Chapter 4

Leaving Ketchikan, we had a steady drizzle of rain. We made our way north, pretty much cruising slowly and taking in the sights. Coming around the Cleveland Peninsula we saw a black bear on the beach near a stream.

Farther up were three Eagles diving on the water. They were after salmon and one came up with a large one in its claws. It flew a very laborious serpentine route trying to gain altitude with what had to be a thirty-pound king salmon. Soon it disappeared over the hill.

Carl came up from below and took me aside.

"We need to put in for sure at Juneau. I am having a problem with one of the bilge pumps. I think it would be best to get it repaired in dock there."

"Don't we have several of those pumps?"

"Yes sir, but this is one of the main one's. I would feel a quite a bit better crossing the Gulf with it operational. It can get pretty nasty out there on the open waters."

"How long do you think it will take to repair?"

"I will call ahead and see if the parts are available and let you know from there Sir."

"Carl, call me Bill. Sir was my father."

"Yes sir... I mean Bill."

I wasn't too concerned about time. I don't think any of my crew was either. I had been thinking pretty hard about Julie and I. What was my next step? How would we continue our relationship? Would there be any relationship at all?

In the short time I had known her I had grown to like her far more than a friend. I was trying to separate our sexual intimacies from matters of the heart. Difficult was not the best word to describe my feelings and thoughts.

I had changed. Just in the few days on board my boat, I had changed. I think all of us had changed quite a bit. I thought also of Anne and May. They were both special women and Julie had started me to thinking of them in more serious ways.

As I was pondering May came up behind me and interrupted my thoughts. I was standing near the bridge, outside near the rail. I was getting a bit wet from the mist of rain that softly fell.

"Bill, did Carl talk to you about the bilge pump?"

"Yes he did."

"You seem... preoccupied. Care to talk to someone about it?"

May was standing close enough to me that I could smell her particular freshness. Just being near her like this caused me to lose concentration and become tongue-tied. Yes, we had been having sex and all that, but there was more to it than that too.

"Uh... well... I was just thinking about things. Things in general, things in focus. Worried about my relationship with Julie to begin with. Not exactly what I would call a healthy one by any means."

"Are you still bothered with the father daughter thing? It isn't like you plan on marrying her. Your not are you?"

"Good God no."

"Then treat it as a very enlightening experience with someone very special. Quit beating yourself up over it. Julie came on to you with her crazy plan in her head and then everything backfired on her."

"Yeah? How so?"

"She came here with a plan of revenge on a father who she felt had abandoned her. She found out that you were not the jerk she thought you were. By the time she realized it was too late. Your having sex with her... just take it like she was a sweet young thing you didn't know and leave it at that."

"Easily said, hard to do. I feel like a dirty old man. Although after yesterday... not quite so. I just couldn't stand it if it were known around that Julie and I had been having sex. It is still not a socially acceptable practice."

"Bill, I don't think you have any worries about that. I have noticed that Anne seems to think a lot of you by the way. If I were to hazard a guess, I think she has fallen in love with you."

"Anne? Young enough to be my daughter."

"Old enough to have sex with. Old enough to drink. Old enough to marry. What difference does age make anyway?"

"Yeah? Well, what about you? What do you think? How do you feel?"

"How I feel has nothing to do with that. What I think... well I work for you. You are the boss."

"Well, the 'boss' wants to know one thing from you Captain May. That one thing is... do you have any feelings for me other than... professional?"

"Me? I just work for you Bill. We have had some great sex together... besides... Anne is quite beautiful, young, well built..."

"I was not asking about Anne. I was asking you if you had feelings for me beyond boss and employee. Do you?"

"I can't... uh... I have to go check on the auto-navigator. Excuse me please."

May tried to cut by me but I took her arm in hand. I pulled her around gently and stepped in closer to her. She shrank back a bit. I think she did not want to tell me how she felt about me.

"May... please. I need to know. Do you have... do you think... damnit... are you falling in love with me?"

"Falling in love with you Bill? No. I'm not falling in love with you. I... I... fell in love with you already. I... need to... I have a ship to..."

"You love me? You have fallen in love with me?"

"I just said so."

"Then why are you being so... afraid?"

"Why? I am just a woman who captains yachts for the wealthy. You are one of the wealthy. What I can make in one-year... hell... ten years you could pull out of your pocket in an instant. If I had told you earlier... even now... well some would think I was just a gold digger. If it didn't work out... I would never be able to Captain yachts again. The 'rich' would be afraid I was trying to get my hooks into them. Can't you see?"

May broke away and ran into the bridge. I let her go. Her tears towards the end had caught me off guard. She loved me and had said nothing about it. How long I still was not sure. Her statement of love for me I had half expected. Not her reasons why she hadn't told me of her feelings before this.

I guess I could understand her predicament. I just wish she could understand that perhaps I might be in love with her just as much as she was in love with me. Now that I had opened that Pandora's box I needed to get is closed back up again. Without hurting anyone in the process.

I went below to the galley. Jan was prepping a lunch menu and I grabbed an apple out of the bowl on the table. I then got a cup of cocoa and sat down to think. Jan watched me for a while then came over to sit across from me.

"Hey... looks like you could use a friend Bill. Want to talk about it?"

"Just people problems Jan. The old love thing."

"Hmmmm... Let me guess... one loves you, another does too. You have feelings for one in a certain way but stronger feelings for the other. How to not hurt one and keep the other. How's that?"

"Heh... am I that transparent?"

"I've seen it before. I will admit that all of the parties involved were not having sex all the time."

"What to do. That is the question of the moment. How to tell May that... I... without hurting Anne."

"Tell May what Bill?"

"That... I think that I... well... love her."

"You have known her for what... four weeks?"

"I know... pretty short time. But I knew with my wife in a week. I knew she was the one for me."

"Then four weeks is not a short time is it Bill?"

"Well, I guess not. But the situation is so... so... weird."

"Weird? How is it so weird Bill? You took on a mostly female crew. At some point, missing having sex since your wife died, your needs determined a path. The path you are now on. All this time you have been having some great sex and that intimacy has started to work on your emotions."

"My emotions?"

"Yes, your emotions. When two people have sex there is something... some indefinable feeling that is transmitted too. That 'feeling' is why people fall in love, get married, have kids... so on and so forth."

"So you are saying that since I have been having sex with three women so much that I have begun to develop feelings for them more than just sexual?"

"Happens all the time Bill. I think you have probably fallen in love with May and yes Anne too. Julie... well you are so confused about your feeling for her that you are in denial about them."

"So, going by what you have told me, I could actually be in love with more than one woman?"

"Lets see Bill... you were married out of high school right?"

"Yes."

"Did you love your first wife then?"

"Well of course... anyway I thought I did."

"Then you met your second wife and married her."

"Yes."

"That makes two women you have loved doesn't it?"

"Yeah, but..."

"No... Listen to me. It is possible to love more than one person in 'that' way. To want to be a part of them and have them be a part of you. Right now, you have three women who love you, whether you know it or not. Julie, May and Anne. Julie would probably be happy just to have you be her dad. May and Anne however, they want more."

"Oh... I think I am beginning to see what you mean. I actually have feelings for them all. I need to prioritize what those feelings are?"

"There you go sounding like a big business executive. No... You need to decide which one you want to continue a relationship with. Or, perhaps you need to understand that you want to continue a relationship with both May and Anne."

"All this just because I had sex with them?"

"It's more than that Bill. You have been spending 'quality' time with them too. You're interaction with them after the sex or when you are not having sex is where I see a certain feeling more than 'like' for them showing up."

"Thanks Jan. You brought it around to where I could see a bit more clearly."

"No, I didn't. You already had your thoughts on what you felt. You didn't need someone to show you what they were, just someone to point them out to you."

Feeling much better and ready to tackle the issues at hand I left. Jan smiled at me as I left. She was very much in tune with life, far more than I was at the moment. I headed up to the bridge and May.

As I stepped onto the bridge I saw May and Anne talking. Subdued and serious. I kept from breaking in on them and instead went to my cabin to rest for a bit. I felt that they were discussing 'us' and I didn't want to mess things up.

Sitting on my bed the knock at the door woke me from my thoughts. I looked up to see Julie waving at me through the window. I motioned her in. Hoping that we wouldn't end up fucking and half hoping we would.

"Hey... got a few minutes Bill?"

"Sure Julie. Come on in. Have a seat."

"So... you looked like you were thinking pretty hard. Serious stuff?"

"Yeah. Pretty serious all right."

"Want to talk about it?"

"Just did, with Jan. I need to decide what to do now."

"What to do? As in us or you and May and Anne?"

"Mostly May and Anne. Us, well, I want to be or try to be the father you didn't have growing up. I know it is probably too late to make up for a bunch of the things we missed out on, but I would like to try.

"Well, at the start of this trip I had pretty awful thoughts about you and what I wanted to do to you. I see that I was wrong about you... I guess I need to ask you to forgive me for trying to hurt you or trap you in the way I did."

"Look Julie, I have already forgiven you for that... You were acting on what you perceived me to be, which, in your case is understandable. The sex thing... well I do have problems with that still. It's how I was raised. Fathers are not supposed to have sexual relations with daughters. I still feel that way too. You have been so... so... well, tempting and I have been... weak."

"No, not weak. I tricked you into it the first time, and then went after you harder. I know that I have what it takes to get men interested in me. I used all of that, all of me, to get you. Honestly, without trying to sound conceited or anything, you never had a chance Bill."

"Yeah... probably so. You are quite beautiful. You are even better looking than your mom was. That is probably why I didn't recognize you. I had an inkling one time, but I was confused too. By then, of course, it was too late."

"You think so? Thanks. That means something to me. I never had a man tell me that before. Usually they call me pretty or beautiful then afterwards... well they are gone and don't want to talk to me. I haven't been... I haven't been a real good girl you know."

"You are my daughter Julie. I loved you when you were just a baby. I held you and fed you and changed your diapers. I missed you terribly when your mom took you and disappeared. I don't care what you have done or how you may have been. I do care that I never tried harder to find you... to help you."

Julie came over to where I was sitting and bent down to hug me. She had tears in her eyes and yes, I had tears in mine. She was so beautiful. My daughter, and my lover. I had feelings that I never thought were possible.

I still harbored guilt over the way our relationship had gone. But I also had strong feelings for her that I could not deny.

Julie sat next to me and held my hand. I put an arm around her and held her close. Together we looked out the cabin window at the passing scenery. Suddenly I felt Julie's lips on my cheek, then down to my neck. I could feel her tongue licking small circles just under my ear.