Chapter 62: His Baby!

“Would you care for some hot tea?” Carina asked Kelly Ann as she placed my mug of coffee beside the couch. We were both slow to wake up for some reason. “Alex has to have his coffee, but I found I prefer hot tea first thing in the morning.”

I looked to the east to see the sky beginning to brighten. Dawn was near and that meant that most of the boat would begin stirring soon.

“Thanks,” I said, reaching for the coffee as I pushed our covers away.

“Oh, my!” Carina exclaimed when Kelly Ann’s body became exposed. “Maybe you’d like a shower before anyone else sees you like this?”

Kelly Ann realized what Carina was saying and quickly scampered into the salon and down the stairs to her cabin. If she was lucky, Jenna would still be asleep.

“You don’t look so hot yourself,” Carina offered. “What did you all do to get that way?”

“You know a gentleman never tells,” I reminded her.

“Uh-huh. Just what I thought,” she said sagely. “Do I even want to know?”

“Kelly Ann has always been the adventurous one. And with seeing me for the first time in nine months after thinking I had died, as well as my developing into an attractive male of the species, not to mention all the nudity and exposure, well ... it was driving her crazy. Besides, she knows I love her and would do anything in the world for her,” I said.

“Sur la tête,” she said in French. (“On your head be it”). “Is she protected?”

“I didn’t think to ask,” I replied sheepishly. “I just had this sudden hunch as to what she needed and went with it.”

“You might want to check on little details like that in the future. I hadn’t planned on Little Roland having a half-sibling quite so soon.”

“Who’s little Roland and what’s up with Kelly Ann?” Mischa asked as she and Vivienne came out to the cockpit.

Carina blushed as she stood. In her best Doctor voice she said, “I think I’ll go check on Kelly Ann.”

Mischa and Vivienne stood there looking like I had to answer their question, but I knew from preparing for all those interviews, that just because someone asked, it didn’t mean you had to answer.

“Anyone up for a swim before we get under way?” I asked as I headed for the fantail. Then I dove cleanly into the calm waters. It was the fastest way to wash off the exercise of last night. When I got out, I’d use the stern freshwater handheld to shower off the saltwater.

Turns out they didn’t want to get their hair wet. Success!

Five minutes later, I had barely gotten myself dried off from my rinse when my mom plopped down on my now empty bed and asked, “Who’s little Roland and what’s up with Kelly Ann?”

“It’s not any of my business what Carina and Roland are discussing and I don’t know of anything wrong with Kelly Ann,” I replied. They weren’t lies exactly, just not the complete truth.

“Well, sit down here. I want to discuss something very important with you,” she told me.

With exceedingly great apprehension, I sat down next to my mom. When she didn’t say anything for a moment while she gathered her thoughts, I began to worry. But that was typical of my mom.

To keep from messing up the electrical circuits on board the Serendipity, I began to look at my mom, for the first time, as a woman and not just my mom. I could see why dad loved her. She was pretty and had a great figure. But she was also caring and loving and compassionate and wise and all of this came through in her eyes. True, she was also a worry-wort when it came to her family, still, she had been strong enough to send me away when she had to...

“Alex, I have noticed that all the girls and women on the boat pay you deference when you are near. It’s almost as if they were worshiping you as a god or something,” she said. “Do you think it could have something to do with your enhanced, shall we say, EMF?”

Bam! It hit me like a ton of bricks, and I suddenly began to worry that I had caused all the women to fall for me. The electronics began to go crazy all over the boat and then the women all began streaming out to the cockpit.

“What’s going on?” bellowed Captain Alfred from the bridge.

It was my mother who finally grabbed me and hugged me to her breasts. Immediately, the electronics began to stabilize. The only problem was I now had the most fascinating set of breasts in my face and my reaction was natural.

“I think Alex should come with me,” Carina quickly said as she pulled me to one of the big, padded chairs. Then pushing me down she straddled my lap and began kissing my face with soft little kisses. After a few minutes, she asked, “Are you feeling any better?”

“I’m okay. I just panicked a little.”

“What brought this on?” she asked.

“Mom asked me if my EMFs were causing all the women to worship me?” I replied.

“What?” she exclaimed.

“I told him how I had noticed that all the women on board reacted to him as if they were worshipping him. And I asked him if he thought it might be because of his EMFs,” Mom explained.

Carina thought for a very long moment before she answered. “I think we should call Roland.”

“Is it safe to get under way?” Captain Alfred called down.

“Yes, Sir!” I called back. “It was just a little hiccup.”

“Can you get the snubbers?” he asked.

‘Yes, Sir,” I told him as I started reeling in the rear anchor. When I had it stowed, I went to the bow to take care of that one. The snubbers were an elastic cord, like a short length of nylon rope, that had one end attached to a very hard surface of the ship, such as the steel beam that ran between the twin hulls. The other end had a hook designed to fit the links on the anchor chain. The snubber was designed to keep the anchor chain from pulling against the capstans and winches that raised and lowered the chain.

By the time I got back, Captain Alfred was motoring towards the breakwaters. The breakwaters were the place where the ocean meets the narrow opening to the bay. The ocean could be rolling seas of two or more feet, but the small bay where we anchored was almost glass smooth. Because of the tides, the water in the breakwater was often quite choppy for a hundred meters or so. Once we cleared the breakwaters, Captain Alfred would hoist the sails and shut off the engines to conserve fuel. We should have fine sailing this morning as the winds were freshening out of the northwest.