Chapter 3: On the boat again

"You seem very perky this morning Claire Causton, and for once I guess that redness in your cheeks is due to the wind and not blushing. I suppose you enjoyed your cuddle with Jerry in the back of the boat while we suffered untold pains in the cabin." Rachel arrived for work a little later than usual and didn't look to have fully recovered from her ordeal. "No doubt he deliberately took us through that storm to get close to you with us out of the way."

The hint that Jerry had gone out of our way deliberately to go through the storm, caused me to bristle with indignation. "On the contrary," I snapped back with unusual venom causing the others to look around and take notice, "If you had left the pub when asked we would have been almost home when the storm broke and would have been in the shelter of the river with the wind behind us. Instead you got yourselves boozed up and hung around so we were out in the open sea when the storm broke and we had to take the full force of it. We were the ones who got drenched to the skin. You were in no condition to stand on the deck had it been flat calm so for your own safety you were sent below. It was your own fault, yours and Michael's. I don't suppose you're going to pay for the broken crockery and for laundering the bedding either even though it was your tardiness that was the root cause of the damage. And when we got back, you just sat on the jetty moaning while we had to clear up the mess you made before we could go home and change. And then we had to strip the beds and wash the bedding yesterday."

For a moment she looked flabbergasted that I'd retorted in that way but as usual she quickly recovered as she realised the implications of my words. "You were with him again yesterday?" Her eyebrows shot up.

"I couldn't let him clean up all your sickness on his own and you didn't offer to help and when we finished we went for another sail."

"And you anchored somewhere quiet for an hour's nooky! I do believe there's something going on between you two."

I blushed scarlet and stammered, "We... didn't do anything. We... went to Walton Backwaters and had a few biscuits for lunch and came back and then did the washing in the launderette." I didn't reveal that I had taken him home for a meal.

"You spend two whole days on your own together when you never ever speak to a boy and there's nothing going on? I think we'll soon be hearing wedding bells." Knowing that she was only trying to give me a hard time and it would be worse for me if I reacted, I let the comment go. After two days she was marrying me off!

"Another wedding to fork out for," commented Pauline getting in the conversation and giving a mock groan.

"And then the baby gifts! Or maybe they come before the wedding?" laughed Jackie.

As I turned away, real blushes spread over my face but Rachel just smiled knowingly and whispered so only I heard, "Go to the clinic and get some protection before it goes too far and there really is a baby to worry about." I blushed again but she turned and went into her office. She was right of course.

I did call at the clinic on my way home and obtained a prescription for birth control pills and wondered if and when I would need their protection. The thought of telling my parents I was pregnant filled me with horror and overcame any inhibitions I had about going to the clinic. Rachel was right; I needed to be prepared if or when sex between us might happen. Later that morning as I tidied my one bedroomed flat, I reminisced as to what did happen the previous day and speculated on what might have happened if I'd allowed things to go further. Certainly we hadn't had 'nooky' if she meant actual sex, but we had become much closer and began talking to each other about our lives and started to explore each other's bodies if only in a very superficial way. It started soon after we moored at the marina on the Saturday afternoon. I helped Jerry clean up the worst of the mess below and opened another hatch at the front to let the air through and blow some of the smell away. It was pretty awful even then and I didn't care to think what it must have been like for the two of them shut down there while the boat bounced violently in random directions but it wasn't safe for them to be on deck in the state they were in. Michael and Rachel, still very shaky and feeling the effects of having consumed too much alcohol, climbed unsteadily on to the pontoons and sat on a bench on shore until they'd recovered sufficiently for Michael to call a taxi to take them home. He'd picked the car up sometime the next day and probably noticed the Lady Isobel wasn't in her berth but of course, he wouldn't have known I was with Jerry.

I gave them a wave as the taxi left but it wasn't returned and they must have assumed Jerry was taking me home in his car, or perhaps they just didn't want anything more to do with us after the hell we'd supposedly put them through. Maybe it was part of her matchmaking strategy, but at that time her sore head and unsettled stomach must have been of more concern.

We swabbed up the vomit and washed the floor before Jerry pumped the bilges and said he'd tidy the rest in the morning. We were both very tired and wet. The wind and the excitement as well as the physical strain of controlling the boat had sapped the energy from us, me particularly, and I'm sure I wasn't as much help as I should have been. Much of the stuff from the lockers was strewn around and some crockery was broken. "Would you like me to help Jerry?" I volunteered, "It's the least I can do after such an exciting day out." Part of me wanted him to refuse but another, stronger part, wanted me to be with him again. His reply was non-committal at first. "You don't have to Claire... I can do it... but it would be nice it you would," he added after a long pause.

My thoughts on our relationship that night, were much more intimate. In actuality our hands had touched and he'd hugged me close, but with a barrier of woolly jumpers and oilskin clothing separating our flesh. These disappeared in my bedtime imaginary world and I wondered how much further, if any, we would go the next day or whether we would revert to our old shy selves.

As it turned out, the progress in our relationship was fairly rapid. No, I didn't jump into bed with him but the experience of the storm had broken down the invisible barriers that kept us apart and we conversed and touched but still with some reserve.

With two of us working, we finished the clearing by ten o'clock and afterwards Jerry suggested we go for a sail. The storm had unsettled the weather but there wasn't too much wind although the sky was grey and overcast with occasional showers. From the outset, Jerry sat close alongside me in the cockpit and taught me a little about handling the boat when tacked our way downstream against the wind. Lunchtime found us in Hamford Water, a series of narrow creeks in a nature reserve where we looked for seals and watched terns diving into the water. Unfortunately, not expecting to go out for the day, we hadn't brought food but we found a packet of crackers that has survived the storm and a tin of corned beef. Not an exciting meal but it staved off the pangs of hunger. A shower drove us below to eat and we sat side-by-side in the rather cramped space. Giggling a bit, at one point we both reached for a biscuit at the same time, our cheeks touched and a for a brief moment a spark, well it seemed like one, coursed from one to the other. I must have only half recovered from the shock because, without thinking I kissed him. That would have been unthinkable even yesterday. He kissed me gently and tentatively in return but I didn't let it end there, I wanted to go further like in my nighttime imaginings. Soon we cuddled and gently kissed like real lovers. Perhaps we already were.