Chapter 39

The next morning, we were up reasonably early, getting ready to leave. Merlin and Missy said goodbye at the house and had their driver take us to the plane. Once on the plane heading home, Mercy came up to the cockpit and put her arms around my neck. "I'm so happy to be going home. Mike and I belong with you and Sue, and home is where we are a family with our other friends and kids."

We didn't get into Tampa until almost midnight. We had called ahead to make sure an attendant would be there so the runway lights would be on for us and someone would be able to take care of the plane. As we passed Panama City, I was able to radio the Aero Park and had them order a limo for Ben and Beth.

Once on the ground, parked by the ops building, we unloaded everything and sent Ben and Beth home. I put our luggage into the truck and put the three car seats into the Expedition. Ten minutes later, I was carrying sleeping kids into their rooms so their mothers could get them undressed for bed. Surprisingly, this Saturday night there were still quite a few people on the patio partying hardy. Some had been to the hot tub, some had been swimming, and still more had just gotten back from a ride. Henry and Nancy were having a great time with Bear, Crystal, Hap, and Margie.

Once the kids were in bed, Sue and Mercy came out and wanted a Cuba Libre. I made up the very light rum and Diet Cokes with lime, and made up a Beefeaters for me. Tiny and Ruth were still up and apparently had been up to the hot tub with Kevin, Susan, Bear, Crystal, Hap, and Margie. They said they were having a great time when they were invaded by a bunch of older park residents. They had wanted our group to stay but Bear said, "Wow, some of those old ladies were scary."

Ruth said, "Just wait, Bear, you'll probably be scary looking in a few years too. You'll just be another old, hairy, fat guy."

Bear groaned; knowing what she said was probably true.

We talked about our trip a little, then a little at a time, we cleaned up the patio, fixed the big coffeepot, and drifted off to our beds. Both ladies were enthusiastic bed partners tonight. Both said they had missed being loved in our own bed. They were equally enamored over each other, since when I failed to get it up again, they just tangled up between themselves. Wonder what time they finally went to sleep.

Ah, Sunday morning. The clock said seven. All of these time zone changes were tough. I slipped from bed, checked the three kids, showered quickly, and put on shorts and a T-shirt.

Glenda was in a filmy robe, waiting for company. I gave her a hug and joined her with a cup of coffee. We had only begun to chat, when Ruth came in with a totally transparent gown. Minutes later, Sandy and Mandy showed up with gowns matching Ruth's. The next to show was Shawna, in her long T-shirt, carrying her little girl. Debbie and Hanna showed up, wearing really torn-up T-shirts with big holes, carrying their boy and girl respectively. They put the kids down, and made sure everyone knew the T-shirts were their only covering. Hanna had done a great job losing weight and was now approaching her pre-pregnancy weight and sexy appearance.

Next up was a surprise. Nancy and Crystal arrived in robes that were the same as Ruth's. Wow! There was a lot of woman on display this morning. As some of the men began showing up, Crystal and Nancy went in to wake my two ladies. While they were gone, Juanita showed up in another transparent gown. She was excited to see me, and gave me a very healthy, intimate kiss. That'll make you tongue tied in the morning.

Crystal and Nancy came out, pulling the now sexily gowned Mercy and Sue. All four girls had a dreamy look on their face and as Sue and Mercy gave me a good morning kiss, their pussy breath was overwhelming. It wasn't going to be long until I was dragging one of my ladies back to bed.

Samantha and Mickey showed up sexily clad, then Phil and Judy showed up with Judy wearing a robe showing she still had a very sexy body. Even Alice showed up in a shimmering, but not transparent gown. It was similar to Glenda's.

There was far too much female flesh to concentrate this morning. I went into the kitchen to begin the Sunday breakfast. Hanna, Juanita, Glenda, and Nancy joined me as we did the bacon, sausage, pancakes, biscuits, and eggs. While we were there Hanna, Juanita, and Nancy kept brushing against me with their sexy gowns. A breast on the arm, one on the back, another on the chest, it was becoming "hard" to get anything done. Next Susan showed up in a copy of Ruth's robe. While I was standing gawking at my older sister, she came up to me, pressed her breasts into my chest, and said, "Welcome home, Brother. You should have told Kevin and me about your hot tub club. It is really something."

I looked around for Dennis and his sister but was told they were at a sleepover. Susan said that was how she could get away with dressing sexily. All of the guys ate while checking out the girls of their choice. The guys all had to keep adjusting themselves, as the view was really enjoyable.

Tiny had most of the crew half-crocked with Bloody Mary's and screwdrivers, claiming that the ones who didn't want the kicker should have some orange juice or tomato mix. The young mothers resisted the offers as they had kids to watch after, as Sue, Shawna, and Mercy still nursed.

Damn! I love Sunday mornings.

After breakfast, Tiny got out a bunch of pictures of boats. He went over several with Sue, but suggested that the best way was to go see the boat and have a test ride to see it perform. Our paid maritime engineer had surveyed all of the boats Tiny had information on.

Tiny also had a dossier on a maritime engineer that specialized in sailing craft. He said this man was known to be the expert in and around the Southeast U.S. He was expecting my call or could come out to talk with us. Mercy said to call him and ask him out at his earliest convenience.

Tiny got out plans to show me the design for a hangar at the Aero Park. He had made an agreement for leasing the ground to build our hangar with space next to it so we could have two hangars if we thought it was necessary. Tiny had figures for how many instances there were for requests for small, medium, and large charters that were going unfilled or where planes were brought in even from out of state to fulfill the charter. The quantity of missed business was astounding. Tiny said that a local limo service often got the business when it wasn't too far or when commercial flights couldn't be arranged.

He said we could probably have at least one additional 200, two 206s or 210s, a couple of student planes, at least one Lear, and perhaps two Gulfstreams. Tiny had several sheets of paper showing purchase prices, anticipated maintenance, crew costs, fuel and fees, along with projected revenues that he said was intentionally only fifty percent of what was really expected. There was an amazing bottom line. The numbers were staggering when you consider how much some of the big planes cost.

"Where would we get the capital for all this, Tiny?" I asked trying to uncross my eyes from the numbers.

"You don't buy stuff like this, Steve, you lease it. You make a five-year lease then if you don't like the plane in five years, you give it back to the leasing company and get another one. The leasing companies have a backlog of people wanting to buy and/or lease, off lease equipment. There would be the additional expense of two more hangars if we bought everything listed here."

I laughed. "Tiny, all I did was ask you to build me a hangar and to save room for a second."

Tiny smiled, "I know how you think. First it's a model airplane, but you show up with two real ones. So if you can fill up two hangars, you'll be filling four. That's just the way you are."

Tiny continued, "I've taken the initiative to advertise for airplane mechanics. There seems to be several jet mechanics, but few with small plane experience. We may have to have some trained out at the Aero Park in order to handle the student planes."

"Wow! We'll look at all these numbers later. I didn't expect to be going into the charter service so fast. My goodness, we'll be looking for a lot of crew members too."

Tiny smiled, "It will be easy in Tampa. This is a hub for several airlines so there will be many people we can choose from those retiring and those who don't want to work steady routes for the airlines. There are a few hostesses that have found themselves out of jobs because they gave too many favors to passengers. They would be perfect for business charters."

Sue had heard that and said, "Are you pimping now, Tiny?"

"No, just promoting a business opportunity," Tiny said with a straight face. "Might as well take advantage of a young lady's proclivity to make passengers comfortable."

Sue exclaimed, "Yeah, right." Then she asked, "If we do this charter thing should we do it with another corporation or include it in one of the existing ones?"

"Separate corporation." Tiny stated. "Something like this has a high risk so we should keep it separate, with the corporate officers paid only minimum amounts. As profits accumulate, we can do something with them."

A tall, older, man with graying hair, complete with a worn captain's hat, came onto the patio. He confidently asked loudly, "Steve Sharp?"

I stood up and went to find out who he was.

"My name is John Morgan. Your man contacted me about finding you a sailboat. How about offering me a cup of coffee and we'll talk about what you're looking for?"

I drew the man a mug of coffee plus another for myself and sat with him at one of the round tables. Mercy had heard John Morgan's announcement and came to sit with us. I introduced her to him, and he asked, "How much do you know about sailing?"

I explained my limited experience of sailing the over one hundred foot sloop from the San Juan Islands down to San Francisco, and the recent cruise out to sea and back. I told him of the instruction Dewey had given me and that I had a captain's license for what good that was.

"If the man is an old time sailor, and signed for you to captain a like vessel, you are obviously worthy. Real sailors don't make those recommendations lightly. When it's time, I'll help you get your sea legs again. Now do you want a big boat like he has or perhaps a smaller one?"

I thought for a second before responding. "I think that a first boat should be probably half that size, but I would like all of the conveniences and automated equipment that he has so I could sail it by myself if necessary or if I wanted to. It needs to be large enough that my family and I can go out for a week without being too cramped, but small enough that it will be easy to get into most harbors with slips along the coast."

"Good choices. Would you want one, two, or perhaps three staterooms?"

"John, I think either two or three. We would probably be okay with two but if we brought another couple with us, we would need three."

"Okay Steve, how about motors, generators, and electronics."

"That's easy," I said. "Yes."

I paused and smiled, "With a boat that size a small diesel. It would be nice to have two, but one should be fine with sufficient fuel storage. Definitely a main and backup generator, and as far as electronics I would want a good full range radar, GPS, gyro compass, magnetic compass, radios, and depth finders fore and aft plus anything else you think we might need. I would want to make sure we had plenty of fresh water storage."

He said he would be right back and went to his car and came back with a large salesman's sample case. He thumbed through files in the case and pulled out five folders. "These five boats are all forty-five to sixty-five feet and for the most part have what you are looking for. Let's go through them one at a time."

We looked at each one while he explained what features each had. Once we had gone through all of them, Mercy wanted to look at a fifty-five foot and the sixty-five foot again. She had John go over the features that they had individually and what we would need to do to make the boats our sea home. She folded up the fifty-five foot folder and handed it back to John and said pointing at the other open folder, "I like this one. When can we go look at it?"

John looked at me and back at Mercy. "This is in Jacksonville right now, but will be ferried back to Naples, probably Wednesday or Thursday."

Mercy said, "Can we go up there and help ferry the boat back? That would be a good way for us to find out if we like the boat and what we would need to do to it."

"I can call and find out. Perhaps they would even pay us to ferry it back instead of paying another company. I think that between Steve and me, we can sail the boat back here. What do you think, Steve?"

"Sure, why not. I can get us a plane ride up to Jacksonville from Monday on and then we can sail the boat back to Naples. If we wanted to bring it here, where would be a good place to rent a slip?"

John thought a minute, "You could get a slip at the Tampa Yacht Club. That's about twenty to twenty-five minutes, but you have to go a long way to get out of the bay. If you don't mind the congestion you could go to Clearwater Marina that is about forty minutes away or for a nice place that isn't that far you could get a Dunedin Yacht club slip that is about thirty minutes away and right on the gulf."

"Make arrangements for us to go get the boat and sail it back," I said. "We'll know before we get to Naples if it's what we want. We can either bring it back here or just leave it in Naples and get a ride back up here. We have a plane and my wife can fly us to Jacksonville and if necessary pick us up in Naples."

John asked to use a phone and I showed him the phone in the kitchen. Mercy was squirming around in her chair waiting for him to come out. When he did, she looked up at him expectantly.

John announced, "We can get the boat tomorrow. The owner will have it stocked and fueled, ready for us anytime after nine in the morning. He's come down a little on his price and I think he will come down a little more. He needs to sell the boat as he's had some bad days in the market lately. You know how it is with some of these guys, easy come, easy go."

Mercy looked at me and asked, "Can we go in the morning? I'll make sure there is someone to watch the kids. I'm sure Sue will be okay with it, let me ask."

Mercy was gone in a flash and came back to the patio, almost dragging Sue back, while Mercy was carrying Mike.

Sue was near laughing. "Okay, okay, I'll fly you guys up to Jacksonville in the morning and come pick you up in Naples if necessary. If you park, or is that dock, the boat around here, I'll come pick you up. Mercy wants this too much to miss out on."

We told John to meet us here and we would drive out to the Aero Park together. His car would be safe here. He asked how long it would take to fly up there. When I told him about a half hour, he was surprised. I told him we would spend more time taxiing, taking off, and landing than we would in the air.

Sue wanted to know how long it would take to get back here or to Naples. John said, "If we don't stop at night we should be back by Wednesday or Thursday. If we anchored at night we won't be back till Friday or Saturday."

Sue asked, "Will you be within cell phone range most of the time?"

John answered, "We should be almost all the way. There are a couple of places where we have to get out fairly far, due to shallows and rocks, and going through the Keys, we will have to either pay the bridge toll or go around. It's a nice sail around Key West though."

Sue commented, "Steve has a ton of things happening all at once, as usual, and we may need him to make some decisions quickly."

John left, with Mercy playing with Mike while she was excited to be going sailing. She said to Sue and me, "When Mike, Lizzy, and Steve get older, we can all go sailing together. We could go anywhere in a big boat like Dewey has. The kids could really learn a lot about the world if we sailed around it."

Sue couldn't get over how excited Mercy was.

Sunday evening, Sue and I went out for a ride on the shovelhead with Hap, Bear, Charlie, and Jim, accompanied by their ladies. We rode up to Bear's clubhouse, and after visiting, we rode to Dade City and back home, a nice ride. Funny to think of all the different forms of transportation we used in just the last few days, sailboat, airplane, car, truck, and motorcycle.

When we went to sleep that night, Sue and I made love to Mercy for a long, long time, trying to calm her down. Her anticipation level was out of sight.

When I awoke, I wasn't between my beauties. Mercy was in the middle, but her head was facing my feet. The two girls must have been up to something in the middle of the night as Sue's head was sleeping on one of Mercy's thighs and Mercy's head was on one of Sue's. It's a good thing I'm a sound sleeper, otherwise I wouldn't be as rested as I was.

As I slipped out of bed, Mercy's eyes popped open and she grinned at me. She mouthed, "I love you" and said aloud, "Let's get a shower and pack, so we're ready when John gets here."

Mercy was all business this morning. She was showered and dressed before me. She brought out my old duffel bag suggesting it would be good for the trip. I pulled out four pair of jeans and four pair of shorts along with a half dozen T-shirts, a couple of long sleeve shirts, a heavy wind breaker, socks, and an extra pair of sneakers. Mercy watched me and duplicated what I packed. I told her to pack my razor and our toothbrushes, along with soaps and four towels and wash rags. When she was done, I carried the duffel bag to the living room.

Sue got up and showered, and called me from the patio to come back to the bedroom. "Honey, I keep remembering the trip we made from Seattle to San Francisco and think you should take at least one gun. Take that fancy new aluminum case you have and fill it up with hardware. It wouldn't hurt you know."

I pulled out the case and immediately brought the AR-15 out and broke it down so it fit easily in the compact case with four magazines. I put a Glock 9mm in the case with three extra magazines. That should be enough. Sue made sure my cell was fully charged and that I had my charger and converter packed.

Mercy had been flitting around playing with Mike, changing and dressing him, and she devoted attention to Liz who was giggling as usual. She is such a happy baby. Little Steve recognized something was up and wanted to be held. I gave him hugs and kisses, saying we wouldn't be gone long. He became interested in eating and jabbering with CJ.

Juanita and Glenda said they would watch the kids while Sue flew us up to Jacksonville. Since Mickey was off, she wanted to fly with us. It was good that she did so Sue would have company on the way back.

John Morgan showed up in time for a breakfast sandwich, washed down with orange juice and coffee. Between swallows he asked, "Do you guys get together like this often?"

Tiny spoke up, "Every morning and every evening. Most of us work for either S&S or Quality, so it gives us a chance to rev up for the day."

"I'll say," John said. "This is like a mess hall in the military on payday. Everyone's happy anticipating a great day."

Charlie added, "Having breakfast here with your friends in the morning, knowing your family is being taken care of and looked after, makes it easy to go to work. I know my two kids are being taken care of and that my wife is going to work where she is safe and happy."

Crystal, who was lounging in Bear's lap, said, "I'll say were happy. I'm safe too because I have this lummox of a security guard watching out for me all day."

Mercy, Sue, and I gave all the kids a hug and kiss, then loaded John and Mickey up in my pickup and headed to the Aero Park. Once there we carried our luggage to the plane that was already outside the hangar, waiting for us.