Darkside

by P. T. Deutermann

  “Hoo-boy,” he said.

  “On the other hand, our popularity rises somewhat when there’s a dead calm out on the bay and our purist friends have zero chance of getting back in before sundown on a Sunday afternoon, unless of course one of us Philistines offers them a tow.”

  “You do that often?”

  “Often enough to get enormous satisfaction when it happens. Have a seat while I do the checklist.”

  He watched as she sat up on the captain’s chair, her legs not quite long enough to reach the deck, and flipped switches. A few minutes later, she brought the two big Cats to life. Ev was directed to bring in the mooring lines, and then she backed the big boat expertly out of the slip, brought her about, and headed for the channel at the prescribed idle speed. She motioned for him to bring up the fenders, then beckoned him back up to the bridge.

  “You don’t take your scull out of the river, do you?”

  “Did it once,” he said, rubbing on some sunblock. “On one of those dead-calm days you talked about. Then came fog.”

  “Yow,” she said. “I’ll take some of that.”

  He obliged by standing behind her while she sat at the wheel and rubbing the sunblock cream on her shoulders, upper arms, and back. “And you under way with oars? What’d you do?”

  “One of these enormous ‘stinkpots’ came by, idling in on radar,” he said. She had wide shoulders and surprisingly taut muscles for such a petite woman. Then he remembered that she swam regularly for exercise. He stopped when he got to her waist. “He was going really slow, so I fell in behind him, following his wake. Ended up in a marina, hoisted out, and took a cab home to get my car and trailer. Felt like a proper idiot.”

  “I’ll bet they never knew you were back there.”

  They were passing the Naval Academy on the port hand as they headed for the entrance of Spa Creek, another river estuary. Bancroft Hall rose in gleaming splendor beyond the landfill hump of Farragut Field. They could see tourists swarming around the visitors’ center, and there were several knockabout-class sailboats trying not to collide with one another around the Santee Basin on the Severn side. When they pulled abreast of the Triton Light monument, which memorialized all the lost American submarines now on eternal patrol, she brought the speed up and pointed fair for the bay itself.

  Ev wedged himself into a corner of the pilothouse and watched as she concentrated on maneuvering the big cruiser through all the smaller powerboats, dinghies, fishermen, yachts, channel buoys, and even two YPs out into the more open waters of the bay. He could see a large tanker plowing its way up toward Baltimore about five miles out, seemingly motionless until he lined it up visually with a distant buoy and saw the buoy appear to move.

  “Get yourself a beer and bring me up a Coke, if you would, kind sir,” she said, checking the radarscope. “We’ll go down past South River and then anchor for a swim and some lunch, if that’s okay.”

  “This is glorious,” he said, looking around at the sparkling water and grateful that his sunglasses were polarized; the glare was very strong. “Whatever you want to do suits me.”

  She flashed a mischievous smile over her shoulder and then went back to her driving. He went below and got the drinks. The interior air conditioning was on, and the salon was already wonderfully cool.

  An hour later, she turned in toward the bluffs below the South River estuary and began paying attention to the depth finder. She asked him to go forward and release the anchor stopper chain. When the depth finder read twenty-five feet, she slowed, stopped, backed the engines gently, using them to point the yacht’s bow into the breeze, and then released the anchor. She backed slowly, veering chain until she had it set, veered more chain, and then shut down the engines.

  “This is good holding ground,” she said. “But we’ll just watch for a few minutes to make sure.”

  Now that the boat was no longer under way, it was suddenly hot and muggy up in the pilothouse, even with the sea breeze. “How will you tell?” he asked.

  “And you were in the Navy how long?” she asked, staring down into the cone of the radar display.

  “I was a naval aviator. Navigation, piloting, that’s black-shoe stuff. Shipboard duty, that is. Our idea of a boat was ninety thousand tons, a thousand feet long, with a crew of six thousand people who did the nautical stuff.”

  “I see,” she said archly. “So your ignorance of seamanship, navigation, boat handling, rules of the road-”

  “Is damned near infinite,” he said before she could continue. “Hell, all we did was fly our trusty, if aging, warbirds onto the flight deck at a hundred and eighty knots and hope the frigging arresting wire didn’t break. The ocean was just something that kept the carrier afloat and provided a soft spot to land in if we had to eject.”

  Liz laughed at that and shook her head. She checked the radar again to make sure the range rings weren’t moving downwind. Satisfied the anchor was holding, she suggested a swim. He got his suit and went below to change while she deployed a sea ladder and a buoyed line off the stern. By the time he came back topside, she was in the water. He looked around to see if there were any other boats in view, but they had the shoreline to themselves. As he headed for the transom, he spied that red halter top on the aftermost cushions. He went over the side and swam toward her, coming up alongside her fifty feet from the transom of the yacht. She was treading water, with only her neck and face bobbing above the slight chop.

  “What’s this for?” he asked, grabbing the buoy line with one hand. He tried not to look at anything other than her face.

  “For just exactly what you’re doing. Also, if you get tired, or catch a cramp, you can pull yourself back to the boat with a minimum of effort. You’d be surprised at how often the Coast Guard finds perfectly intact boats out here with no crew aboard.”

  The waves were just big enough to require some effort to keep his face out of the water, and he found himself having to work his legs to stay in one place. She was doing the same thing, and their legs touched from time to time. The water was cool, almost cold, and a nice relief from the humid air. The upper part of her body was a blue-green blur. He felt a flush rising in his face that wasn’t entirely due to the sun.

  “I was a swimmer back in my Academy days,” he said, determined to keep things totally normal. “But I never once went into the bay.”

  “Why not?” she asked. There were little beads of water glistening on her forehead, and he wanted to wipe them off her perfect complexion. He realized what he really wanted to do was touch her. She’d left the sunglasses back on the boat, and her eyes were laughing at him.

  “Didn’t like the thought of all those creatures swimming around down there and looking up at their lunch. Plus, we used to go hunting for sharks’ teeth along these bluffs. Some of those teeth were serious.”

  “And all a hundred million years old, too,” she pointed out. “Biggest problem out here are the damned jellyfish, but it’s too early.” She ducked beneath the water for a moment, then came back up, flipping her hair back. Her bare breasts nearly popped out of the water, and this time he found himself staring. She was wiping the water out of her eyes. “Ready to go back?” she asked.

  “Yep,” he said, a slight catch in his throat. They pushed off together, their legs and hips touching again, just for an instant. He was the more powerful swimmer, arriving at the ladder first, but he moved aside to let her go up. She rose out of the water like a sleek mermaid. Those white shorts were now thoroughly transparent. She was sufficiently well made to carry it off, and he almost forgot to climb the ladder himself once she was on deck. Realizing he was getting an erection, he hesitated at the bottom of the ladder long enough for things to calm down. It had been two years since he’d really even looked at a woman, and he was surprised at the strength of his reaction.

  “You coming aboard?” she called from the top of the ladder. He forced himself not to look up.

  “Uh, yes, right,” he answered, and pulled himself up the ladder
, trying to turn sideways as his own wet trunks clung to his thighs and exposed his arousal. When he got on deck, she was rubbing her face and hair with a towel, and her breasts swung gently in time with her efforts. He reached quickly for a towel and unconsciously, and absurdly, began drying off his middle.

  “Dry my back, please?” she said, turning around. He used his own towel to dry off her back and shoulders. She stood there, slightly bent at the waist, and it was everything he could do not to reach around to her front. Then before he knew it, she had turned around and was pressing her towel up against his chest and around to his upper back, their faces inches apart. He held his breath as he felt her fingers rubbing across the back of his neck and her warm breath close to his face. In their bare feet, the difference in their height was very obvious, and suddenly, as a wave rocked the boat, she was standing very close, the tips of her breasts touching his stomach and her hands coming around to run the towel slowly across his chest and then his stomach. He closed his eyes, swallowed once, and took a deep breath.

  “You can look at me now,” she said in a husky voice, and he did, fully aware of the heat rising from her body, her arm wrapped around his neck, pulling him down, and the press of her lips on his. And then he wrapped his arms around her and pulled her in tight, his longing driving the breath right out of her. He pulled her down onto the cushioned bench seat, where they kissed as their bodies melted together. He almost came when she thrust her belly up against his and held herself there, the wanting palpable. Then she stopped, her eyes huge, and stood up. She unbuttoned her shorts and beckoned for him to come to her. He leaned forward in front of her, holding her hips while he consumed her from top to bottom, until she pulled his bathing suit off, rolled on top of him, and rode him like a bronc rider for what he later felt was far too short a time. Then after a few minutes and without a spoken word, they went below into the air conditioning of the master stateroom and tried it all out again, slower this time, concentrating on making sure nobody got left out.

  Afterward, he lay on his back beside her, deliciously spent, staring at the polished ceiling in quiet contentment. He realized that she had ambushed him, and he had been so ready that it had taken all his effort not go off in the first minute like some randy teenager. She lay quietly next to him, her face on his chest. He rolled over, to find her watching him.

  “I had no idea,” he said.

  “I know,” she replied. “But I did.”

  “And thank God for that,” he said, surprised at how grateful he felt.

  She chuckled and rolled over onto her stomach as he sat up on one elbow and began to stroke her back. She was a study in feminine roundness, with smooth skin and yet muscles from top to bottom. He leaned over and kissed the hollow below her collarbone. Her skin tasted of salt.

  The boat was rolling steadily now as the sea breeze picked up and the wave action increased. They decided to get up, check the anchor, and have lunch. An hour later, they got under way and headed back toward Annapolis. The wind had backed to the north, and the big Cats were driving the boat into the chop with a thumping authority. She kept it at a speed that covered ground but didn’t make the ride too rough. She offered to let him drive, but he demurred, preferring to watch her work, even though the red halter top was back in place. The wind was whistling hard enough to make further conversation difficult, and he saw that there were several other boats apparently intent on getting back in before things got hairy out on the bay, which was notorious for changing the odds in a hurry.

  As they drew abreast of the South River, they came under a partial lee from Sandy Point to the north, and the waves diminished a bit. The visibility was unlimited, and the sky was a ferocious blue, darkening somewhat as the day sloped into late afternoon. Ev felt more alive than he had in years. More years, he realized, than Joanne had been gone. He felt a wave of guilt at that disloyal thought, but there was no getting around it. This woman excited him, surprised him, challenged him in a way that Joanne never had. He wondered if that was simply the toll of many years of marriage talking, or if he and Liz were better suited than he and Joanne had been. That’s unfair, a voice whispered. He wondered what Julie would have thought of his Sunday afternoon.

  Julie.

  That problem hadn’t gone away. They hadn’t even discussed it, either. He wanted to seek reassurance from Liz that it would go away, but he was unwilling to break the spell. Liz signaled to him to look at something with the binoculars while she slowed the big boat and brought her up directly into the wind.

  “Over there-starboard bow. Is that a boat capsized? I thought I saw a sail in the water.” She had to raise her voice to make herself heard over the whipping wind. The yacht was starting to wallow a bit as the power decreased and her bow began to bump into the seaway. He had to wedge himself to hold the binocs steady.

  He searched but saw nothing. After looking at Liz again to see where she was pointing, he refocused and saw a blur of white in the water. Then he noticed a flash of metal as what looked like a mast surfaced briefly and then went back under.

  “Yes. There’s a boat over. Sailboat. Can’t see people.” Then he could, or rather, he glimpsed a single white arm waving once before disappearing into the whitecaps. “Whoa, there are people out there. I just saw an arm.”

  “Okay,” she shouted. “I’m going to head over there. You get that life ring, snap it to that coil of line right there, and get up on the bow. Get into a life jacket first-they’re in that locker by the companionway. When you get up on the bow, sit down, wedge your legs, and hold on to the lifeline until I get her alongside.”

  He saw several other boats passing behind them, all oblivious to the capsized boat ahead. As Liz drew closer, she got on the radio and called the Coast Guard station to report a capsized boat and their radar position.

  He got into a life jacket, grabbed the ring and the coil of white nylon line, and went forward. He was immediately soaked by a wave that slapped salt spray all over the bow. The boat was pitching more dramatically now as she crept forward. After what seemed like a long time, they got close enough to see the boat, or its bottom anyway. Something, probably internal floatation gear, was keeping it from sinking. He could not see the people, even when they were only fifty feet away. His perch was pitching rhythmically now, dousing him with spray and even the occasional greenie. He was glad for the life jacket, although it seemed positively flimsy compared to the Navy’s kapok jackets. He saw an arm again, and then a head. A woman’s head, from the looks of it. He turned to see if Liz had seen the woman, and she nodded vigorously, adding power to the engines to get closer while still keeping the bow into the wind and sea.

  Ev got on his knees, wedging himself between the pilothouse and a lifeline stanchion. There was a constant thrash of water coming over the deck, and the wind was going to make it very hard to throw a lifeline anywhere. Liz brought the big yacht within ten feet of the capsized boat, then surprised Ev by sounding the horn in one long blast. Then he saw why: The woman in the water hadn’t actually seen the Not Guilty. Now she looked up and shouted something, but her words were whipped away in the wind. She appeared to be holding on to the overturned hull with one hand while supporting something else with the other. Another person? Was that a child? She was as white-faced as the waves and visibly exhausted.

  Liz eased the yacht to a position ten feet beyond and upwind of the overturned boat, then held her there with powerful thrusts of the engines as the wind buffeted the Not Guilty. Ev rose up on his knees, skinning them on the nonskid surface of the deck, and heaved the life ring upwind of the capsized boat. The ring hurtled past it and then fell into the water, dragging the line right over the woman’s head.

  Shit, he thought, she never even saw it. She must be about done. As he reeled the line in, he turned to the pilothouse and signaled that he was going to go into the water to get her. Liz shook her head violently, motioned for him to wait, then disappeared. She popped back into view a moment later, just in time to gun the port engine
to reposition the yacht. Then she opened a window and slid two life jackets down to him.

  He grabbed the jackets before the next wave could snatch them off the bow. He understood now that he had to get the life jackets on the two people, then try to bring them back to the yacht. He’d been about to make a big mistake, just swimming over there. He snapped the two extra jackets onto his left arm, slid the life ring around his right shoulder, made sure his line was clear and secured to a cleat on the bow, and then slipped over the side. The bow immediately rose up on a big wave and very nearly knocked him senseless when it came back down, barely pushing him away in a rush of water. He could no longer see the capsized boat, but he remembered where it had been relative to the yacht. He struck out in that direction, doing the sidestroke so he could keep an eye on the yacht to maintain direction. The water seemed colder out here, but he hardly noticed as his adrenaline kicked in.

  When he thought he was where the overturned boat should be, he looked back at Liz, who was pointing to his right while she wrestled the yacht. He spun around in the water and nearly impaled himself on the tip of the semisubmerged mast. He grunted with the pain, and then a wave took him under. He would have been in trouble if not for the fact that he was in great shape, had once been a competitive swimmer, and had the life jackets. Being underwater was no big deal; he only wished he had goggles.

  He grabbed for that mast tip to keep himself off of it, but that proved to be a mistake, as it was being whipsawed by the punishing waves. He pushed away from it, surfaced again, bobbing high with the life ring and the extra jackets, and swam around the overturned hull until he spotted the woman. She was hanging on to a small length of line. She was not wearing a life jacket; her eyes were shut, but her fingers were grasping that line in a white-knuckled death grip. With her other arm, she held on to a small child, who was almost invisible, bundled in an adult life jacket. The child was looking right at him, as if he were some kind of sea monster.