Chapter 18: The Trip to Little Cayman

The movie had started in the main cabin and the American transcontinental flight from San Francisco to Miami had quieted for the first time since Jean and I had boarded. Quite often when we'd traveled with our parents, and particularly with our status-conscious father, we had flown first class, but this time we were paying for the trip from our own meager savings and we were firmly planted in the main cabin. Had there been a steerage class, we might have been there, so strained was our budget.

Jean and I were on our way to Little Cayman, south of Cuba, for a week of SCUBA diving. We'd been to The Wall at Cayman before with Mom and Dad and as with most kids, we'd paid no attention to the cost of anything. This time, our parents had given us permission to go there alone, but only if we paid our own way. Something about 'the value of the dollar.' Boy, was that an education!

I was idly looking out the window, seeing nothing, and Jean was sitting next to me. An older guy with a paunch and earphones on was quietly snoring next to her. Glancing around, most of the passengers were either sleeping or caught up in the adventures of Mel Gibson. It seemed like a safe time to talk. I put back the arm rest between us and leaned over to Jean.

"Are you surprised Mom let us go?" I asked.

"Together, on this trip? Because of our talk you mean?"

"Yeah, that," I said.

In a moment of mindless unburdening, Jean had confessed to our mom that we'd been fooling around with each other, but we hadn't 'gone all the way.' Cripes, our secret was out! I thought the jig was up, but I'd underestimated our mother.

Subsequently, she cornered me. What could I do? Partly in fear and partly because I didn't know how to lie well, I told her the truth, expecting the world to fall in on me. 'Your own SISTER?' Yet, she hadn't gone ballistic. Actually, she remained warm and loving, reminding me of my responsibility to Jean and to myself and not threatening us. Oh, we'd spoken of the potential consequences of our acts and the need to be mindful of our actions. But she never once said, 'Don't do that.'"

"Not really," Jean said after a pause. "I mean, she does trust us."

"How do you mean?"

"Well, we've been truthful with her... about us, I mean. And she's always been out front with us. She as much as told me that she can't really make us do anything... that we'll do whatever it is we're going to do, no matter what. And she trusts that we'll be responsible." After a pause, she added, "Mom's always been good at that - making us responsible for our actions, I mean."

"Yeah, I know that. At least intellectually. But emotionally, I'm still a bit surprised. I guess I thought we'd get grounded, say for the next ten years or so."

"Wanna hear another shocker? Try this one on for size. Mom insisted that I start taking The Pill. 'Not that I think you're going to do anything for sure, but you never know, she said.'"

"You're on The Pill?" I asked, excited.

"I just said... "

"Then you couldn't get pregnant if we... "

"Billy! We're not going to DO anything! How many times do I have to tell you that? This was Mom's idea, not mine. And in any case, it's not for YOU!" Her tone was uncharacteristically sharp.

I leaned over and whispered in her ear, "Okay, okay. I get it. Don't get mad."

Jean turned to stare at me, her eyes blazing and then she softened. "I'm not mad. Not really. I just don't want you to take me for granted, that's all."

The attendant offered each of us a blanket. We accepted and Jean spread her's over her lap before continuing. "When I asked Mom if we could go on this vacation together, she never mentioned 'our situation.' She never said we shouldn't be together or that we shouldn't... well, you know."

"Make love?"

She glanced sharply at me. "Anyway, I told her we wouldn't. She shouldn't worry, I said."

"What's that got to do with me taking you for granted?" I asked.

"Oh, I don't know!" She sounded a little exasperated. "Just

don't!"

"Can I have your peanuts?"

I watched the corners of her mouth twitch, trying not to smile. She recognized my paper-thin ploy to distract her, to change the subject.

Handing me the small bag of peanuts, she said, "You owe me."

"For the peanuts?"

"No, you jerk. For talking Mom and Dad into letting us take this trip alone."

"Whatever your price, it's a bargain," I replied, settling back in my seat.

Still, I thought it seemed a little unreal, almost too good to be true. It just didn't fit my concept of how things worked. After we'd confessed to Mom our sexual desires, it didn't fit my preconceived notion of the usual parental response. But then Mom's responses often didn't. I couldn't remember how many times I'd screwed up, expecting to catch hell, only to have her give me one of her calm talks. Inevitably, I'd end up taking more responsibility for my stuff than I wanted to. Didn't she know? I just wanted to be totally irresponsible and do the things I wanted to do and when I wanted to do 'em. That was usually right NOW.

I suppose our taking this vacation together wasn't all that much different from the times we'd spent home alone together, I reasoned. Yet, the sex addict in me wanted to put some other spin on it. Like we'd been given permission or something.

I looked over at Jean. She had her seat back partially reclined and was quietly resting, eyes closed. I watched the rise and fall of her bulky sweatshirt. To be truthful, I was really watching the rise and fall of her breasts, seeing them in my mind's eye, full and heavy, yet extraordinarily firm. Jean'd told me that the women in our family all were blessed with firm, youthful breasts. I could only speak for Jean, a peek once or twice at Mom and oh yes, our Aunt Peg in the hot tub. Yeah, they'd all have been picked out of titty line-up as being related.

Unconsciously, I made it my business to check out Jean. From long practice, I'd come to accurately recognize when she was wearing a bra, as she was today. It wasn't that her tits sagged or anything obvious like that. It was more I think that her bra pushed the sides in a little, maybe so they didn't get in the way? But more I noticed subdued movement. She was missing that subtle sway when she walked. As we were carrying our shoulder bags toward the departure gate today, she'd caught me checking her out. She flushed, smiled and then nodded in silent confirmation at my unasked question. Jean'd once admitted that she was pleased that I always checked her out. I thrived on small encouragements like that.

Just a bit later, a young girl in a micro skirt dropped something in front of us and as she bent over at the waist, I saw a flash of red. Jean nudged me and smiled. Red panties. Were they thongs I wondered? And why red? Had her boyfriend instructed her in how to dress when she met him at the airport? That and no bra, I'll bet. My imagination ran on. He'd told her to trim her pubic hair, rouge her nipples and leave the top buttons open. Man, I was just getting warmed up!

"Billy, come on back!"

"Uh... yes... my mind wandered for a moment." I said

sheepishly.

She smiled and said in a low voice, "The whole airport could see that."

The trip to Miami was best described at tedious and we arrived almost on schedule. Between planes, we called home and left a message that everything was going all right. Jean bought a few post cards and I mostly looked at the dark-skinned, good-lookin' girls gliding and swaying about the airport. I loved the colors of all the people. Even the airport colors looked like something out of a TV Program about Miami. Watching one particularly exotic girl jiggle past me - I imagined from Havana - I had an image of dusky-skinned teenage girls rolling large cigars on nubile firm thighs. I didn't know if they did it that way, but I liked the image.

Jean nudged me in the ribs and whispered in my ear, "Lookit the ass on THAT one!" It was one of those small-waisted, firm-cheeked honeys that wore jeans so tight, it defied understanding. I mean, how in hell they get 'em on, anyway?

I turned and smiled at her, making a brief salivating look.

"Down, boy," she advised.

"If I could WILL it down, my life would be simpler."

"If you could only will it UP... " she countered, then looked away, blushing.

"It'd always be up... at least around you." I finished in a slightly louder voice.

"You!" She pretended mock indignation.

The Cayman Air flight took off on schedule, an unusual occurrence, I thought. The relatively brief flight over Cuba and down to the Caymans was uneventful, the very best type of trip. When we landed in Grand Cayman, the air was sweet and warm and the people friendly and colorful, but still, we thought of the tourist part of that Caribbean island much as we thought of Miami Beach, which is to say, not very much. We were anxious to move on to a more remote, less developed part of the islands.

From past experience, we reserved some trepidation for the connecting flight from Grand Cayman to Cayman Brac and the short jump to Little Cayman. We remembered it as a chancy and casually run affair. An unusually tall, former horse-transportation aircraft converted for human use served as the Mexican bus equivalent of the local island shuttle. Well, kinda converted as we remembered and our memory served us well. I looked around large, stall-like interior of that curious plane, half expecting to see an old, dried-up horse turd kicked into a dusty corner but the only thing I saw was a crushed Coke can and some candy wrappers.

After landing on Little Cayman, almost a grass strip carved out of the jungle, we taxied to the terminal. That's an overstated name for the small wooden shack sitting next to a weedy graveled area. With only twenty- some permanent inhabitants on the island, there'd be no taxi cabs, but I needn't have worried. A moderately rusted and beat-up old pickup that belonged to Pirate's Pub was there to meet us.

Surprisingly, all our gear made it through the multiple plane changes. As surprisingly, Jean traveled almost as light as I did, in marked contrast to our aunt or our mother. "Casual clothes, that's all I packed," Jean assured me. Even without tanks and weight belts, the rest of the gear was heavy, bulky and clumsy. That was the price, we'd been taught, for the safety of taking your own gear on a dive trip. I was pleased when several guys standing around swarmed over our gear and loaded it into the truck and it appeared they were pleased with the tip.

Pirate's Pub was run by a delightful, robust, full-of-life lady from Texas named Gladys Howorth. She'd studied in several internationally known culinary institutes and her meals at Pirate's Pub were justifiably famous. Still, for all of that, I'd not have traveled so far just for the atmosphere and her cooking alone. It was the Wall I was after. I've heard that there are three premiere dive spots in the world, at least for wall diving. There's the Red Sea for one, then parts of the Great Barrier Reef were highly ranked and finally, in our hemisphere, there's the Wall off Little Cayman.

I read that the Wall dropped off into the depths, falling 6,000 feet straight down. That was academic, of course, but what made it so fantastic was the impossible-blue water there with constant 100 feet plus viability. That together with the rich and varied marine life in and around the pockets and caves on the Wall made for some of the most spectacular diving anywhere. Happily, there was no drift current as in Cozumel, so you could hang out anywhere without having to work against the drift. If the Dive Master became confidant of your abilities, you could dive alone with your buddy and return to the boat when you were ready. Rarely did we have dive groups larger than six to eight people and often, there'd be as little as four.

We'd been to the Caymans a couple of times before with our parents and friends. Jean was a strong swimmer and a naturally talented diver. We'd been diving buddies for years and were very comfortable with each other's abilities. We just floated around effortlessly using so little air, often we were in the water for fifteen or twenty minutes after other folks had depleted their tanks' air supply.

"Think Margi's still here?" Jean asked on the ride through the jungle. She'd had taken off her sweatshirt and was down to a skimpy sleeveless T- shirt. My arm was over her shoulder and I had a good view of the top of her white bra as well as a good portion of her cleavage. It never ceased to thrill me.

Margi? Margi had been a small, very attractive female Dive Master who came from Colorado. We'd met her last year. I'd developed a crush on her then but aside from recognizing me as an experienced diver, I don't think she even know I was alive. She was a couple of years older than Jean, and that put me out of the running. Some good-looking 'older guy' had monopolized much of her time when we had been there the previous year. No, I hadn't forgotten Margi.

"I hope so, but doubt it. They've had a new Dive Master every time we've been here. They're such a bunch of gypsies."

"Would you like to see her again?" she asked, grinning at me. We both remembered the time Margi had been helping a sea-sick diver into the boat and couldn't tend to a broken bikini bra strap. I couldn't see the diver, just Margi's full breast. I remembered how tan she was, except her breast which was startlingly white. Mostly, I remembered her nipple. It had been very large, thick and meaty, jutting out from her pebbled areola.

I whispered in her ear, "Remember her nipple?" I may have been talking about Margi's breast, but it was Jean's I was eyeing as I peered down her shirt.

"I KNEW that's what your were thinking, you hound dog!"

Jean loved to play the innocent, obliquely referring to something sexy and then pretending moral outrage. We knew the game well.

When we arrived at Pirate's Pub, the efficient crew had us moved into our room in a jiffy. We'd asked for two adjoining rooms, but knew we'd take whatever was available. I was tickled when Gladys put us in a single large room with two double beds. Our quarters was one half of an octagonal building in the palm trees quite near the beach. I remembered how soothing the waves and the night sounds were there.