Goodbye, Miss Granger Ch. 06-07

Chapter 6 – Brian and the Skipper

We made it back to Manly Cove with time to spare and I even managed to get my bra back on straight. We went to the upper deck again, but this time we weren't alone; there were a few couples already outside enjoying the summer evening and cuddling in the seats along the rail, so we separated into the toilets to tidy up and met back in the upper cabin amidships where we took a couple of adjacent seats.

Just before departure, one of the crew came up to our deck and walked past us, making for the stairs up to the bridge. Just as he passed, he did a double-take, kept walking for a few steps and then turned around with his head cocked and a frown of concentration across his face.

"You're some kinda movie star," he said, "Aren't-cha?" He looked to be about thirty, slim and scruffy in his rumpled uniform with freckles and a few days' worth of red stubble on his face.

"No … I … um …," I began.

And then quick as a flash, "Aw, go-orn Ems," Kevin interrupted in what might be the worst Cockney accent I've ever heard, "'e's got-chew fair 'n' square."

Oh dear, now what? Do the right thing and disappoint Kevin, exposing him as a prankster – or worse, a liar – to the guy? Or go along and have a fun story to tell later?

"You've got a good eye, Sir," I said in my best Hermione Oxford English accent (which actually sounded pretty good to my ear) and giving him a big sunny smile while I pinched Kevin's knee. "You're the first one to recognise me today."

"I knew it!" he smiled broadly. "You're that one from Star Wars, right? With all the white make-up? And you married Darth Vader! What was that about?"

"Oh!" I grinned, this was a first. "You might be thinking of Natalie Portman. I think she's American." I felt a bit disappointed not to be recognised, especially when I was trying so hard with the accent. "I'm …"

"No! Don't tell me!" he said, holding up both hands. "I'll get it." That look of concentration returned to his face. "Hey, d'youse guys wanna come up to the bridge? We've gotta get going and I want to work this out. You can meet The Skip."

Kevin and I looked at each other, we were both grinning like idiots. If "The Skip" was every bit as observant as his off-sider then we could have a good laugh about this later.

"I'm Brian," he said, holding open the door to the stairs for us.

"Kev," Kevin said in that stupid accent again. "Pleased t'meecha."

"No, don't tell me," Brian grinned as I held out my hand to shake. "I'm still working on it."

I looked at the steep stairs and then down at my skirt. "Um … you go first, Brian," I blushed, flapping my skirt with my hand.

"Yeah, right," he smiled, eying my legs. "Don't get many ladies up on the bridge."

"Oh, Brian," I smiled coquettishly at him. "That's probably because you never ask."

He blushed a little at my joke, but turned and followed Kevin up the stairs, leaving me to follow. We came out on an open deck behind the wheelhouse and Brian led us around to the hatch to go inside.

"Oh, hey! I've got it!" he exclaimed, pointing at me. Then he turned around into the wheelhouse, "Ducks on the pond, Skip. We've got a movie star on board!"

Kevin went in first and I heard an older man laugh, "Jesus, Brian. You think every bloke with a beard is fuckin' Hugh Jackman. This one's six inches too short and twenty years too young." And then to Kevin, "I swear, mate, no offense right? But the last Hugh Jackman he brought up here was a bloody Iranian."

"Not him, Skip. Her!" he said proudly, letting me in. "I just worked it out; she's the one from them Pirate movies with Johnny Depp and that other poofter bloke."

None for two, Brian! I think that was Keira Knightley. At least he had the right side of the Atlantic this time.

"Geez you're a goose, Brian," The Skip laughed. "Nah, she's that bird from Harry Potter. Emma Thompson!"

"Watson," I corrected him, grinning madly at what felt like a comedy routine.

"Yeah, right. I should know, my boy's got a fu- … a friggin' life sized poster of you in a red dress on his wall. See it every time I walk in. Make a point of it, in fact; pardon me for sayin' so love, but you're kind of easy on the eyes." Then his face clouded over in panic. "Oh shit, I hope you were eighteen when that picture was taken. Pardon my French."

I could only laugh.

"I'm Laurie," Skip leaned forward to shake hands without shifting his bulk off the stool. "But you can call me Skip up here." He looked to be in his late forties, greying hair and overweight, but with a friendly, welcoming smile.

"Hello Skip," I smiled back. "I'm … Emma," I almost buggered it up, "and this is Kevin."

"Wotcha!" Kevin gave an informal salute from behind Brian. Oh, take him now, Lord!

"Well pull up a pew," Skip indicated some chairs against the rear wall of the wheelhouse. "Me 'n' Brian've gotta get this tub on its way to Circular Quay. We can yak when we're outta the Cove."

Brian sat on the stool beside Skip. "And you'll haf'ta shoosh when we're on the radio," he said. "Else the Harbour Master'll rip us both a new one." I made a zipping motion across my lips and smiled back.

Skip put on a radio headset and conducted an unintelligible conversation with the wharf crew which I hope meant they had cast off and we were cleared to leave port. He brought the engines up to a high idle to move us smoothly away from the wharf and then slowly added more power until we were underway and cruising out past Manly Point.

"Don'choo have another movie to make, love?" Skip asked. "Shift y'r arse, Brian. Give the girl a seat with a view." And then back to me, "My Davey can't stop goin' on about it."

"They've finished filming," I said, swapping seats with Brian and marvelling at how I managed not to completely lie. "The movie comes out in in a few months." I was really settling in to the accent. It felt completely natural; I couldn't be more at home than talking about Harry Potter and Hermione. Kevin stood beside me with an arm around my shoulder and watched out the window.

"Shame they hooked you up that ranga kid," he went on. "Got a head on him like Brian's. Shoulda used a good-lookin' kid like Hugh Jackman here," he gestured at Kevin.

"I know right?" I laughed, musically. "Except he can't act." I reached down and squeezed his thigh. "Can't even do impressions! Do your Australian accent, Kevin!"

"Aw, cripes Em'," he said in his normal voice, trying not to laugh. "You're embarrassing me."

"Acksh'ly mate, that's not bad," Brian said. "Keep at it. Hardly anyone'd guess you're a bloody Pom." And then, realising what he'd said. "No offence, y'know."

"None taken," Kevin laughed.

We watched the view out the window as Skip did most of the talking, telling us about the Freshwater – which is the ferry we were on – and regaling us with anecdotes from half a lifetime of work on Sydney Harbour.

"This is Bradley's Head coming up on our right," Skip pointed to some lights marking the edge of the dark harbour. "You'll be able to see the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the city in a tick."

Sure enough, the lights of the skyscrapers appeared first and then the familiar coat-hanger of the bridge came into view – tiny and unfamiliar to me from this distance.

"Oh wow!" I breathed, almost forgetting my English accent. "What a view you get from up here!"

"It's got nothin' on the view from up top," Brian pointed above his head. "Three-sixty views in every direction."

"What's up there?" I asked. "I thought this was the top deck."

"It is," Skip agreed. "But there's a ladder up to the roof. There's a rail around the radio mast and more stairs up to the crow's nest. Brian's like a bloody dog hanging his head outta the car. He'd spend the whole trip up there if I let him."

"Is it romantic?" I asked, exchanging a glance with Kevin.

"I dunno about romantic," Skip said. "It's not like that scene in Titanic, if that's what you mean."

"Hey," Brian interrupted, pointing at me again with a bright look in his eyes. "You were in that one too, right?"

"Fuck, Brian – oh shit … I mean, pardon. Beg yours, Miss," I tried not to smile at Skip's serial profanity. "What are you smoking, Brian? She was a baby when that movie came out."

Actually, I was in Grade 5; I remember because my Mum wouldn't let me watch it. But right now I was pretending to be a few years younger, so Skip had a point.

"Can we go up there?" I asked him eagerly. The thought of panoramic views from the middle of Sydney Harbour was too good to pass up.

Skip laughed at my excitement. "If y'can see y'way clear to an autograph and photo for my boy, then I reckon yes," he negotiated. "But I need Brian to stay here …"

"Awww, Ski-i-i-p!"

"… and you can't go up the crow's nest without rigging, so you gotta stay inside the rail."

"Done and done!" I chirped. "Where do I sign?"

We found a felt-tipped marker and I "autographed" a laminated evacuation map of the ferry:

To Davey, son of the World's Best Ferry Captain
Love always,
Emma Watson (Hermione)
-xxx-

I wore Brian's Sydney Ferries cap and jacket and they took some photos of me behind the wheel, Skip taking care to avoid the incriminating view out the window which would show me operating a passenger ferry in the middle of Sydney Harbour. It didn't take long, and then Brian showed us out to the ladder and went back into the wheelhouse.

"Ladies first," Kevin joked, staring lewdly at my bottom.

"Very funny," I poked my tongue out at him, holding my skirt down so that the wind didn't whip it up and expose my pussy.

He just laughed and quickly climbed the ladder, I took one last look to make sure Brian wasn't coming back out and then followed. Kevin took my hand as I climbed onto the roof and we looked around together. It was just as Skip had described – a little railed-off area a few metres square with a huge tower in the middle.

And the view? It was spectacular! The inky black water glinted with reflections of Sydney's lights all around us. I turned in a slow circle, looking for landmarks in the darkness, but the only ones I could pick out were Centrepoint Tower and the Harbour Bridge. Still, it was like the world's biggest display of Christmas fairy lights. Just beautiful.

It was blustery, but the wind wasn't as bad as I thought it would be up so high on a moving ferry, and Kevin and I stood with arms around each other for a minute just looking.

"Wow," he said finally.

"I don't think Skip knows what 'romantic' is," I breathed. "This is beautiful."

I leaned my head against Kevin's cheek and he turned to kiss my forehead. Looking up into his face with a few escaped tendrils of my hair dancing between us, I kissed him back, that almost familiar surge of adrenalin making my heart pound again as he closed me tighter in his arms.

"Do you know," I said, smiling and fingering the buttons on his shirt. "I'm sure Leonardo DiCaprio had more buttons undone on his shirt." I popped one of them, and then when he didn't complain I opened two more and placed a palm against his bare chest.

"Do you know," he smiled back. "The Titanic was in iceberg country in the North Atlantic. When I saw the movie, I remember Leonardo with a warm jacket and his shirt buttoned up to the neck."

"That's not how I remember it at all," I said, slowly opening another button and kissing him on the lips. "In the one I remember, he had his shirt flying open." I opened the last button and smoothed both hands over his chest and shoulders, "And he was standing on the rail with Kate Winslet behind him …"

"I think you've got your roles reversed," he laughed. "Or did you see some Mexican remake? Were they speaking English?"

"Shush," I said, putting a finger over his lips and turning him around to face the bow while I stood behind him. "He definitely had his shirt open. Or maybe it was off? I can't remember."

"Open!" he blurted. "I'm sure it was just open."

"Good," I said in his ear, still holding him in my arms and running my hands slowly over his chest. "I knew we saw the same movie."

"You're the boss," he said under his breath. That kind of sass would not go unrewarded.

"So anyway," I continued, "he's yelling 'I'm the king of the world', or …"

"Kate wasn't even in that scene …"

"Shush!" I gently pinched his nipple, making him jump. "I won't warn you again."

"Continue," he said, much more contrite. I liked that.

"Or maybe he was yelling 'I'm flying'," I said. "And she was behind him, holding onto him, looking out upon the sunset, her passion building inside her like a volcano."

I had moved my hands down to his flat stomach and I felt the softer hairs beneath his navel tickling my palms. I must have been tickling right back, because I felt his stomach muscles contract, opening a small gap at the top of his jeans that my fingers slipped into before I even knew what they were doing.

"And she made him close his eyes," I said, and then leaning close, "Are they closed?"

"They're closed," he affirmed, his stomach fluttering nervously as I slid my fingertips down to the waistband of his shorts.

"Good," I said. "So she made him close his eyes and then she unbuttoned her blouse."

"I'm definitely watching this movie again," he whispered as I opened the button of his jeans and unzipped the fly. I felt my way down the front of his shorts, my fingers floating over the soft bed of pubic hair underneath until I reached the hard bulge of his cock. I felt it move and I recoiled momentarily, but then searched on blindly with both hands, gently touching and pressing, testing his hardness, trying (and failing) to work out the root from the tip and settling for rubbing softly all over the bulge with my palm.

"And as she held him," I didn't know where I was taking this story and didn't have the courage to turn it into a porno, "with her naked breasts pressed into his back and her heart pounding, she moved her lips close to his ear and she whispered …"

I paused in the narrative to build tension, using the time to further my exploration, I left one hand cupping his manhood through the shorts and slipped the fingertips of my other hand beneath the waistband, anxious and excited in equal measures to touch my first cock. I think we were both holding our breath. I delved lower and my fingers touched his shaft, it was hot and hard and I was sure I could feel blood pulsing beneath the surface.

"What did she …" Kevin gulped. "What did she whisper?"

"I don't remember," I breathed. The little Titanic fantasy was all but forgotten, all I could concentrate on was the thick slab of cock throbbing beneath my fingers. I smoothed my palm over the top of it and closed my fingers around the sides, all of a sudden getting my orientation and realising which end was which. I was holding it near the base and there was another two inches or so projecting from my hand, maybe six inches in total, and I could easily touch my fingers and thumb, so not exactly a porn-star dick – that was a relief.

I squeezed gently and it surged and throbbed deliciously in my hand. Oh, this was so NOT like a vibrator. What must it feel like when it does that inside you? Reaching into his shorts with my other hand, I felt further down and found his balls, not sure whether I was revolted or excited by the squishy skin around them. His cock throbbed again and then in a delayed reaction, his balls swelled threateningly in my other hand. It made me think of the hot cum that was boiling away inside, ready to surge forward into my willing body. 'Revolted' was out; I must be excited.

Using my wrists to lever down his shorts, I brought out my prize – although standing behind him as I was, I still couldn't see it. Gripping him firmly, I stroked upwards, pulling the cock-skin along and marvelling at the hard ridges and veins that passed silkily beneath my grip. I had only ever used a smooth vibrator, but now I wondered what I was missing; it was like peanut-butter: boring without the lumps! Right now, the lumps were ALL I wanted.

With my heart hammering, I squeezed tighter and stroked all the way back down to the base, pressing my fist into his pubis and making him gasp, though not with pain, I thought. His cock pumped again, and again I wondered how it would feel throbbing like that inside me. I closed my eyes and pictured it doing exactly that: opening me up for the first time as he slid thickly into my silky sheath, the close walls of my virgin sex holding him tight in their embrace as he surged inside me, his unyielding hardness forcing me open.

I whimpered into his ear with my need, stroking his cock again, slowly up and down, squeezing his shaft to feel it pump and then tightening around his balls as they echoed the swelling a moment later.

"Oh shit," I heard Kevin whisper. The next time his cock flexed it stayed that way, improbably hard and thick in my slowly pumping fist, then I heard him catch his breath and suddenly I felt his manhood spasm and a buzzing vibration beneath my knuckles as he came, his rushing seed streaming through his cock beneath my tight grasp in half a dozen fast pumps.

"I remember now," I said quietly in his ear, still slowly pumping his cock and feeling the weak spasms subside as it softened in my hand. "Kate Winslet moved her lips close to his ear and she whispered: 'I'm ready'."

"I'm ready too," he replied breathlessly. "Or at least, I will be soon."

Belinda had warned me he would be quick, and I could see how that would be disappointing if he was inside me. But this way it was good; if he had taken a long time then I would be wondering whether I was doing it right. And also according to Belinda – she was now assuming goddess-like wisdom in my mind – he would last longer next time. And longer the time after that. That one was the winner, she claimed, that was the golden ratio. Make your first-time his third, or third of the night, at least.

One down, two to go.

Chapter 7 – No Means Yes

We only said a fleeting goodbye and thank-you to Skip and Brian on the way back down because Kevin wanted to tidy up in the bathroom. Apparently there are things you shouldn't do facing into a twenty knot breeze. Live and learn.

By the time the ferry pulled into Circular Quay, Kevin had regained some his former eagerness and we lined up at the exit with an urgency that wasn't precisely matched by the other passengers. Brian came down to help with docking and when he was done I gave him a kiss on the cheek as Kevin and I hurried down the gangplank to the wharf and almost ran to the train platform.

Erk! Twenty minutes until the next train! We looked at each other urgently.

"Taxi?" Kevin suggested, eyebrows raised.

"I'll pay," I blurted, grabbing his hand and hurrying back downstairs to the taxi rank.

Improbably, there was actually a taxi waiting. Still more improbably, it was clean and the driver spoke English. Most improbably of all, he drove carefully and safely using the most direct route to my apartment! I was worried that we were being abducted by aliens.

Pay the driver. Keep the change. Slam. Stumble. Fumble the keys. Fall through the door. Kissing. Hands everywhere. Find the light switch. Panting. Heart pounding in my ears.

"Wait," I husked. "I've changed my mind."

"WHAT?" he blurted, eyes flying open.

"Kidding," I smiled. "I just want to slow things down."

"Success," he said tightly, taking his hands from under my skirt and placing them in the small of my back.