The Retreat at Sharon's Ch. 08

After the late night, the group ate an informal breakfast and then spilled out of the house mid-morning to carpool to the Gulf of Mexico where the yacht awaited them. They reached the docks around eleven, finding the dock workers had the yacht fueled and cleaned up and ready to go. It always disappointed Max a little to see the forty five foot yacht, which was operated by one of the subsidiaries of his family's companies. There was nothing aesthetically wrong with the boat: it was relatively new and its white hull gleamed in the bright sunlight. It would never replace his family's houseboat, though. It was the first boat his father purchased for the family back when they lived in the Tampa area. His father constantly tinkered with it and complained about dumping money into it but that never seemed to bother him when they were out on the water. Max's father loved showing him how to handle the throttle and how to steer the boat.

"It's not like a car," he used to say. "You always have to plan five moves ahead." "My boat," Max used to call it to his friends, beaming with pride. And it was the family's boat when his mother was still alive. Back when his family felt like a family, not just familiar people who visited from time-to-time.

Max brushed away thoughts of the old rust bucket and tried to start jostling his memory for the pre-cruise checklist for the new boat. It made for much more of a private gathering if they could go without the usual captain, Sharon told him that morning. He tried to keep his hands from maneuvering as he thought through the various knots he'd learned from his father years ago and from helping the yacht crew when he brought friends down to the beach during high school and college. He knew the dock worker would help them set off and then dock when they returned but he didn't want to look stupid in front of Sharon's friends while they were out on the water.

Max watched Tom slip a small stack of green bills to the dock crew after they'd helped load up the group's supplies into the yacht. Sharon climbed to the top deck and jockeyed up to the captain's chair behind the secondary steering there. She traded her stylish tortoise shell sunglasses for the pair of polarized wayfarers in the pocket attached to the seat. She seemed to handle everything she touched with style and ease and steering the ship out of the dock seemed to be no different. The boat accelerated gently, nearly unnoticed by the seated passengers behind Max. As they reached the open waters that led to the Gulf, Sharon relaxed into her chair.

He watched Sharon turn her head to scan the horizon, eventually finding Max standing just to her right. She looked up at him and smiled and raised her eyebrows in an "Isn't this fun?" expression. She patted the wheel, indicating for Max to hold it, as she pulled off her cover-up dress. Underneath, she wore the same black one piece bathing suit she wore the previous week during their dip in the hot tub, that hugged her curves in all the right places and had openings on both sides of her waist to show that, even as a curvy woman at her age, she still maintained a trim waistline.

Sharon smacked Max in the gut and pointed out to the bow of the ship, reminding him he needed to watch the horizon. He wondering if this was just a casual hang for Sharon or if she was planning for more playtime on the open water. For a moment, he wondered if his father had ever made a similar trip with Sharon. If she'd ever shared a stolen moment with him in the lower cabin while the crew was distracted. He put a wall between his mind and his curiosity about Sharon's life with his father. Maybe he would be able to meditate on what greater meaning this held someday but, for now, he just wanted to enjoy these moments and the people he shared them with.

Max turned around to watch the passengers on the deck behind him. To his left was a wrap-around vinyl couch that surrounded a small table on three sides. Carla and Mikela had already removed the sundresses they wore to board the ship and were waving their arms in the air excitedly as they bounced up and down on the couch, charged up by the bouncing of the ship as it barreled through the water. On the shorter sides of the blue couch, Tom and Peter seemed to be saying something to each other across the table. Their words were inaudible to Max over the roar of the engines and the wind pounding his ears but they often smiled and laughed as they shouted at each other across the table.

"Where's everyone else?" Max tried to shout to Peter who sat closest to Max.

"What? I can't hear youuu," Peter yelled.

Max motioned with his hand hands at the four people seated around the table and to Sharon and himself and then tried again with open arms. "Where is everyone?"

Peter pointed down to the deck floor and responded, "Below. Grace. Doesn't want to get sick," as he puffed his stomach out and rubbed it to indicate the pregnant woman and then pretended to hurl into his hands. Not wanting to miss out on the fun at the table, Max slid over to join the rest of the group. He knelt at the open side of the table and grabbed hold of the edge of the table to steady himself.

"Let's play a game." Carla slowly and loudly told the group. "Never have I ever," she said with a smile. "Just drink your water," she explained to the group as she tipped her water bottle back and mimed drinking from it. Max wasn't thrilled at the thought of playing the most sober game of never have I ever in his life but there wasn't much to keep them busy while Sharon piloted them to their destination.

Carla opened with a tame one, "Never have I ever been deep sea fishing." Mikela and Peter sipped on their bottles.

"Never have I ever..." Mikela rolled her head back as she pondered her statement, "... been scuba diving."

Peter tipped his back his water. "Really?" he asked before he drank. "In this group?" he pouted as if to mourn for the non-life aquatic members of the game.

"Never have I ever been seasick," Tom quickly rattled off. He smiled as the rest of the group drank to admit some past weakness. Max was glad it was too loud to ask for an explanation. His sea sickness experience was on a rowboat when he and his friend decided to cross between two small islands and got caught in a storm.

"Never have I ever been drunk on a boat," Max shouted. Carla looked at him with a crooked face, as though to call him a liar. "It's true," he shouted, looking around at the accusatory faces in the circle. And he wasn't lying. Max grew up hearing horror stories of drunk college students crashing into each other on wave runners or taking out docks while boating drunk, or puking all over rented yachts. He promised himself he'd never let himself turn into the butt of a drunk boating joke and so he only drank lightly, if at all, even when he was out on this very boat with his friends and a small crew.

"Never have I ever been lost at sea," Peter said and Tom tipped back his bottle.

"Never have I ever been skinny dipping in salt water," Carla yelled. She sat still while everyone else drank.

"Never have I ever had sex on a boat," Mikela laughed as she shouted. Carla took a gulp while only Mikela and Max stayed dry.

"Really?" Max asked after he finished.

"No judgments!" Mikela chastised as she shook her finger at him.

"Wow," Peter said, nodding his head as he pondered the revelation between the young lovers.

"Never have I ever had sex with Sharon on a boat," Tom shouted. Peter drank as the rest of the group doubled over in laughter..

"No judgements!" Peter yelled over another gust of wind as he reached out with his right hand to point a finger at each of the participants..

By the time Sharon steered them into their final destination, and pulled back on the throttle, the small group had learned a few other truths. Among them: Tom still had his wisdom teeth, Peter had never been able to stand up on water skis, and Mikela had once spent a night in jail. Max knew his responsibilities at this point and he hurried down the ladder to the aft side of the lower deck and the shimmied along the side of the boat on the thin walkway to the large triangular sundeck at the front. He signaled the all-clear for Sharon to drop the anchor and then watched it descend to the sea floor. He always felt a little sorry for whatever creatures the anchor disturbed. They were here long before the boat arrived and would be here long after they left. It didn't seem fair to displace them because some jerks wanted to hang out.

"How was your trip?" Max asked when he returned to the aft deck.

"No chunks, so that was good," Grace answered as she flowed through the doorway in her light ankle-length floral dress and wide-brimmed hat. Erica, Tera, C.J. and Ken filed through after Grace with C.J. carrying a large pitcher of water and a large zip lock bag of marijuana and Ken carrying some sort of large bowel with what looked like hookah pipes coming out of it.

"Is that..." Max started to ask.

"Best cold vaporizer you'll ever use," Ken explained, as he set the contraption on the deck floor and then moved to help Grace recline on the row of cushions that formed a bench against the back rail.

"Max has to stay sober so he can help me. Sorry, boys," Sharon called down as she descended the stairs from the upper deck. The breeze caught the bottom of her cover up, giving her onlookers a quick flash of the black bathing suit bottom between her thighs before she brushed her dress back into place. "We don't need to get high to have fun, right Max?" she joked.

"I'll get the snacks," Tera offered and C.J. and Max followed her back into the cabin. When they re-emerged through the sliding glass door, Grace was still on her perch, reading a book. She pointed up stairs and Max noticed someone had moved the vaporizer. Getting high next to Grace was clearly not an option.

Upstairs, Erica had squeezed in with Mikela and Carla on the long side of the half-circle couch and Peter and Tom were still sitting across from each other. The Vaporizer was sitting prominently on the table and two of the pipes were currently in the possession of Mikela and Carla as they sucked on the mouth pieces. Carla pulled the piece out of her mouth and held her breath before exhaling a plume and coughing a few times.

"Not the best feeling after yelling over the wind for the last twenty minutes," she commented. The young women passed the mouth pieces to their neighbors and Erica and Tom took their turns.

"You all are making me jealous," Sharon told them. She had removed her dress and sunglasses and was now in what looked like a one piece black bathing suit from where Max was standing. Most of her body was obscured as she sat back on her perch in the captain's chair but she had rotated the chair sideways to face the group. Her breasts pressed up against the small divider between the chair and the deck furnishings as she leaned up against it.

"Never have I ever gone fishing while stoned," Tom commented, harkening back to their traveling game.

"And you won't today because I'm not letting some stoned fool hook me while I'm laying out," Erica told him.

"Does everybody have a boat buddy?" Sharon asked in a matronly tone.

"I choose Tom!" Carla rapidly exclaimed.

"I guess that means Mikela and I are watching Max," Sharon said, accepting that Pete and Erica made a defacto team.

"Also, Max and Mikela have never had sex on a boat so they have to do it today," Carla blurted as Mikela reached over to cover her mouth.

"Interesting," Sharon said. Max felt his entire body blush. He looked awkwardly at Mikela.

"It's ok, Max, we don't have to if you don't want to," she reassured him.

"Why don't we go for a swim?" Sharon suggested.

"Sounds great," Max squeaked.

Max turned around to make his way down the stairs to the aft deck. The small area Grace had camped out was shaded from the mid-day sun by the portion of the upper deck that extended over it but she remained fully covered by her dress and large hat, anyway. He couldn't tell if she was sleeping or reading at this point.

"Can I help you, Grace asked as she let the book fold onto her belly and turned to Max.

"We were just going swimming," he explained as Sharon arrived behind him.

"Come over here," Grace said in a maternal tone. "Sit down there. Shirt off."

Max sat below Grace's perch and she pulled a sunscreen tube from the bag next to her. Max heard the click of the top as she wrenched it open and then felt the cool dabble of the lotion on his shoulders as she drizzled it on. Grace rubbed it into his neck and shoulders, her small thin hands felt comforting as she worked his skin with the lotion. She reached down to smother more lotion on his lower back and worked her hands up and over his shoulder blades and then down his sides.

"Turn around," she said after she finished the back and sides and she intentionally squirted the tube into his breast bone "Now we're even," she said with a coy smile as she worked the lotion up and over his pectoral muscles and then down over his abs. She teased him along his waistline, pulling his trunks out just far enough to wipe a little lotion on his skin under his waistband, before letting the drawstring snap back into place.

"My turn," Sharon said, turning her back to Max and leaning in for him to extend the favor to her. When he finished, Max dropped the tube to the glass table and opened the gate for Sharon while she stepped down to the swimming deck. Sharon kicked off her sandals and then dove into the blue-green water. As she reappeared at the surface a yard away from the ship, she flipped her hair back and a mohawk of water followed the trajectory of her thick dark mane as it flopped over her head.

Max thought to himself for a moment. If he couldn't get high or drink on the boat, he could at least find some way to enjoy himself. He lowered his right hand to the tie on his drawstring and pulled it loose and then slipped his trunks off with both hand. He stood in the light breeze for a moment, enjoying the feel of the air across his naked torso. He hated to waste Grace's hard work applying the sunscreen by exposing a whole new area of himself to the elements but he knew he could stay in for a little while before he endangered himself to the sun.

"Look at you," Sharon said, almost pridefully. Max stepped off the deck and fell into the water. As he burst through the surface of the Gulf water, he looked at his surroundings. To his right, North of the boat, he could still see the tree line that marked the coast. Behind Sharon, to the West, only colors marked the difference between the Gulf waters below and the clear blue sky above.

"This feels so good," Sharon told him as she leaned back to float on her back for a moment. She spun in the water and then dove down below the surface. He dove down below the surface and opened his eyes to the slight sting of the saline as he watched Sharon spin and flip in the water below. Sharon turned and looked at him and stroked her arms in the water to pull herself closer. He reached his arms out wide and met her hands as she approached and they kicked back to the surface nearly in unison.

Sharon pushed Max away playfully when they poked back to the surface of the water. He flung his head backward and pulled his legs up to the surface and floated there, aided by the buoyancy of the salt water. The still water didn't rustle through his ears like the creek water did the previous morning. Occasionally, Sharon adjusted herself and then the water gave out a deep full whooshing sound, rather than the shallow splashing when something moved in the creek. Above him, Max watched clouds pass each other in the sky. A smaller cloud seemed to fall behind a larger cloud as they travelled along the same lane. He lost track of time, as he counted planes crossing the sky overhead, the only sign of life outside their bubble that he'd seen since the boat stopped.

Something crashed into the water behind Max, interrupting his plane watching. As he turned around, he saw two more foreign bodies drop into the water a and a thin blonde haired woman was swimming toward him below the surface. She sprung forth from the water just inches in front of his face, throwing her hair over her shoulder with her hands as her yellow bikini top broke through the surface. The water from her hair sprayed across his face as she slung it through the air.

"You left your buddy up with us," Carla told him as she extended her arms around his neck. Mikela treaded in the water behind her left shoulder, her round chin and thin mouth and nose barely staying above water. A pair of goggles hung around her neck. Tom casually swam toward Sharon and placed his hands on the side of her head, rubbing her temples as she floated.

"I'm so sorry," Max said.

"I think I can forgive you," Mikela said, accepting his apology with a sarcastic tone.

Max suddenly found himself aware of his nudity in a sea of bodies still covered by bathing suits. He partly felt proud, unashamed to feel comfortable floating among friends in his birthday suit. Part of him second guessed his decision to shed his coverings, though. He worried he looked overly eager to shed his sea virginity or that maybe the rest of the group wanted to hold back this early in their trip. In any case, he found it a little uncomfortable to tread water without the webbing that held his testicles in place in his bathing suit. His penis and scrotum became something of an encumbrance to kicking figure eights in the water below him.

He remembered the time at South Beach a year ago when Carla slipped her hands inside his trunks beneath the waves and teased at his genitals while beautiful beach goers frolicked on the sand and in the waves around them. It was their little secret and he found himself wishing they could recreate the experience here. The circumstances wouldn't feel dangerous like they had a year ago but he would be able to fully enjoy the experience without the fear of some child blowing their cover. Without the bathing suit involved, it was just a sex act in front of a friendly crowd. The covering added an heir of mystery, a sense that there could be more in store.

Carla used her feet to push herself away from Max and the three younger members of the swimming group treaded circles around each other.

"Chicken fights?" Carla suggested to the group.

"OK but we'll need Tom. Tom! Chicken fights!" Mikela yelled.

"Oh, no. It was just getting good over here," Sharon called up to the sky, still on her back. Tom was keeping her ankles afloat on his shoulders as he treaded water.

"We'll give him right back," Carla promised.

"They say we have to help our young," Tom told Sharon as he drifted away from her and then turned toward the younger section of swimmers. His smooth overhand strokes barely splashed the water as he casually swam to the middle of the group.

"I've got Max," Carla said as she swam around to his back. Max submerged himself to his chin as Carla threw one leg and then the other over his shoulders. He kicked his legs and pushed himself back up above the surface. Carla's legs slid across his upper chest and her feet locked into place at his breastbone. He could feel her hands resting on the top of his head as the two lovers helped each other balance in place.

"Squeeze tight, just not too tight," Tom advised Mikela as she locked her own legs into place on his chest.

"Ready set go," Carla shouted and the two men approached each other tentatively, neither one wanting to dump their riders before combat could begin. Tom looked up as the women reached out to grab hands. Max had won dozens of these battles with Carla, before, though. He knew the secret was to watch the other swimmer and to let the riders engage each other before pulling back slightly, pulling the other rider off-balance. He heard the slap of skin against skin as Mikela and Carla grabbed and slapped at each other's hands. When he felt Carla finally shifting forward and backward on his shoulders, he knew they were locked up and made his move.