Chapter 52: Cruising

Before we climbed into the limo, I spoke to the driver about our plans. First, I asked for his business card, and then I looked it over. “Tom Bouchet? That’s you?” I asked.

“That’s me,” he answered pleasantly.

“Nice to meet you, Tom. I’m Carl Buckman and this is my wife, Marilyn.”

Tom laughed. “I sort of had that figured out, Mr. Buckman.” He glanced at Marilyn, and nodded towards her, “Mrs. Buckman.”

Marilyn grinned. “I like the sound of that.”

I smiled too. “Well, Tom, here’s the deal. Before we head out to the airport, we need to go over to St. Luke’s to see our friends. You heard about that, right?”

Tom laughed again. “Oh, yeah!”

Marilyn and I had to laugh at this as well. Probably half the people in the Mohawk Valley would hear about this by the end of the weekend. “So anyway, we need to go over there and see how they’re doing before we run out to Syracuse. I know this wasn’t part of the deal, but if you can’t run it through the original bill, send it to me directly, all right?” I dug out one of my business cards, with my address in Fayetteville.

“We’ll figure it out at the office,” he assured me.

I thought for a second. “Are you busy tomorrow?” I asked.

Marilyn looked at me and asked, “Tomorrow?”

“Not for us, but for Tusker and Tessa. They’ll need to get back to the hotel.”

“Oooh, yes, and get their presents, too. They’ll need the car seat just to get there!” added my wife.

I got a few cards from Tom and told him that I’d give them to the proud parents. He could run over to the Sheraton on Sunday and get the presents from Joe and Harlan, and then bring them back, and then cart Tusker and his family as needed. If they couldn’t finagle it into Big Bob’s bill, send it to me.

Ten minutes later we were at the hospital. I told Tom we would try to keep it short, but we weren’t sure what was happening. I held my new bride’s hand as we went inside. Marilyn asked me, as we got inside, “You know, we’ve never talked about it. Do you want kids?”

I gave her a curious look. “Sure. I thought you knew that.”

“I wasn’t sure.”

“Don’t you remember that little bit about telling your grandchildren about my duel? You’ve got to have kids to have grandkids. It’s in the rules!”

“You and that duel!” she laughed, giving me a hip bump as we walked.

“Maybe I should have lost!”

“You’re awful!” The next question was, “Well, when did you want them?”

I shrugged. “Not right away.”

“Two years? Five years? Ten years? How many?”

I knew where Marilyn was going with this. She loved kids and wanted a houseful.

“We are not having thirteen kids! I’ll have the damn thing cut off before that happens!” I protested.

That earned me a good laugh. “No way! How about three or four?”

“We’ll see. Tell you what. Let’s be newlyweds for a bit first. Wait until I either make captain or the Army wakes up and throws my ass out. How about that?”

“Deal!”

“Deal!” We sealed it with a quick kiss.

From the reception area, we were sent to the delivery area, but I wasn’t sure how far that would get us. If the baby was already born, we might get to see him or her through the glass, or not. I hoped to get word to Tusker about the limo for tomorrow. At worst, I could write a note for them and get one of the nurses to slip it to them later.

We looked through the glass wall, but didn’t see any babies with a name tag, so we went up to the desk and asked. The nurse’s face lit up when she saw us. “Oh, yes, Mister Tusk was wondering when you might come. He was just asking about you.”

“Really? I wonder why?” I said, half to myself and half to Marilyn. My wife gave me an equally mystified shrug.

“Well, go on into 304.”

“We can go in? You mean, they’ve already had the baby?”

She laughed. “Just go on in.”

Marilyn had already started up, so I followed her down the hall to the third door and pushed inside. Tessa was in bed, looking like she had been pulled through a knothole. Tusker was in a chair, not looking much better, and with a look of both wonder and terror on his face. And there on the bed with Tessa was a small wrapped bundle with a powder blue skull cap on.

Marilyn scampered up to the bed. “Oh my God! You had the baby!”

“You came!” cried Tessa happily. Both Tusker and Tessa immediately tried to greet us, and with Marilyn they got into a three-way conversation that got increasingly loud, enough so that the baby woke up and let out a yell. We had been followed in by a nurse, who announced it was time to take the baby off to the nursery.

Marilyn immediately moved around and took a look at the baby. “He’s gorgeous!”

I looked at the baby, who was bald and red faced and wrinkly, sort of like Winston Churchill on a bad day. I smiled. “You’re right, he is good looking.” I looked over at my friend. “Who’s the father? This baby is way too good looking to be any son of yours!”

Both Tessa and Marilyn yelled at me, but Tusker just laughed. “Fuck you, Buckman!”

“Such language in front of your son!”

Another nurse came in and announced she had to examine Tessa. Tessa reached over and took Marilyn’s hand, and then pointed towards the door for Tusker and me. We boogied out the door and the nurse closed it behind us. We wandered down the hallway towards the nursery. “How you doing, man?” I asked.

He gave me a loopy sort of grin. “I don’t know. It’s like it wasn’t real before. Or isn’t real now. Or something. You understand that?”

I laughed at him. “No.”

“I mean, I thought I was ready, but now, I mean, I don’t know ... What if I make a mistake or something? This is a human being?”

I maneuvered Tusker over to a chair and sat him down, and then sat down next to him. “Let me tell you something, Tusker. You’re going to make a mistake. You’re going to make a lot of mistakes. You ain’t going to be perfect. Don’t sweat it. You’re not going to make all that many mistakes.”

He stared at me for a second. “You’re not helping, buddy,” he said, smiling.

I smiled back. “Listen, was your father a good father?”

Tusker shrugged. “Yeah, I guess so.”

“And you’ve known other guys who have been good fathers, right?” He nodded, and I continued, “And you know some fathers who have been lousy fathers, right?” Tusker gave me a sharp look at that. I suspected I knew who he was thinking about. “Just behave like the good fathers and not like the bad fathers. How hard can it be?”

He grinned at me. “You really aren’t helping!”

“It sucks to be you. How’s that for some good advice?”

Now he was laughing. “Asshole!”

The door to 304 opened again. “You ever going to marry the mother of your son?” I asked.

He just shook his head and gave me a rueful smile. “I’ve already offered. It’s her old man, he doesn’t want anything to do with me...”

“Who would?”

That earned me a middle finger. “ ... and Tessa wants him to walk her down the aisle.”

“Hang in there. Being a grandfather might just change his mind. Name him after her father. Suck up to him.”

For some reason this made him laugh. “Too late for that.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll let Tessa tell you.” He stood up and I followed him back to Tessa’s room. “Did you tell her the baby’s name yet?”

“I was waiting for you.”

Tusker looked at both of us a touch nervously. “He said we should name him after your father, to bring him around.”

“Too late for that.”

“What’d you name him?” asked Marilyn.

“Buckman James, after these two,” said Tessa.

Marilyn smiled at me. I just stared at my friends. “You have got to be kidding me!” Marilyn giggled at my reaction.

“Hey, we couldn’t have done this without you,” answered Tusker.

I rubbed my face. “I think my idea makes way more sense.” I looked over at Marilyn. “We can call him Bucky!”

“Good Lord!” she muttered.

“Listen, we have to be going. We have a honeymoon to get to!” I needed to get out of there. Buckman James? We had a serial killer on our hands! I gave Tusker the card for the limo company, and explained that there were some baby gifts coming, and then kissed Tessa and Tusker good-bye. Well, Marilyn kissed Tusker, I just shook his hand.

We headed back out and found the limo driver napping in the limo. “Ready to go?” he asked.

“Ready to go!”

He hopped out and let us into the back, and then climbed into the front. A minute later we were pulling out onto the road and heading for the Arterial, and then on towards the Thruway. “Buckman James Tusk! Poor bastard’s probably going to grow up to be a mass murderer,” I commented.

“He’s no such thing. Now you behave!” replied Marilyn.

I snorted. “You still want kids?” I asked.

“Of course!” She leaned over on the seat and kissed me quickly. “You still want to wait until you’re a captain?”

“I’m thinking maybe colonel or general now.”

“Too late, you made a deal!” She also stuck her tongue out at me.

I grabbed for her tongue, and we wrestled a bit in the back seat, and started kissing. Then I got an idea and leered at her. “You know, we’re on our honeymoon now.” There was a solid barrier between the driver and the rear of the vehicle.

“Yes.”

“You know what that means, don’t you?”

Marilyn eyed me askance. “What do you mean?”

I ran my hand along her back and rubbed her bra buckle. “You agreed to a no undie honeymoon, remember?”

Marilyn’s eyes popped wide open. “Oh, no!”

“Oh, yes! You promised, remember?”

“I must have been lying.” Marilyn was so worried about her bra, she didn’t focus on my other hand, which I quickly pushed under her dress, all the way, until my fingers were at her panties. “That’s cheating!” she complained and tried to push my hand away.

That simply opened the back of her dress to my flanking assault. While I started to finger her pussy through her panties, and Marilyn squirmed around trying to make me behave, I quickly pulled the zipper on the back of her dress down. Marilyn squealed and tried to reach behind her, but that just let me slip my fingers inside her panties to the pussy I had shaved the other morning. When she tried to react to that, I flipped the catch on her bra. “It would be so much more fun if you didn’t fight,” I told her.

“Fun for you, maybe.”

I leaned in and whispered in her ear as I licked her earlobe. “Fun for you, too!” I flicked my finger across her clit, and Marilyn groaned, and her legs slipped apart. “Do it!” I ordered.

Marilyn did it slowly, but more so because of the distraction I was providing than anything else. She pulled her dress down around her waist and then peeled off her bra. I tossed that to the side and then helped Marilyn lift and I tugged her panties down. I left her with her sundress bunched around her waist and fingerfucked her and sucked on her tits for the next half hour, as we tooled along towards Syracuse.

Mind you, I wanted more, but we just didn’t have the time! I’d never done it in the back seat of a moving limo, and I liked the idea. Eventually we had to stop when I saw the signs for the exit off the Thruway. I allowed Marilyn to compose herself, and zip up her dress, but when she went to reach for her underwear, I grabbed them first and stuffed them in my pockets. This time she didn’t argue, but just gave me a wicked little smile. “Are you wearing your underwear?” she asked.

“You’ll just have to find out later!”

“I intend to!”

There was a Best Western near the airport that offered shuttle service and luggage storage. We unloaded the limo and I sent Marilyn in while I gave Tom a nice tip. He helped me carry things in, and then waited when we discovered Marilyn had simply gone up to the desk and not started the check-in process. After confirming we had a room for the night, I sent Tom on his way with our thanks.

I did the check-in process, putting everything on my trusty AmEx card. The last time I did this, Marilyn and I were as poor as church mice, and we raided our wedding gifts for any cash in the cards. That was how we paid for the honeymoon, or at least the stuff Big Bob and Harriet hadn’t covered. We snuck the gift card box into the back lounge at Trinkaus Manor and giggled as we went through the cards, and I tucked about $600 in cash into my pockets. That was quite a bit of cash in those days! Now I had about two grand in cash, and another couple of grand in traveler’s checks. Things were different.

We left most of our luggage in the hotel’s vault, and simply took a couple of travel bags up the elevator with us. We also left a wakeup call for 0500 the next day. Our flight to New York City was at 0700, and from there we were going to the dock to meet the ship. The travel agent had coordinated all of this, and we both had our tickets and tags and identification stashed in my carry-on bag. That I was protecting like my life depended on it, because if I lost it, Marilyn would kill me!

Once we got in the room, Marilyn tossed her bag on the floor and goosed my ass! “That’s for being so mean in the limo!” she said.

I tossed my bag over with hers and started moving towards her. It was a small room and I backed her into a corner by the bed. “I don’t think I was all that mean. I think you actually liked it!”

“No, I didn’t! You’d better give me back my stuff!”

“That wasn’t what you agreed to!” I replied grabbing her and pulling her towards the bed.

“I lied!”

“Wives have to submit to their husbands, remember!” I teased her. I flopped on the bed and pulled her with me.

Marilyn sprawled on the bed next to me. “No, there was some other stuff, too.”

“Yes, but only after the submission part!”. Marilyn giggled at that, and I started unzipping her dress, while she unbuttoned my shirt and unzipped my pants. While it would be nice to say that our first lovemaking as husband and wife was with candles and champagne and beautiful lingerie, it wouldn’t quite be the truth. It was more hurried than that, with Marilyn’s dress around her waist, and my pants around my ankles. It was still very, very nice, and I told her we’d save some of the romance for later. Marilyn agreed, and then stripped her dress off while I pulled my remaining clothes off, too, and we went at it some more!

It was about nine or ten that night when we were laying there on the bed, breathing hard and cuddling, that I asked her, “Are you hungry?”

“Not really. Are you?”

“Not enough to go out and try to find a place open now. Maybe a Coke or something?”

“I’d like that.”

“You want to go with me?” I asked, grinning.

She looked down at her nudity and smiled. “In your dreams!” I just laughed and pulled on my pants and grabbed my wallet.

The vending machines were down at the end of the hallway. I grabbed a couple of cans of soda, and some pretzels from the snack machine. By the time I got back to the room, Marilyn was asleep. I just smiled. That sounded like a good idea, too. I drank my Coke and ate the pretzels, and then curled up next to my wife.

When the alarm went off the next morning I was not amused. I know I’d been getting up early for years, but sometimes that dedicated exercise and wakeup shit was a bit too much. I dearly wanted to go back to sleep. Then the phone rang with our wakeup call. I slapped Marilyn’s ass to rouse her, and she muttered nasty things and pulled the covers over her head. I paddled her bottom some more and she started swinging at me. “Is that any way for a wife to treat her husband?” I asked.

“Do you really want me to treat you the way I want to treat you right now?” she asked.

I steered her in the direction of the bathroom and sorted through the travel bag for my clothes and toilet kit. As soon as I heard the shower running, I went into the bathroom myself. “We don’t have time for that,” she told me.

I was already starting to brush my teeth. I mumbled out that I knew it and finished brushing my teeth. I also shaved quickly while she finished, and then hopped into the shower as soon as she was out.

When I got out of the shower, Marilyn was in the room pulling some clothes on. She had on her bra and panties again, and I just smiled at her. She shook a finger at me. “If you think I’m traipsing halfway around the country without underwear, think again!”

I shrugged and grabbed my pants. “I’ll punish you later. I’m too tired to punish you now.”

“And just how were you planning on punishing me?” she asked, pulling a sport shirt on.

“I’ll have to give that a lot of thought. You’re just not submitting very well.”

She laughed at that. “You’re not going to let that go, are you?”

“Not for another forty or fifty years. Maybe longer!” I replied.

“Much longer,” she agreed, and then gave me a quick good morning kiss.

We packed and were down in the lobby by half past five, just in time to see the shuttle bus leave. We were assured they would be back in ten minutes, so we dug our luggage out of the vault, and lined it up outside the door. The weather had been lovely all weekend long and looked like it was holding. The last time I did this, Marilyn delayed the wedding until hurricane season, and the weather on the cruise sucked! We went cruising to Bermuda and hit Hurricane Ella on the trip down and Hurricane Flossie on the way back. I fed the fish for the entire week! Now it looked like it should be good.

When the shuttle came back, we loaded up and headed over to the airport, about a five-minute ride. Everything went smoothly, much smoother than it would become after 9-11. I had my passport, in red like most military people, but Marilyn only had her driver’s license. She did pack our wedding license in her handbag since her license still said Lefleur. That was a project for when we got back. We got to the Eastern counter, and before we handed over our luggage, tied onto the handles the special luggage tags for the cruise ship. Once we landed at JFK, our luggage would be sent to the ship. We wouldn’t need to pick it up at baggage claim.

It wouldn’t be much different for us. There would be shuttle buses at the airport for arriving passengers to be driven to the dock. That was a good thing, because I hate driving in New York City, and Marilyn simply refused to even consider it. She’s just not much of a city girl. The flight to JFK took about an hour and a half and was on a fully loaded 727 without any first class. We suffered like sardines, but at least we were together. Once back on the ground, we shouldered our carry-on bags - okay, I shouldered our carry-on bags - and made our way to baggage claim and the exit, to find our shuttle bus. We made it to the port by 1100.

From that point on, it was a matter of hurry up and wait, just like the Army. Our boat was on a seven-day schedule. We were cruising to Bermuda. The boat left Sunday afternoon and would arrive in port very early Tuesday morning. We would stay in Bermuda until Thursday night, at which point we would sail away, and fetch up back in New York Saturday morning. At that point they would off load us and restock the ship with food and booze and give the crew a night in Sodom on the Hudson.

What Marilyn didn’t know yet, but I already knew, was just how much she loved a cruise ship vacation! No question about it, taking a cruise beat out any other type of vacation we ever took, as far as she was concerned. We went on at least a half dozen or more, and she just loved them! She liked visiting new ports, and the meals and the shops and the ships themselves, and when they invented balcony rooms that just settled it for her. We never took another cruise after that that didn’t have a balcony! As far as Marilyn was concerned, heaven involved sitting on her cruise ship balcony while reading and knitting as we passed by the rest of the world.

We were sailing on the Sun Viking with Royal Caribbean Cruise Lines. We had been on several different lines over the years, but always seemed to enjoy Royal Caribbean the most. The Sun Viking was their newest cruise ship. Positively tiny by later standards, she seemed damn large at the time. She carried about 725 passengers, and it seemed like just about as many crew to cater to them. Future ships would be many times larger, with atriums, multi-deck restaurants and theaters, ice skating rinks, rock climbing walls, and even sillier stuff.

My wife (God, I loved that word!) was practically jumping up and down with excitement by the time we finished processing on the dock and were able to board. Her eyes were glowing like a kid at Christmas underneath the tree. Then we started looking for our room. Cruise ships haven’t changed much since the days of the Titanic, at least in how they treat the passengers. The more money you have, the higher up in the ship you are. Rich people live on the upper decks. Poor people live at the bottom and row the boat. On our first honeymoon, we were so far down towards the bottom that we were handed oars as we walked on board!

Now we were a little higher. I think there were six decks on the ship, and we were now on the Promenade Deck, which was number two from the top. Maybe number three, but the absolute top deck was considered the Owner’s Deck, and only had four cabins, all oversized suites. They cost a ridiculous amount of money, something like $10,000 or $20,000 a week, for a room not much bigger than a decent suite in a hotel.

I wasn’t anywhere near that silly. We had a small suite, but it was about as much of a suite as a room in your average Holiday Inn. Still, we had a window we could open, not a porthole, a sitting area with couch and chairs, and a king size bed. Marilyn was entranced when we entered our room. I was a little more practical, looking for the bathroom and closet space. There wasn’t much, but they made use of every cubic inch of the room. We would survive once our luggage got there.

They promised our luggage would be in our rooms before dinner. They simply loaded it in giant containers straight from the airport into the belly of the ship, and then sorted it out. Marilyn came up to me and wrapped her arms around me. “We’re all alone in our honeymoon cabin. Whatever will we do to pass the time?”

I laughed and hugged her back. “Not as much as you’d like. I can guarantee that about two seconds after things get interesting somebody is going to barge through that door with our luggage! Are you that much of an exhibitionist?”

“Maybe not,” she answered ruefully. She looked over at the small built-in desk and drawers and noticed a bottle of champagne in an iced cooler, with a couple of flutes standing next to it. “Champagne?”

“Hmmm?” I turned and saw what she was pointing out. “Well, if we can’t fool around, let’s have a drink!” I opened the card next to the champagne and read it then passed it to Marilyn. It was from the travel agent. Next, I pulled the bottle from the ice and twisted off the wire and popped the cork. Marilyn held the glasses up and I poured them.

We had barely sipped our champagne, when an intercom in the room loudly announced that the mandatory Coast Guard lifeboat practice would start at 2:15 in the afternoon, and that everybody needed to find their lifeboat station and show up there with their life jackets on. This had also been told us during the processing on the dock, and they were serious about it. From experience I knew they would check your names off a list and if you didn’t show up, they would track you down, and not too politely, either.

I found our life jackets in the closet and found our lifeboat station on the back of the cabin door, and then we searched our map for where we were and how to get there. We finished off our champagne and I poured us some more from the bottle, just as a ship’s horn bellowed. It was almost two o’clock! I grabbed my life jacket and tossed it around my neck. “Let’s go!”

“Right now?” said Marilyn, startled.

“Sure, why not. We can go on deck, finish our champagne, and be at our lifeboat station.”

“Well, why don’t we leave our life jackets here?”

I smiled at her. “Because every other person on this boat is going to be doing that and getting lost and shuffling around with these idiot things on and clogging the passageways. You just watch and see if I’m wrong!”

Marilyn looked at me like I was nuts, but she grabbed her life jacket, too, although she carried it. Now, with me carrying my flute and the bottle, and leading the way, we went out into the hallway and towards the bow, to find an exit to the deck and our boat station. It was just a lovely day. The ship had already started to pull away from the dock by the time we got there. It wasn’t at all like the Love Boat, but it never really was. By 2:15 we were already standing out into the seaways, and the swells around us were getting larger.

At 2:15 all sorts of horns and bells and alarms started going off, all over the ship. The intercom announced that the lifeboat drill was underway, and to get to your lifeboat station with your life jacket. No ifs, ands, or buts, it was mandatory! I poured the last of our champagne into our flutes and put the bottle on the deck, out of the way, and then handed Marilyn my glass while I did up my life jacket. Then I returned the favor. She got it wrong, but I showed her how to do it right. Around us was a barely controlled pandemonium, while passengers rushed around, generally lost, generally without their life jackets on or properly fixed, and generally at the wrong boat station. I just smiled at her. “What did I tell you?”

“You think you’re so smart!”

“Yes, I do!” We traded raspberries at that. After about twenty minutes, during which time the crew practiced lowering a lifeboat and everybody else stood around and chattered, some more whistles and bells rang out and it was announced that we could leave. Cramming over 700 people back into the ship’s narrow hallways while everybody was wearing life jackets was silly. I spotted a bar along the way, and took Marilyn by the hand and led her in. We took off our life jackets and I ordered up another bottle of champagne. “We only live once, babe!”

Marilyn laughed at that, and we sipped our champagne, getting pleasantly if lightly zonked while the crowds passed by. Then it was our turn. I put my jacket back on over my head, since it was easier to carry that way, and we headed back to our cabin. Fortunately, our luggage had arrived! I immediately unpacked everything and stuffed my mess dress into a dry-cleaning bag, and then hit a button on the cabin telephone and called our room attendant. A little Filipino showed up around a minute later, and I gave him the bag, specifying it needed to be cleaned and pressed by Monday evening. He assured me it would be and left.

I poured the last of our champagne into our glasses and set the bottle aside. “Speaking of uniforms, you’re out of uniform,” I told Marilyn.

“Oh?”

“Well, we’re not flying now, are we? I think it’s time to get you into the spirit of things!” I set my glass down and wrapped my arms around her, and pointedly rubbed her bra catch through her top.

Marilyn laughed at that, and then grabbed my crotch. “The same goes for you, Mister!”

We laughed at that and fell onto the bed and wrestled our clothes off. Today, Marilyn got on top and rode me, while playing with her clit as I fondled her tits. Afterwards, she stretched out on top of me, and this time was a lot slower and sweeter. “I love you, Mrs. Buckman,” I told her afterwards.

Marilyn propped her face up on her hands, digging her elbows into my chest as she did so. “I like the way that sounds.”

I rolled over and relieved the pressure of her bony elbows to my chest. “I do, too.”

I rolled onto my back again and raised my right arm and tucked it behind my head. That was when Marilyn noticed a Band-Aid under my arm. “What’s that?” she asked.

“Hmm? What?”

“That!” she replied, poking it with a finger.

“That’s my scopolamine patch. It’s for seasickness.”

“You jump out of airplanes and don’t get airsick, but you get seasick?” Marilyn has never gotten any form of motion sickness.

“Go figure,” I replied with a shrug.

“How’s it work?”

It was my turn to shrug. “It’s sort of a Band-Aid, soaked in a seasickness drug. I wear it and then change it once a day. The instructions say to wear them behind the ear, but you can wear them anywhere the skin is thin. Tomorrow, I put on a different one, under the other arm.”

“And you have to do this every day?”

“Pretty much.”

“I guess you really wouldn’t do well in the Navy, would you?”

I had to laugh at that. “One time my father was teasing me about it, years ago, and then his father came in. He asked my dad if he wanted to tell me about his time on the PT boats during the war, and my dad shut up big time!”

“No! Your dad was in the Navy and got seasick? That’s too funny!”

“I agree!”

We snuggled a bit longer, and then got up and showered together. Not much happened though since the showers on that barge were about the size of an airplane bathroom. I know you have to get really friendly to make it in the mile-high club that way, but in this case, you’d have to be really friendly! Chubby people need not apply.