody a bit more petite than myself." He had to go back to the boat he was surveying and do some hull thickness analysis with a sensor inside the hull and the detector outside.

"And we also gotta look at the cutless bearings, and that means crawling under the engines. Honey?"

"I'm gonna get filthy, ain't I?" said Pauline.

The boat was about 70 feet, a trawler-yacht, sitting out of the water on a marine railway. We drove over in Ted's truck after breakfast. It's the kind of job that should be done wearing full coveralls, but that was impossible in the steamy Gulf heat. Ted and I wore shorts and T-shirts; Pauline, knowing she was going to be crawling under the engines had opted for a pair of short bib-overalls on top of a white T-shirt.

"I like the white T-Shirt cuz it'll show the grease stains real well and that way Ted'll be reminded of how valuable I am." She sat between us in the truck, one hand on each crotch, although to be fair, those crotches were having trouble reacting to the inspiration.

"She's Taiwan built," said Ted as we climbed the ladder deck and he unlocked the hatches. "They do a good job construction-wise, but I think their designers thing every mechanic in the world is the same size as your average Chinese. Which would be about Pauline's size."

We did the hull thickness analysis first, Pauline and I crawling into the compartments under the accommodation area. The boat was hooked to shore power so the AC was running, but in the holds it was airless and steamy. We did eight tests - four per side - and we were dripping with sweat, but I found it quite pleasant, wriggling myself into a comfortable spot, thinking about you. Another 10 hours. When we finally crawled out of the holds we were grimy and sticky.

"Somebody's gonna be scrubbing my back in the shower in the not too distant future," said Pauline. "Now what about those cutless bearings?"

The engine room was filled with a pair of beautiful Caterpillar diesels. "The problem here," said Ted, "is that the bearings are way aft. We can get at them by pulling up the soft patch in the aft cabin but then it would have to be re-sealed and that's a whole day's work. I'm thinking that Pauline can slither under the engines and put the stethoscope on the bearings I can turn the shafts from outside. And John, since we don't have the technology of two-way radios, you can be the intermediary in the communication chain."

Pauline dropped down the engine hatch and I followed. She got on her back and slid under the engines.

"These damn straps. They keep catching on stuff. John, hold onto the bottom of them shorts." I reached up her legs and she undid the snaps of the straps and wriggled a bit and suddenly there was a nearly naked Pauline under the engines. I found it very erotic, although I'm not exactly sure why. She wriggled her way forward ... well, aft actually, under the starboard engine first. "It's right here, right? Turn that prop."

"Turn the starboard prop," I yelled up the hatch and Pauline put her stethoscope against the bearing.

"Shit, this is a pain in the ass. Hold on a sec." I relayed the command and then Pauline wriggled deeper and deeper and managed to get crouching behind the engine, a place somebody the size of Ted or me could get only by removing the deck above. She straddled the shaft and looked back at me. "Biggest shaft I've ever had between my legs. Yell at Ted to start turning." I could tell that her naked crotch was pressed against the shaft, could see through the machinery.

Ted turned. Pauline grinned at me. "Don't worry. I ain't havin' an orgasm. We're being professional here, ain't we?"

But she did have an orgasm. It was after I'd relayed all the data to Ted and she did the other shaft and finally Ted asked us to hang on for 10 minutes or so while he made his notes and did his calculations and somehow Pauline managed to slither back between the engines and push me onto my back and straddle me. "Oooh ... that grease makes you slide in real nice" I wanted to say something about how it might not be good for her but her muscles were squeezing me and when she felt me ready to come she put her hand on her clitoris and came with me. About then Ted yelled at us so we put our clothes back on and crawled out of the engine room.

Pauline said: "John, you mind driving back. I need to give Ted a blow-job." I looked at Ted. He shrugged. Ted and Pauline and I had been quite intimate, but never quite like this. Pauline is small, and the cab of the Dodge diesel is big. I concentrated on the driving but couldn't resist caressing Pauline as she efficiently did what she said she was going to do.

Back on Big Shoe, we all had a nap. Pauline woke me up. "I'd give you a BJ, but we gotta save some for Alison."

So now we're having steak. Are you over Omaha now? My bag is packed. I long to be on the bike. I'll take the backroads, through the bayous. I'll be at the bar. You'll come in with your crowd. I'll be there, the guy with the rumpled hair and leather jacket.

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