Chapter 4

Bob knew by midnight that this would be a raucous group for a week-long trip. The single female professor, the married couple and the dive master had been installed in one stateroom by Ted, and they had all gone out on the town together, keeping themselves separate from the students. They came back smiling and laughing, smelling of alcohol, both women obviously flirting with both men, and both men obviously enjoying it. Bob shook his head and wondered what things would be like in the stateroom later. While the cabins were relatively luxurious, there would be no real privacy for anyone in them. He grinned as he thought about other people in the teaching profession he'd taken out before. When they got away from the University, where decorum was required, they had a tendency to run just a little wild. At least the professionals did.

The Grad students and interns were much louder and had obviously had much more to drink when, as a group, they straggled up the gang plank in clusters of twos and threes. Carol and Alice were hanging onto Ted, and his hands around them each cupped a breast with impunity as they weaved and giggled. The other man from the usual group, nicknamed Bob, but whose name was actually Phil, was helping the intern named Julie, who had obviously had way too much to drink.

The other female intern, Susan, was behind Mike, pushing him up the gangplank, making it look like she was pushing a ton as he giggled and tried moving from side to side. Bill was behind her, his hands fixed firmly on her ass, pushing on it as she bent forward to push Mike.

For fun, Bob looked to see who went to which rooms. It was difficult to tell at first, because the two female interns were in high party mode and didn't want to settle down. They drifted from one room to the other trying to have conversations with people who were apparently trying to go to bed.

In the end, it appeared that Bob, Ted, Carol and Alice had claimed one room, which wasn't surprising, and the interns had been put in the other stateroom. That spoke volumes about the possibility that there were romances either established already, or in the offing, since it would have been simple to put the men in one room, and the women in the other.

Once things had settled down, Bob retracted the gang plank and went to bed in his cabin on the bridge. He set his alarm for four-thirty.

He only had to get up once, about twenty minutes later, when there was a screech and a splash. He went out on deck to find Bill standing at the rail, looking down into the water, where Julie was sputtering, treading water.

"Um ... she fell overboard," said Bill, the owlish look in his eyes suggesting that he'd had quite a bit to drink too. He was wearing only satin shorts. He blinked and then grinned. "Man overboard!" he crowed, giggling. "Um ... I mean woman overboard!" he giggled some more.

Amy Simpson appeared from below, wearing a gauzy nightgown that did little to hide the fact that, while she was in her thirties, she was all woman. Her lipstick was smeared.

"What's going on?" she asked, looking at Bob and Bill.

Bill, sensing somehow that there could be trouble ahead, went through physical motions that suggested he was trying very hard to act sober. "Julie fell in the water," he said.

Bob grabbed a hook on a long pole and extended it down over the edge of the boat.

"Grab that," he ordered to the girl in the water. "I'll pull you around to the swimming platform and you can get out there."

Amy frowned.

"And why, Bill, did she fall in the water?"

"Um ... she was kind of leaning over ... looking down there..." Phil pointed over the edge of the boat. He blinked twice.

Bob wasn't all that surprised to find that, when Julie crawled up onto the swimming platform at the back of the boat, she was naked. Her long brown hair hung down, across her face, shoulders and upper chest, giving her a bedraggled look. He ushered her back toward the professor, who was still asking a now uncomfortable Bill more questions. When she saw Julie, who was now trying unsuccessfully to cover both her breasts and pussy, she frowned again. It was fairly clear that, in bending over the rail, her pert and very naked bottom would have been presented to anyone near her ... which meant Bill.

"This is unacceptable, William," she said sternly.

Bill had just figured out that, if you looked closely, you could see Mrs. Simpson's nipples through her nightgown. He was looking closely, leaning forward slightly and weaving in the process.

"I'm sorry," he said, in an obviously rote manner.

"Not half as sorry as you'll be if anything like this happens again young man. Do you understand me?" asked the woman, her voice full of heat.

Bill blinked as her tone cut through his alcohol fogged brain.

"Um ... yes ma'am. No problem. Won't happen again," he said, standing back up.

Amy turned to Bob.

"Thank you Captain. I assure you this is not how we expect our people to act."

Bob smiled. "As long as they don't fall overboard while we're underway I suppose no harm will come of it."

Bill had grabbed Julie and was trying to get her back to the stateroom she had been assigned. She was complaining drunkenly "But I didn't cum yet," which generated loud "shhhhhhh" noises from Bill, who looked over his shoulder anxiously at his professor and the captain of the boat. "And I fell in the water, Billy!" she whined. Bill looked helplessly at his professor.

"She must have been sleep walking," he mumbled drunkenly. "I have no idea what she's talking about. She had too much to drink tonight. She's drunk, but I'll take care of her."

Julie pulled up hard and turned, having completely forgotten that she was naked.

"I'm not drunk," she said clearly. "I'm in-n-n-nebriated." Then she giggled and reached for Bill, who, considering he was having trouble navigating himself, deftly turned her and pushed her down the stairwell toward her cabin.

Amy turned back to Bob. "They're a little keyed up about the trip," she said unnecessarily. "It won't happen again."

"Good night professor," said Bob, his eyes sliding to her chest before jerking back to her face. "Pardon me," he added, apologizing for staring at her chest.

"That reminds me," she said. "What's your policy about nudity on board?"

Bob wasn't quite ready for that question, from this woman, at this time of night and he didn't say anything for a few seconds as he tried to gauge both why she'd asked it, and how to answer.

"Once we're in international waters, it's fine," he said, his voice level. "As long as it doesn't offend any of you, it certainly won't offend me."

"I come from a family of nudists," she said in obvious explanation. "I don't get the chance to go Au Naturale very often. It would be nice to be able to do that." she said softly.

"It's your party," said Bob. "I'll just apologize for staring in advance, if that's all right."

Amy laughed softly. "My career has prevented me from having much of a social life. It's nice to know a man still wants to look at me," said the woman candidly.

It sounded strange, coming from a woman who wasn't bad looking at all. Her light brown hair, which had been in a bun when she arrived, was down to her shoulders now. She had a little pooch on her abdomen, and a little extra flesh on her thighs, but her breasts were obviously firm for her age. While large, they didn't sag like a lot of women's breasts do when they reach that age. She couldn't pass the pencil test by any stretch of the imagination, but she was a good looking woman and she probably knew that.

"What about ... your niece, I believe she is?" she asked.

Bob was back on track by this time.

"She's seen it before," he said simply.

"That's nice," said Amy. Smiling, she turned and walked back to follow her students.

Bob was up and ready to go when Mandy got to the docks in the dark of morning. She hugged him and gave him the kiss her mother had sent, along with one of her own and then said she was going to start work in the galley.

"By the way," said Bob as she turned to go. "There may be some nudity during the cruise."

Mandy felt a flutter in her belly. On impulse she asked "What about me? Do I get to go naked too, now that I'm sixteen?" She put one finger to her lips. "Oh yeah, I remember now. You said you'd go all crazy if I did that." She knew how to put a pout on her face, though, and the look on her uncle's face made her tease him. "But it's not fair if they all get to go naked and I don't."

Bob rocked back on his heels. She'd never expressed any urge to do that in the past. The image of his young niece scampering around naked was something he'd fantasized about on numerous occasions. Her frank question caused his balls to tighten.

"Your mamma would skin me alive if I let you get naked in front of a bunch of strangers," he said diplomatically. "Especially a bunch of strange men."

"Oh pooh!" she snorted. "I'm sure nobody would bother me with you around."

"And just who would protect you from me?" asked Bob impulsively.

"You're a horrible old flirt, do you know that?" giggled Mandy, the heat in her belly firming into a little ball at his implied compliment. "I have to go to work," she said, and turned to skip down the stairs to the saloon, which led to the galley.

Matters didn't come to a head for a while, which allowed Bob to concentrate, more or less, on his job. That job was to find a particular reef in the middle of the Ocean. Well, maybe not the middle, but it might as well have been, since there was no land in sight and there hadn't been any for two hours.

But Bob wasn't worried. He glanced at the GPS system occasionally, making small course corrections. Another part of his mind was taken up with the storm of activity that was going on around him. On the three sides of the bridge he could see down onto, there were people everywhere, prepping scuba tanks, examining other diving gear, going over charts and graphs, or deep in conversation. It was mostly the older adults who were conversing with Ted and Alice, who were probably bringing them up to speed on what had already been done at the research site. It was his first opportunity to really examine the appearance of the new people on the trip, not counting his encounter with Amy Simpson the night before. And Julie, of course.

This morning Amy was dressed in Bermuda shorts and a bikini top that didn't leave a lot of skin covered on her generous breasts. She was rubbing sun screen all over her arms and chest as she listened to Ted and watched as his finger traced along something on a piece of paper. Bob noticed that her hand slid under the bra cups of her bikini top as she spread the cream. No one seemed to notice.

Then, without any apparent communication, she handed the container to the other older woman, who must be Dawn Jones, Professor John Jones' wife. That woman accepted the bottle and matter of factly began smearing the cream all over the parts of Amy that hadn't been covered thus far ... including her legs. Again, no one seemed to take any particular notice of this small event.

But it spoke volumes to Bob. The ease and familiarity with which one woman took care of the other bespoke a friendship that wasn't new. That could mean several things, considering the way the sleeping arrangements had turned out. In truth, the married couple could have claimed a stateroom for themselves, leaving the single males and females to use the other two. That would have been cramped, though, and Amy would have had to bunk in with students, which wasn't likely. The dive master turned out to be an older grad student who was Amy's assistant in the Marine Biology program at the university. He was probably in his late twenties, and would probably think he was too old to room with a bunch of younger students.

That could mean that they were nice folks, who cared about the comfort of the students.

It could also mean, especially since the remaining staterooms were also coed, that the friendship of the Jones and Amy Simpson went beyond casual scholarly interests. Amy's revealing attire the night before was a vote for the second possibility. That attire also suggested that she wasn't shy in front of her assistant, despite her claim not to have a social life.