by Roz Lee
“Are you saying you aren’t happy either?”
Richard looked up at Ryan. “Yeah. That’s what I’m saying.” Ryan opened his mouth, a million questions on the tip of his tongue, but Richard cut him off. “I’m tired of this too, but I don’t know how to stop the merry-go-round so I can get off. You were able to hole up in here and wait for someone special to come along, but I can’t do that. Someone has to run this ship, be the public persona.”
Ryan dropped into the chair next to Richard and mirrored his friend’s defeated posture. “I didn’t know. Why didn’t you say something? We can hire a new cruise director. There must be someone out there who can do the job. If we advertised, we’d probably have to rent the Superdome to hold the interviews. Every red-blooded male on the planet dreams of the kind of job you have.”
“It’s not all it’s cracked up to be. The first few months I screwed every hole offered to me.” He sighed and hung his head lower. His voice when he continued was so low Ryan wasn’t sure he heard correctly. “I haven’t had a woman in over a year.”
Silence.
“I didn’t know. You should have told me.”
“I’m telling you now. Do you have any idea how hard it is – pardon the pun – to admit something like that?” Richard straightened, placing his palms on his knees, his eyes trained straight ahead. “I’m sorry I’ve been such an ass to you about Candace. I guess I’m jealous.” He stood and turned to Ryan, looking him in the eye. “She is special, I saw it right away, but she’s not my type. Let me know if there’s anything I can do to help.”
“Thanks. I’m not sure where this is going. She’s been hurt, and she’s wary, and there’s the money thing. Right now, she doesn’t know we own this ship. She doesn’t have any idea what a life with me would really be like, and I don’t know how she’ll take it when she finds out.”
Richard moved to the door and stood with his hand on the knob. “Do you ever wish we’d never taken that computer class? That we’d never come up with the campus dating service?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Every day. Would it be easier if we didn’t have so much?”
“No.”
“I don’t know. Some days, I think if I gave it all away, my life would be so much simpler.”
“We’d just have a different set of problems.”
Richard nodded, turned the knob, and closed the door behind him when he left. Ryan turned off the lights and went out on the balcony. The salty breeze helped to clear his mind and ease the fears and doubts knotting his insides. Richard’s unhappiness came as news to him. How had he missed Richard’s misery? The answer came on the wind. He’d been so intent on his own misery; he hadn’t spared a thought for his best friend. Somehow, he’d find a way to get them both out of the predicament they’d built for themselves.
Chapter Six
“Good morning,” Ryan greeted her at the breakfast buffet with a kiss on the cheek. “What’s on the agenda for today?”
Candace set her plate, piled high with pancakes and bacon, on the table. She thought it must be the sea air making her so hungry. At home, breakfast consisted of a toaster pastry and a cup of coffee. She took her seat. “I found a few classes I’d like to take.” She went through the motions, draping the napkin in her lap, and moving her utensils around. Now that it came down to it, actually asking Ryan to accompany her to the classes she’d selected, a swarm of seagulls had taken up residence in her stomach.
Ryan attacked his plate. “Like what?”
“Well…,” She took a deep breath and blurted it out before she could change her mind. “I was thinking about taking the fellatio class.” Ryan choked on his food. Candace waited while he regained his composure and cleared his throat with coffee.
“Sorry. I wasn’t prepared for that answer.”
“I called and arranged a private lesson. I hope that was all right.” If he said no, she’d die of embarrassment. If she jumped overboard, would they be able to save her? God, she hoped not.
Ryan sat back in his chair and took another sip of coffee. He lowered the cup and stared at the black brew as if it held all the answers in the universe. Candace picked up her juice glass and quickly set it down again. Her hand shook too much to take a drink.
“You mean, I’m supposed to be your training tool?”
His face flushed, or had she imagined it? “Um hum.” Candace nodded. “She said to bring a partner. I was counting on you being the one.” She twisted the napkin in her lap. “I wouldn’t do it with anyone else.”
“Well, I guess I can do that. Just you, me, and the instructor?”
He hadn’t said no, not yet anyway. “Um hum.”
“This better be a short class. I don’t think I can last very long. I’m as hard as a post just thinking about you wrapping your mouth around my cock.
It was Candace’s turn to blush. “I’m not sure how the class is structured, but I’m hoping I can give you pleasure.”
“Trust me. You take me in your mouth, and I’ll have all the pleasure I can stand.”
Candace smiled. “I signed us up for another private class in the afternoon.”
“You did?”
“I hope that was all right. I assumed you would want to spend the afternoon with me.”
“I do. So what are we doing this afternoon?”
“The cunnilingus class.”
Ryan propped his elbows on the table and dropped his head into his hands, his fingers fisting in his hair. When his breathing evened out, he looked up. “I’m not going to survive this cruise.”
“Would it help if we had sex?”
“Don’t, Candace. I won’t have sex with you, but when you’re ready, really ready; I’ll make love to you. There’s a difference.”
“I know. You may be indifferent to what’s happening on this ship, but I’m not.” She glanced across the restaurant. A woman lay sprawled on her back across a table with a man pumping into her, while he plucked grapes from a cluster splayed across her stomach. “I’ve never been so aroused in my life, and it’s not only because of displays like that.” She waved her hand in the direction of the copulating couple. “It’s because of you too. I think we have something special, and I’d be a fool to deny part of it is physical. I want to be with you, and I believe you want to be with me. But I have to wonder. Why are you spending all this time with me? Look at this place.” She indicated the ship with a nod of her head. “There are plenty of women to choose from. I’m sure you could hook-up with anyone you want. So, why me?”
Ryan dropped his head in his hands again and tugged on his hair. “I’m hanging on by a thread here, Candace. I want you so bad I can’t think straight.”
Steadier now, Candace sipped her juice, and waited. The silence stretched out between them until finally Ryan raised his head and answered.
“I honestly don’t know the answer to that. When Richard introduced us, I thought you were the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen. I just couldn’t let you walk away from me.”
“I’m not sure it’s really me you want, or if you just want to…you know, hook-up with someone.”
“It’s you Candace, only you. How can I prove it to you?”
“I don’t know. I wish I did. All I do know is, I want you to come to the classes with me. Let me make you feel good, and then you can return the favor. No one’s ever done that to me before.”
“No one’s ever done what?” Ryan peeked up at her. “No one’s ever put their mouth to you…there?”
Candace shook her head. “No.”
“You’ve got to tell me about the asshole that hurt you. I can’t imagine any man not wanting to taste you, if he had the chance.”
“Thanks, I think.”
“It was a compliment. What time is the first class?”
Ryan thought he might die. The fellatio class was in the same room where yesterday, Thor had tormented him by touching Candace’s body. Now he sat stark naked on the same massage table, with his legs spread and his
balls aching for release. Candace’s sweet mouth sucked his cock like a vacuum cleaner, while their instructor, Fallon, crooned encouragement to them both.
He’d personally hired Fallon two years ago for her expertise in male anatomy. She boasted a Ph.D. in Human Sexuality, and knew her way around a penis. She’d managed to keep her professional composure when she saw he was Candace’s guinea pig for the class, but that didn’t stop the sly winks and Cheshire Cat smiles, while Candace bent over his cock. Candace experimented with a tongue maneuver Fallon suggested, and Ryan fisted his hands in her hair and mouthed, “You’re fired,” to Fallon, before his eyes crossed and a primal groan escaped his throat. If he lived over the ‘class’, he’d follow through on the threat.
Candace raised her head and turned wide eyes on his face. “How did that feel? Did you like it?”
Ryan groaned in response and fell back across the table, so his head hung off the other side. He couldn’t form a coherent word if his life depended on it. He clamped his eyes shut, ground his teeth together, and concentrated on resisting the urgent need to fill Candace’s sweet mouth with hot cum. His ears rang, but he still heard Fallon issuing orders, felt her hands on him as she demonstrated how to drive him insane by tugging on his balls. The witch used her high priced education, and some personal knowledge, to guide Candace’s finger to the spot halfway between his balls and his anus that was guaranteed to send him over the edge.
Candace pressed her small fingertip into the spot and slid his shaft all the way to the back of her throat. If it wasn’t heaven, it was damned close. She stopped. Ryan flung an arm over his eyes and half groaned, half whimpered. He didn’t dare look. Cold air between his legs warned him the two women had moved away to confer in private. There was one evil Fallon hadn’t yet taught Candace and his gut twisted, knowing what had to be coming next. Fallon knew him too well. Of course, she would end their class with this last bit of information.
Cold satin brushed the insides of his quivering thighs and he steeled himself for the inevitable. Candace wrapped her hand around him and sucked him deep into the warmth of her mouth. Her thumb went unerringly to his sweet spot. He heard the telltale burp as ointment squirted from a tube. Damn Fallon. She would be looking for a job at the next port for this.
Ryan fisted both hands into his hair and bit his lower lip. Candace pressed harder with her thumb and slid her lubricated index finger to his anus, and pressed. Hard. Insistent. The tight muscles gave way and her finger plunged inside. In one fluid movement, Ryan sat upright, grabbed Candace on either side of her head, and unloaded down her throat. A madman screamed obscenities and in the moments that followed, when blood returned to his real brain, Ryan realized he had been the screaming madman.
Fallon smiled and winked at him. “I’ll leave you two alone now. Take your time. I won’t need the room again until the afternoon session.”
Candace still held his drained cock in one small fist. He wrapped his arms around her and drew her close. “Let me taste?”
She nodded and pressed her lips to his. Ryan applied pressure and she opened, allowing his tongue to swoop in. The mixture of her unique taste and his own semen, made him hard again. He broke the kiss and rested his forehead against hers. “Christ, you’re going to be the death of me.”
“Did you like that?”
“What do you think? If I liked it anymore I’d be dead.” He ran a thumb over her swollen lips. “You have a talent for that. You made me feel so good. I want to make you feel the same way. Will you let me make you feel this good?”
“Yes,” she whispered. “I wish we weren’t going to have an instructor this afternoon.”
“Me too, but Fallon knows her business. She’ll show me all the ways to drive you out of your mind, so when you come in my mouth, you’ll touch the stars.”
“Fallon?”
“Yes. She teaches all the private oral sex classes.”
“Oh. I didn’t realize that.”
“No reason you should have.”
“After the class, will you…you know, make love to me?”
Ryan tasted her again. “Is that what it would be, love?” Candace wrapped her arms around his neck and kissed him. He’d never tasted anything as sweet, or as tempting. “That’s not an answer Candace. I told you how I feel about you. If you don’t feel the same, I think we should wait.”
“I don’t know if it’s love. I want you, more than I’ve ever wanted anyone.”
Ryan’s heart fell like a stone to the pit of his stomach. It was irrational to fall in love on such short acquaintance, and though he knew what he felt, he needed to be sure the feeling was strong enough to last a lifetime. So how could he expect Candace to declare undying love? “I want you too. You are the most desirable woman I’ve ever met. Look at me.” He glanced down at his lap where his cock stood at full mast again. “You just gave me the best blowjob I’ve ever had and I’m hard for you again. Whatever happens between us, never doubt that I find you desirable.”
“I won’t. No one has ever wanted me the way you do. It’s a powerful feeling.”
“Honey, you hold all the power in this relationship.”
“Then I command you to make love to me.”
“I will, but I want it to be right. There’s a lot of sex going on on this ship, and precious little love. I want our first time to be something we’ll both remember for the rest of our lives.”
“I do to. I’ll try to be patient”
Ryan pushed off the table and reached for the terrycloth wrap he’d shed at the beginning of the class. “Let me put on my wrap and I’ll take you to Pan’s Lounge for a drink. After what you did to me, I think you’ll appreciate it.
She’d never seen anything like it in her life, a sentiment she’d become intimate with since she set foot on the Lothario. The waiters in Pan’s Lounge wore gigantic phallic codpieces, some held upright with a strap around their neck. Other than the codpieces of varying designs, the men were naked. Ryan guided her to a cozy alcove with a good view of the bar. They ordered drinks from a waiter whose wooden phallus reached his shoulders. When the waiter left, Candace asked in a low voice, “Doesn’t that hurt?”
“They say it doesn’t. It helps to be at least semi-erect inside it and with all the beautiful women coming in to see them, that it’s not too hard, pardon the pun, to do. They like it when you stroke them.”
“I couldn’t do that.” She curled her fists in her lap.
“Try it when he brings our drinks.”
“Are you sure he won’t mind?”
Ryan pointed to another booth where three women were stroking their waiter’s phallus. “Trust me. He will expect it. He’ll probably lean in so close you could lick him.”
The waiter returned with their drinks in tall penis-shaped glasses, with a large opening at the tip to sip the drink through. He leaned in close to Candace. His giant phallus bobbed near her nose. Ryan nudged her and she closed her hand around the cold wood.
“Yes,” the waiter breathed out, flexing his hips in a suggestive manner. “That feels good.” Candace blushed scarlet and dropped her hand.
“Thanks Pan,” Ryan said. “You can go now.”
“Pan?”
“Pan was known in Mythology to masturbate often. He’s depicted in ancient art with a larger-than-life penis. In the evening, this place is crawling with men masturbating for anyone who wants to watch. These alcoves fill up with women and the waiters will masturbate, or allow the passengers to give them a hand job.”
Candace sipped her drink. “So this is tame.”
“In comparison, yes. Do you want to come back this evening and see for yourself?”
“Sure. I don’t think I’d want to give anyone a hand job, but I think I’d like to watch for a while.” She took another sip of her drink. “Do they, you know, come?”
“Some do, especially the passengers. The waiters have better control, but occasionally they do too. The last night of the cruise they have a semen tasting here.”
“I’m afraid to ask…”
“The samples come from men who have been thoroughly tested. Women line up to taste them.”
“You’re kidding, right?”
“Nope.”
“I think I’ll pass on that entertainment.” Candace dropped her hand to Ryan’s thigh and slid it up and under his wrap. She closed her hand around his still hard shaft. Ryan sucked in a breath and pressed a hand on top of hers. “No fair.”
“Will you masturbate for me?”
“Here? Now?”
“No one can see.”
“Sweet heavens, you’re going to be the death of me.” Ryan protested, but slipped his hand beneath the wrap and replaced her hand with his. “Just a little. I don’t want to come here.” He stroked his aching cock a few times. “Put your hand over mine.”
Candace did as he asked and Ryan began again. She marveled at the way his big hand felt wrapped around the heated velvet shaft. His strokes were long and slow. “Do you always do it like this? I mean, slow?”
“No. I use shorter, faster strokes sometimes. It depends on what I’m trying to accomplish, prolonged pleasure, or instant gratification.” He stopped, removing his hand. “It’s better with lubricant.”
“I hadn’t thought about that. I suppose it would be. What do you use?”
“Goodness, you’re nosy. Any kind of lubricant, cream, oil, whatever.”
“Thanks for answering. I know I’m being nosy about something usually done in private, but my fia…the guy I was with, didn’t show me anything.”
“This guy was your fiancé?”
Candace sank back in the booth. “Yes.”
“And he’s the reason your girlfriends sent you on this cruise?”
“Right on all counts.”
“What happened?”
“I don’t know. No, that’s not true. We were supposed to be married a few weeks ago. A few days before the wedding he came home from work and said he didn’t want to marry me.”