Sarah's Journey Page 5

  My eyes closed in pleasure as Adam slowly smoothed the cream into my back, and I am sure he took longer than necessary. I turned, and as I took the bottle from his hand, our eyes met briefly, and then he turned and I was afforded the pleasure of rubbing the cream into his broad back. I thought that fair was fair, and I took my time with this simple task. After that, we alternated trips into the water with periods of inertia lying on our towels. There was something very intimate about lying side by side on the sand, and I think our shared reminiscences earlier in the day also added to that sense of intimacy. Other people came and went, but we spent the whole day at that beach, comfortable with each other. When it came time to leave, we dragged our feet as we left the island, not wanting the day to end.

  Back in my stateroom, as I showered before dinner, I remembered what Adam had said. “Aft Suite?” Those rooms were serious real estate on a ship, not only had Adam paid a small fortune for the room, but a small kernel of doubt raised its ugly little head inside me. Had Lisa meant more to him than he realized, if he was prepared to spend so much money just to make her happy?

  10.

  As I had worn my new dress the evening before, I had the same problem with choosing an outfit again. I so wanted to look ‘nice’ when I was with Adam, although I am sure he really didn’t mind that I had only brought a few basics with me, I had really enjoyed the appreciative look on his face at dinner last night, and I hoped to replicate it. I spent lots of time mixing and matching, and finally managed a passable outfit from a loose flowing top and that same pair of dress pants. A pair of strappy sandals, and the outfit was done. At the last minute, I decided to put my hair up, and I was pleased with the result. I headed to dinner, nodding at other passengers in the corridors as I went.

  Again Adam stood as he saw me approach, and I drunk in the sight of him as I sat. Although he was not wearing anything that many of the other men weren’t wearing – just trousers and an open necked shirt (we were in the tropics after all), it was the way that he wore his clothes that was so impressive. Although I hadn’t known him to work out in the shipboard gym, he must get a lot of exercise at home as he was trim and well muscled. He smiled at me as he took his seat, and my heart fluttered. Oh, I had it so bad for him!

  After we had ordered our meals, I mentioned that I still hadn’t visited the shops and I needed to get something for Emily, and maybe something small for some other friends at work too. Adam mentioned that the shops stayed open late once we left port, and that they should be open after the show.

  When the waiter brought our first course, Adam looked at what I had ordered, and laughed:

  “Soup again? I don’t think I have seen you order anything else for your first course this whole cruise!”

  I looked at my soup sheepishly.

  “Yes I know, I really, really like soup, but I can only make a few types for myself, the range here is wonderful. I am going to miss this when I go home”.

  At that, we both looked at each other, both apparently realizing at that moment that before long we would have a decision to make. Did we continue to see each other when we got home? Just as I went to speak, to broach the subject, Adam broke the silence:

  “You know, until this moment, I wasn’t even thinking about our lives off this ship. But if you want to, I would like to see you once we get home. Are you flying home on the day we arrive back in Sydney?”

  I then told Adam about the plans that Emily and I had made, that had seemed so good at the time, but now I was beginning to think that perhaps those three nights in Sydney weren’t such a great idea now, I would rather go home and see him again, than spend three days in Sydney on my own. At my downcast face, Adam smiled and said:

  “It doesn’t matter, it’s only three days, we can see each other when you get back to Melbourne”. Then he said with a broad grin “but I will expect you to bring me a present from Sydney. Something really cheesy, like a t-shirt with the bridge on it, or a bottle opener shaped like the Opera House!”

  I laughed, and the waiter cleared our entrée plates and brought our mains. I had ordered pasta with a creamy chicken and garlic sauce, Adam had ordered a rogan josh. We ended up stealing forkfuls of each other’s food. The same couldn’t be said at dessert however, as Adam had ordered an apple and rhubarb tart, and I didn’t care for rhubarb, but that didn’t stop Adam from ‘sampling’ my chocolate mousse.

  After dinner we took in the show again, holding hands like the evening before, but stealing the occasional kiss as well. Later, while shopping, I found a good deal on alcohol, deciding to buy one bottle for Emily, and keep one for myself, and while I was finalizing my purchase, Adam wandered off to look at some bottles of whisky, ending up buying one for himself. I wandered through the souvenir section, and selected a few small trinkets for various people as well. These I took with me, the staff told me that I couldn’t take the alcohol though, but that they would deliver it to my stateroom the night before we arrived in Sydney. Adam and I walked around the upper deck, trying vainly to walk off all the beautiful food we had been eating. We found ourselves at the rear of the ship, looking at the wake of the ship as it sailed, and Adam mentioned that this was also his view.

  I turned to look at him, and he said:

  “My suite is at the rear of the ship, I have this view from my balcony, it is a really lovely place to sit when the ship is sailing, and I spend a bit of time out there. I would invite you to see the suite, but you might misunderstand me. Usually when a man asks a woman to his room, it’s not to look at the view”.

  I looked at Adam for a long time and said: “I’m a grown woman Adam. I think I can look after myself. I think I know you well enough by now to know that you wouldn’t do anything I didn’t want you to do, so I don’t have a problem looking at your suite, in fact, I would really love to see it. I looked at all the room options on the website, and couldn’t help myself, I looked at the suites too, so I would love to see if they are as lovely as they look in the pictures. If it makes you uncomfortable me being there, let me say now that for tonight, I just want a tour of a suite, and to look at the view you have. Then I will go back to my stateroom, and tomorrow, well tomorrow is another day”.

  Adam looked at me and said “Deal”.

  He led me to the stairs and we walked down the couple of flights to the deck that his suite was located on. Adam led the way back to the rear of the ship and opened a door at the end of the corridor. Wow. Wow. The space was amazing. It was huge, and the furnishings were sumptuous and it was just – wow. I spun around in amazement, and after looking at Adam for permission, went through the door, finding myself in a bedroom which was larger than my entire stateroom. I shot out again and exclaimed:

  “My stateroom would fit in there, and you have all this living space too! I have to see your balcony, it must be heaps bigger than mine!”

  At this, Adam opened the curtains and the glass door, and led me out onto a balcony that was the width of both rooms, and twice as deep as my balcony. Instead of just a couple of loungers, he had some chairs and a table as well. I went to the rail and leaned against it, breathing in the balmy evening air. Behind us I could see the wake of the ship, white and foamy, vanishing behind us. Although it was now dark, and we were too far away to see it anyway, behind us was the Isle of Pines, where we had spent such a beautiful day. Adam joined me at the rail and we stared out at the sea and the sky in companionable silence. Shortly afterwards, there was a knock at the door, and Adam went to answer it, coming back with a tray of coffee and cheeses.

  “Room service is pretty quick in the fancy rooms” he said with a smile. We sat at the small table and enjoyed the coffee, picking at the cheese while looking out at the night. Barely a word passed between us, but it was a comfortable silence, neither of us felt the need to talk. After a while, I said that I really should go, we would have plenty of time to talk tomorrow as it was another sea day. Adam and I agreed to meet again at breakfast, and then go to trivia where we knew we would meet Judy and
Tom. I stood to take my leave, and Adam stood as well. As I made to walk past him, his hand stayed me and he pulled me in close for a kiss. It seemed to go on for a very long time, and afterwards we rested our foreheads together while we collected ourselves. Adam said:

  “Maybe that wasn’t such a good idea, I just didn’t want to kiss you goodnight in the doorway, where anyone walking past could see”.

  He led me to the door, checked the peephole and then opened the door for me, making sure I had my bag of goodies that I had purchased in the shops earlier. I walked to my stateroom, feeling like I was walking on air, thinking over the day’s events as I walked. It had been one of the best days I had ever had, full of promise for the days ahead.

  I spent another restless night, full of vague and very enjoyable dreams.

  11.

  The next morning dawned warm and cloudless. I dressed in my pedal pushers again, with a loose t-shirt over the top. I headed to the restaurant and checked whether Adam was there yet, but he wasn’t. So I loitered around, looking at artworks on the walls nearby, until he arrived. We were seated at a long table with six other people, a couple and a family of four. Talk was very general, and we did not participate a lot, instead spending a lot of time just looking into each other’s eyes. I was sure that the other diners noticed, but I really didn’t care. I was too wrapped up in the pleasure of Adam to bother about much else. After a breakfast of tropical fruits and a pastry, I savoured my coffee, knowing that we had plenty of time before heading to the bar to look for Judy and Tom. After we left the restaurant, we walked around the deck a few times, laughingly promising to spend time in the gym, before heading to the bar. As we sat down in two vacant chairs that Tom had apparently been minding for us, Judy looked at us quizzically. The game started soon afterwards, so there wasn’t any time to talk.

  Maybe because we were not concentrating, we again did poorly. At the end of the game, Judy said:

  “You two are strange. Before today, you seemed like an old married couple, comfortable with each other, but not so touchy feely. Today, you look like a pair of teenagers, waiting for the parents to leave the room!” She turned to Tom and looked at him more closely, “I haven’t noticed any increased romance from you – what gives?”

  At this, I didn’t know what to say. Should we admit to Judy and Tom that we had only met on the cruise? They obviously thought that we had come on the cruise together, and that perhaps the cruise had rekindled a romantic spark between us. I really didn’t feel up to all the explanations that telling them our story would lead to, and I felt Adam tense beside me, and as I looked at him I saw him give a minute shake of his head, so obviously he didn’t want to tell our stories either.

  Instead he laughed and said:

  “Tom, you are letting the side down. How can you ignore the romance of the tropics? I heard there are a lot of really good resorts where we dock at Port Denarau tomorrow, they let you use their facilities – for a fee of course – why don’t you and Judy spoil yourselves? Or do you already have plans?”

  Judy and Tom said that they hadn’t, but they would look into Adam’s suggestion. They then asked whether we had something planned, and Adam spoke for both of us:

  “No, we were just going to go ashore and wing it”.

  After we parted (Judy and I swapping slips of papers with our phone number written on them first), Adam said quietly to me:

  “I hope you didn’t have plans, I just thought it was easier to answer as if we had talked about this together”.

  “No”, I said, “it’s fine. I was just going to ride the tender in and see what is there. I had a look at some cruise websites before I left home, and apparently you can get bus tours much more cheaply on shore than through the cruise line, I was thinking of just doing one of those, if they are run by locals, I will probably get some local ‘flavour’ so to speak”.

  Adam nodded and agreed that was a good idea, and that he would tag along with me. I was very happy at this thought, spending more time with Adam was always good. For now, we decided to walk around the ship a bit, and then go to our respective rooms to get into our swim gear. We thought we could spend a bit of time by the pool, before heading to the buffet for a late lunch, and then maybe going back to the pool again before dinner. What a decadent life, nothing but eating and amusing ourselves! It would be difficult to go back to a workaday reality, but at least I had the incentive of seeing Adam when I got back home, so that would more than make up for the loss of this lifestyle.

  We spent an enjoyable afternoon in each other’s company, lying on adjoining sun loungers and holding hands in between bouts of swimming. Late in the afternoon, realizing that I would have the same difficulties choosing clothes again, I thought I would have a quick look at the boutiques on the ship, so left Adam by the pool after telling him I didn’t want to bore him by making him give me opinions on clothes!

  I found a dress that was dressy but not formal, and a lovely fitted top that I could use to dress up a skirt that I had in my room, but had not yet worn. As I was still damp from the pool, I didn’t try the clothes on, but held them up against myself, determining that they would fit. I hoped they would look good on, paid, and took my purchases back to my room where I showered and washed the chlorine out of my hair before dressing in the skirt and new top. It was only as I twisted and turned trying to see how I looked in the top that I realized that I really should have tried it on in the shop. If I had, I would have realized how far the neckline plunged. Now that I was wearing a proper bra the top seemed quite daring and it showed quite a lot of cleavage. Cleavage! I didn’t even know I had any until now. Oh well, Adam was going to be sitting across from me, so I would soon find out exactly what he thought of my top.

  At dinner, I very quickly worked out that Adam seemed to like my top very much. Several times I noticed his eyes straying downwards from my eyes, and once he looked up and realized he had been caught, and managed to look abashed. I thought it was quite funny how he was trying so hard (and failing) not to look at my cleavage, and eventually I thought I would make him suffer just a little bit more. So I leaned forward, with my elbows on the table, discreetly squeezing my breasts together, and said:

  “So, I know I said I didn’t need you to give me an opinion on the clothes in the boutique, but I bought this top and a dress. Do you like it?”

  Adam looked up at me, his eyes darkening and said thickly:

  “I never would have thought you capable of such torture, but I guess you live and learn. Now, if I have any chance at all of eating my meal without spilling it all over myself, I am begging you, please sit up straight. While you are at it, take that silly smirk off your face. It’s a dangerous game you are playing, I do like the top by the way, I like it very much. I also think I might like finding out what is underneath it”.

  At this he leaned back and took a sip from his wine glass, cocking an eyebrow, and issuing a challenge with his eyes. Touché, I thought to myself, maybe I had better tone it down a little.

  I sat back in my seat and took a sip of my water. We ate the rest of our meal in relative peace, and then walked to the theatre, Adam muttering something about the advantage of being taller than me, I was not sure exactly what he meant by that, but could hazard a guess as I saw him stealing sidelong glances at my breasts.

  All through the show, I kept thinking about what Adam had said. Was I brave enough to take that step? He was not alone in wondering what clothing was hiding, ever since I had seen him in his swim trunks I had been fascinated by the way the wet material clung to his buttocks, and wondered if they were as firm as they appeared to be. Then my mind started wandering even more, and I began playing out little fantasies in my head about ways I might find out what Adam looked without his clothes on, and what would happen if I took mine off. I was so entranced in my thoughts that it was only the sounds of the people around us clapping that made me realize that the show had ended.

  With a little start I looked at Adam and realized that he seeme
d to be startled too. What had he been thinking about? The same sorts of things as me? I really hoped so! We walked outside and went out onto the open deck, both needing some of the fresh air. After a couple of turns around the deck, Adam turned and looked at me for a while without saying anything. Then, on the open deck, underneath the tropical moon and the stars, he leaned in and kissed me. As he deepened the kiss, using his tongue and his teeth to tease my lips and my tongue, he pulled me closer and I am sure there was no space between us. As we were pressed together so tightly, I was again made aware of his physical attraction to me, and felt an answering heat between my legs. I must have made a little noise or something, as Adam broke the kiss and looked at me for a moment, his eyes seemed to be questioning something. Then he turned, taking my hand, and led me to an elevator. Once inside, he pressed the button to his floor. We still hadn’t spoken, and I could not trust myself to speak anyway as I was feeling breathless and excited, and I was sure that my voice would not work properly.