Chapter 6

My daily boat rides weren't nearly as interesting once Hank and family took Kristy to New York with to see Doctor Abrams. The Judge continued to warn me about security, and Catherine decided to tighten up on my outside activities, insisting on accompanying me pretty much all the time, anyway.

My response to feeling hemmed in was epic.

I hired a crew, and we took Fornier's yacht out for a four-day shakedown cruise. The crew moved on-board two days before we wanted to set sale, and they went over every inch of the "BELLE ATLANTIC," which was my way of naming the boat after Jim Bell. Once I saw the yacht completely cleaned up and the new name brightly painted on her rear, I couldn't wait to go to sea.

Catherine and I took a day to shop for appropriate apparel: deck shoes, sunglasses, and all the accessories that the yachting set needed to handle the bright sunlight and potentially rough weather. I especially liked the mink trimmed brim we found in one of the impossibly expensive, trendy shops, in the Fort Lauderdale Galleria.

The hat – brim only – trimmed out in exotic looking fur was a huge hit with our crew, and not just me. Catherine decked herself out in style, with silk slacks, satin blouse, and the fur trimmed accessory, to go with an entire set of new jewelry that I bought her ... ummm ... just because.

Our voyage was wonderful. The weather cooperated, and the nights were such that we could leave the master stateroom's French doors wide open and enjoy the night air. The motion of the water is relaxing, once you get accustomed to it, and the wave action lulled us to sleep each night ... after some spirited sex, that is.

I bought a rather eclectic set of CD's for the on-board sound system, which featured a four-hundred-disk changer. Do you have any idea how hard it is to purchase four hundred CD's? I did my best, and we enjoyed the never ending music without repeats, commercials, or any of the commercial hassles that come with satellite radio.

It was during our second day at sea that Catherine broached the subject of the future.

"Kevin, I have no idea what you are thinking as far as next month, next year, or ten years from now, but I am afraid to let myself fall for you because of our age difference and your physical problems..." She would have gone on, but I heard the one thing that made me sit up and take notice.

"You'd consider staying with me full time? Really staying with me, like forever?" It was way more than I was expecting, and I had to hear her thoughts."

Catherine gave me her sweet smile. It is the one where the smile starts in her eyes, spreads downward to her lips, and then takes possession of her whole face. It made my stomach turn over and gave me butterflies.

She drew a deep breath and tried a different tack. "I haven't had a serious relationship – by serious I mean the kind of relationship where you live together, stay together, and wrap yourselves around each other and never want to let go – since my first 'love.'"

He was dreadfully old." She laughed, and then continued. "I was seventeen and had just graduated from high school. My scholarship was in place, and I was headed off to undergraduate school in two months, when Orton Wilson stopped me on the street and introduced himself.

"He was about forty-five, athletic, sure of himself, and sexy as the day is long. I fell into his eyes while he asked me for directions to the post office. It took me so long to respond, he must have thought I was brain damaged, but his smile nearly stopped my heart.

"I wasn't a virgin, but just barely, having had a couple of drive-by, wham-bam-thank-you-ma'am, encounters with high school boys, and Orson embodied everything that turned my head and made me swoon.

She shifted around on the lounger we were sharing, looking out at the never-ending ocean, "We spent the summer together. Neither of us could begin to get enough of the other, and I happily lost my identity, falling into his, making his life the only important thing to me.

"It was so intense, that it burned out almost as suddenly as it started, and he simply walked out one night, and never came back..." She went off inside her head, again, revisiting that summer romance.

"When I realized he had really and truly left me, I was relieved ... I NEEDED to rediscover me, before I became one of those helpless, useless, women that can't exist without a man to tell her what to do. It hurt so much that I did without - men that is - for the next four years. It's amazing how long a girl can go without a lover, when you let your heart get broken by someone who was never worthy of it, to begin with."

Catherine snuggled in deeper, driving out the air between us, as she bared her soul before sharing with me what it is she wanted out of our relationship. I was determined to let her talk until she found the words she was searching for so anxiously.

It was a long time in coming. Catherine shared all her love affairs that came before that summer, and the few that she experienced after it. As I listened and absorbed all she had to tell me, I realized Catherine was talking to Catherine, and I just happened to be present. Her soul needed this cleansing, and she trusted me enough to allow me to witness it.

What a special gift...

"My last lover was really not a lover at all. We were both impossibly lonely, losers at relationships, and too wounded to trust anyone, so we silently agreed to use each other for sex and the occasional outing that didn't include getting naked quickly. We were a very efficient couple, though. He could have his clothes off and be on the bed almost before I got my shirt off, and his lack of hesitancy hurried me along to the point that we could be naked together in under a minute.

"There was no intimacy, no cuddling, and no afterglow. We just got naked and screwed until we were temporarily satisfied.

"He moved out west, and that was that, until a certain sixteen-year-old boy got in my panties just before a gang of assassins attacked us." She smiled when she said it, and I knew I meant more to her than that, but also understood how unique it was that she gave herself to a relationship that was so outsized and off center.

When Catherine was all talked out, we cuddled together and watched the waves sweep toward the yacht until fell asleep. It was hours later before my bladder got me up, and Catherine decided she was in the same condition. When we finished, we cuddled again, this time in bed under the luxurious covers provided by some impossibly expensive store in Fort Lauderdale.

Catherine still hadn't told me what she thought our relationship should be when we got up in the morning. The morning sun was brilliant, and the sea looked like a bed of golden gems flowing to infinity. Rather than worry about it, I loved on her some, took a shower, had breakfast, and asked the captain to take us to Paradise Island for a little fun before we headed back to Fort Lauderdale.