Chapter 24

Johanna:

Yes, it's primal. The urge to mate. Sociologists talk about it. Religions talk about it. Poets talk about it. It gets couched in various cloaks: love, duty, morality. But it's never right until two people decide it's right for them. And I'm thinking this in the dim light of the sun streaming into the cabin through the portholes. I hear the sound of waves slapping the hull and the whistle of the wind on the mast and the rigging.

And the breathing of this guy next to me. Sometime during the night we ended up butt to butt. That's okay as long as he's where he's supposed to be. But now I'm awake and I roll over very carefully, trying not to disturb him. I spoon up behind him and wiggle into close contact. My arm has to go over him.

His breathing changes, his hand takes mine, holds it into his chest, securing me. My nose is at the nape of his neck. I breathe deeply and secure, I drift off in sweet slumber again.

The next time I woke up, it was from the motion of him turning over to kiss me.

"Good morning, wild child," he said.

"Good morning, man who makes me wild." I need to clear my head. He makes me crazy. I'm trying to think of any other occasion in my whole life where I would have counted it a good idea to stand naked, especially naked with a man, outdoors. Now I was plotting the reprise to last night. This is Texas. A field of bluebonnets next spring would serve the meadow scene quite nicely. And we're not far from forests in any of several directions. Stoney's girl has some plotting to do.

"Coffee?" he said. "After I..."

"Hurry. I'm right behind you."

"You take the head," he said. "I can go over the rail."

"Gotcha," I said. I felt the blast of cool air as he exited the cabin. I noted that he did a quick scan before leaving the cabin, making sure that he wasn't going to expose himself to nearby boats. On a November morning, there are few boats, none we can see.

He's back down in the cabin and cockpit hatch is closed and we have the water on the galley stove for coffee. The other burner is holding a neat toaster for toaster pastries. That's breakfast. We're in no hurry to get back. No hurry at all. I do note that my guy has a day-old beard now. Definitely scratchy. We need to be careful or I'm going to walk funny tomorrow. I mention that.

"We have other options..." he starts.

I shake my head violently. "But I really enjoy that," I said. "You just need to be careful."

"That's kind of subtle for a hint, Jo-baby."

I giggled. "Who said anything about 'subtle'."

"Grrrrr," he growled, pushing me from the main saloon into the forward cabin. We started out laughing. It got serious when his head descended past my navel. I squealed. I laughed. I hissed. I shuddered. First one. Second one, I passed out. Just entirely too much. I woke up in Stoney's arms, his little kisses on my face.

"One for each freckle," he said. "Each, perfect, whimsical, delightful bit of facial punctuation."

I'm melting. At least part of me. He told me early on, "Just so you know, sweetness, if it's hard, then I am more than willing to make love with you. You don't have to analyze or calculate. If I'm hard, I want you."

We put that criterion to the test until noon. Aside from the fact that we both have commitments and that the boat has a minimal level of food stored, I'd easily be swayed to staying on it for weeks. What else do we need? We have each other. Music, either make our own, or dip into the selections on two iPods. Fuel? Full tank. Hundred gallons. A thousand miles under engine power. Or if the sail's up, the mileage gets really good. We can run the engine to keep batteries charged. Fresh water? Hundred and fifty gallons, plus a few cases of bottled water for drinking.

"Don't make me dream that dream, little one," Stoney said. "We could do the circle of the Caribbean. Once we decide, we don't have but a few places where we'd really need to be out of sight of land for more than a day if that's what we wanted."

"Make me dream with you, Stoney. You didn't buy this boat to keep it in the bay."

"We'd kill the winter," he said. "You don't want to be in the Caribbean from May to November. Hurricane season. And as lovely as she is, this is not a blue-water boat unless you're very careful about your choice of routes."

"Well, we're keeping this boat," I said. "Not many people get to own their honeymoon cottage. We do."

"We'll keep 'er until you tell me to get something else, sweetness," he said. A few more kisses. "It's cool enough for long sleeves, baby. And If we pull the hook up now, we can have a late lunch onshore."

"Oooo-kay," I said. "We need to be responsible, I guess."

"Yes we do," he said. "You have a piccolo to play with and I have a power grid to poke around."

"I guess," I said. In my head I was thinking 'What magic has this man worked upon me?' because I was ever the sane one of any group in which I claimed membership. Now I was considering turning my brand new husband into a sailing bum. Johanna Elise, what manner of witchcraft has been wrought upon you?

Togs for the day for the two of us were jeans, boat shoes, sweatshirts and a couple of boonie hats, mine because a little suntan on my Nordic-Irish skin and I'd be buried under a pile of prominent freckles and Stoney's because Stoney's got a bit of sense about sunburn.

"My turn to weigh anchor," I told him.

"You sure? I can get it. You handle the engine and the helm pretty well."

"My boat, Stoney. I need to be able to do it all."

"You're more than adequate as First Mate," he snarked.

"First Mate. And better be ONLY mate, buddy. Lest they find your floating carcass covered with fat, juicy crabs."

I got the anchor stowed, sluiced my hands free of sticky mud with a stream of water from the washdown pump as Stoney motored us slowly homeward.

"Let me try to get us under sail," I said.

"Your boat, Jo," he said.

It is. And I paid attention when he performed those tasks, so I repeated the actions, soon had what looked like an acre of dacron up and filled with wind. He killed the little diesel and folded his arms. "Set the sail. Choose the course. I'm here at your command." And he crossed his arms.

Okay, if Stoney can single-hand this thing, Jo can do it, too. I remember Dad telling me about the wind and sails and how giving up a few points into the wind could be made up in speed, and the wake was making happy burbling noises as we cut through the short chop of the bay. I took one more tug on the mainsheet winch and relaxed into the cockpit beside Stoney. "Well?"

"I should have expected no less," he said. "Perfect." He paused. "The boat, too."

Sadly, on a return trip, there's a time where the sail must come down. I demanded that Stoney let me handle that task as well, and we motored into the channel and worked our way into the marina. Gary was fueling a good-sized powerboat, a cruiser, when we turned into the marina. He waved. We waved back.

"Are you still being hard-headed? You gonna moor us?" Stoney asked.

"Just be ready in case I screw up," I said. "It's one thing in open water. Here..." I could just see us crunching into a piling, or worse, another boat. Okay, he helped a little.

We secured the boat, started piling bags on the dock, my overnighter and his, the bags of garbage from the trip, a bag of laundry including some sticky towels. And I heard the geese.

"Here come my buddies," I said. Geese like Cheetos. And flute music.

Gary was standing at the head of the finger dock with his arms crossed, smiling. "I'm glad you married 'im, Jo," he said. "I'm starting to get spoilt to these little concerts, you know."

"I'm happy to provide them," I said. I giggled about my two-goose orchestral backup. "And I give the geese an artistic purpose in life." I played a little more and then stowed the flute. Stoney and I chatted with Gary for a bit, loaded up, and headed home, with a side stop for that late lunch. At home, we started the laundry and I opened up the piccolo case and set up my sheet music.

Stoney's head came out of the laundry room. "You have done this before," he said.

"Every year, Memorial Day, Independence Day and Veterans' Day for the past several years," I said. "You do know that the Saturday concert isn't just our chamber orchestra? It's the whole band."

"Really," he said. "So there are literally dozens of young males trying to play music while lusting after you."

"And whose coat will I have on for the concert?"

"Oh, yeah. Let's see how that fits."

Stoney still had his dress uniform in a garment bag in the closet. I know. I looked at every nook and cranny of the place when I moved in with him. He went to the closet, took the bag out, and unzipped it, removing the jacket. It was still ready for inspection, rank, service branch insignia (Engineer Corps), nameplate and an array of ribbons. At the top of the array was the red, white and blue ribbon of the Silver Star. Dad showed me what it looked like when I asked him, so I knew it when I saw Stoney's.

"Here," he said, holding the jacket for me to get my arms into. Stoney's a good-sized guy. The jacket fit me like a tent. He surveyed the result. "Is this gonna even work?"

"Yes, it will work. Last year I wore Dad's. I need to pin up the sleeves so my hands won't be tied up."

"Uh, pins aren't something I have," he said.

"Well, I do, sir! A wise person is prepared for emergencies." Mom had drilled into me the need for her, as she called it, 'survival kit', a little case with needles, thread, pins, a selection of buttons, a big bag of safety pins, some textile cement and little scraps of material. I'd been the subject of more than one of her patch jobs before a recital. I retrieved the kit and opened it.

"You have one just like this," I said. "In your SUV. And in the closet by the front door."

"I don't like be be caught flat-footed," he said.

"And this is my mom's version for clothing," I said. "Now help me fold these sleeves in." We got that accomplished, I tried his hat on, added a few strips of paper behind the sweatband so it wouldn't slip down over my eyes. And he took pictures.

"Criminal act," he said.

"How so?"

"Wearing a uniform when you're not authorized."

"Nay, good sir," I said. "We've fought this battle already. Some 1960's hippie retread tried to toss cold water on us last year over that. We snagged an opinion from the federal prosecutor. As long as we're not representing ourselves as members of the armed forces, we're clear."

"Thought so," he said. "Glad you got it straight."

I put on both the jacket and the hat and ran through the piece that would showcase me and my piccolo.

"Just a second," Stoney said. "I got this."

"What?"

"Boston Pops. Stars and Stripes Forever." He punched it up on the stereo and I played right along while he smiled.

We managed to make it through the week yet again. Monday, like always, is practice night at my old apartment. Key's still there and another girl has moved in, sharing the rent again. Her new roomie's another music major so the Monday madness continues on. A lot of the conversation was music snob stuff about us in the chamber orchestra mixing with the common folk of the university concert band. I can agree with some of that. I think music should stand on its own merits and walking in unusual patterns is not an enhancement.