Chapter 7

Martha stood up, but said, "Oh, Adel, I can't. This is too much to ask of me."

Adel said, "It is absolutely essential that you protect yourself against serious sunburn. You must strip, but you can do that in private if you wish. Just come back in here after you do."

Martha groaned and sighed. "If I'm going to do that, I may as well take my clothes off where everybody can see me." With that, she jerked off her bikini as quickly as possible and plopped back into her seat. There were a couple of impolite giggles from the peanut gallery, but nothing else was said.

Adel then went down her roster ordering each girl to strip. There was no hesitation, though several of the girls did make a show of it for John's benefit. After all of the able bodied girls had stripped, Adel sent Martha to help Janice get her suit off.

John couldn't helped noticing that most of the girls were cleanly shaved, though a few had left a little tuft of a "landing strip." Martha was the only one who had shaved only just enough to wear her bikini without any hair showing.

John said, "Thank you ladies. I admit that I enjoyed that." He received a solid round of applause for that statement. There were also some giggles. "Now to a much more serious part of the discussion. It is absolutely essential that you answer honestly and completely the next two questions, because I ask them for medical reasons. The first one is, are you sexually active? Please hold up your hand if you are. This needs to be public knowledge and I will explain why after the questions are answered." Eleven of the women, including Adel, held up their hands. "Thank you. Now, are any of you pregnant?" Two held up their hands and one started to, but pulled it back down. "That's wonderful news. Susan, why did you start to hold up your hand and then back down?"

"I missed my period three days ago, and I'm a bit irregular, so I'm not really sure. But my boyfriend and I did it just once without protection, so I'm just not sure."

"OK, thanks for being honest. We'll treat you as pregnant until we find out otherwise.

"Now, as for the reasons I asked those embarrassing questions, I expect us to be stuck here for the rest of our lives, since I have no idea how we could possibly be rescued. If we are stuck here, I think that we should plan on having children. We have just had graphic evidence that I am the only male, so we will have a somewhat restricted gene pool. Those two definites and one possible greatly expand our gene pool and raise our chances of survival. Is there any one of you who refuses to become pregnant by me? Be honest!"

Martha started to raise her hand, but pulled it back down when she saw that she was going to be the only holdout. John was still erect, and she was feeling very intimidated. She didn't think that a penis that large could possibly fit inside her without causing considerable pain. She had always been socially timid and didn't know how to express her reservations. Maybe she could talk to Adel and John privately about her fears before she was forced into sexual relations with John.

Meanwhile, the teens were all excited about feeling something that large inside them, particularly the virgins. Many were already wet and wondering how long they would have to wait before their turn. Maybe being marooned here wasn't going to be so bad, after all, at least, not with a hunk like John as a sex partner.

John said, "OK, let's move on to some other subjects. I think that it must be obvious to all of you that we will be making this boat our base of operations for a while. There are enough sleeping accommodations to take all of us, but we are going to have to compromise, to some extent. With the boat canted over the way it is, none of the bunks are going to be usable. However, we can remove the mattress pads to more comfortable places and get by until we can fix the problem.

"Toilet facilities are in the same condition. There are 4 toilets, called 'heads, ' on the boat, but they are not going to flush properly as long as we are tipped like this. I will try to work something out as soon as we finish this meeting. By the way, we do not have very much toilet paper, so be very sparing with what you use.

"I hope that you all realize that we are in a very dangerous predicament here, and we will all need to work together for us to survive. So I expect all of you to cooperate and not goof off.

"Does anyone else have anything to say?"

Adel held up her hand and stood up when acknowledged by John. "John, we are fortunate to have somebody with your survival experience to lead us, and we will do as you advise. But we would all appreciate it if you would make a point to tell us what you are doing to help our situation so that we can cooperate intelligently."

"An excellent point, Adel. I will continue to do that in meetings such as this one. I do want to emphasize that I can't think of everything, so any of you that have ideas or suggestions, please don't be shy about speaking up.

"Now, the first thing we need to do is to inventory our skills. Martha, I am sure that you know a lot of this already, but I don't, so I need for you to make a list of all of the skills each of these women possesses. I'm interested in hobbies as well as formal training. A skilled knitter will be a welcome craftsman for our group, for example.

"Meanwhile, Adel, I need to inspect the outside, especially the bottom, of the boat to see what condition it's in, and what we can salvage or need to repair. In the interests of safety, I would like for you to stand watch for me while I walk around on the ground beside and under the boat. Will you do that, please?"

"Certainly, just tell me what you need for me to do."

Adel and John went outside to the deck on the side of the boat near the ground. "I'm going over the side at this low point and I want you to stand here and watch for any animals, and I mean ANY animals, that might come close. If you see any, scream out so that I can hear you, and I'll come running back to safety."

Adel nodded that she would do that, so John threw a rope ladder over the side. It really wasn't that far to the ground, but John wanted a quick and easy way to get back aboard if any danger showed up. "Wait, I almost forgot." John went back inside and got his belt and pistol and put it on. "I'll bet I look silly dressed like this!" he said when he got back to Adel. He grinned at her as he was wearing nothing but his belt and holster with the gun. She laughed when he added, "At least, my erection has gone down!"

John descended to the ground and squatted down to look at the underside of the boat. Shaking his head, he went to the other side and examined the boat. He spent about half an hour looking around at the various important structural features of the boat that could be seen from the ground and climbed back on board. He pulled up the rope ladder and looked gravely at Adel. "We've got problems! Let's go to the bridge and discuss them."

They went to the bridge and sat down. John said, "I don't want to scare you, but we will have to make some major decisions pretty soon. How steady are the nerves of your people? Can we depend on them to work hard and not to panic at setbacks and odd situations?"

"I don't know how to answer that, John. None of us have ever faced life-threatening situations before, so I don't know with certainty how we will react. My girls are pretty level headed and pragmatic, so I think that they can handle almost anything, given the right leadership."

"Good. You and I will just have to be good leaders!

"Our main problem right now is that our water reservoir has cracked and is leaking. My guess is that we will be out of water within 4 days, maybe sooner. So, the first thing we have to do is find a source of water. It scares the hell out of me to suggest it, but I think that several of us will have to form a search party to look for water, starting tomorrow. We have a few plastic water jugs, so we can carry any water we find, but we will have to ration water starting now. I just hope that we can find water close to our present location."