The Great Escape

Wednesday morning The Great Escape motored away from the Mystic dock and down the Mystic River, west of Mason's Island and out into Long Island Sound: the real beginning of Tim's "great escape."

Lucinda was definitely the captain in charge, especially at the beginning of the day. As they motored southwesterly through Long Island Sound, Tim took over driving the boat, constantly on the lookout for other traffic, especially the big guys: tankers, container ships, any of those guys that could run over a small boat and not even notice.

Days are short in February and neither Tim nor Lucinda wanted to continue into the dark. At about 3, with Tim at the helm., they headed The Great Escape into the marina at Cedar Creek, just south of Bridgeport. They tied up at the marina dock just at dusk, Lucinda a bit tired, Tim exhausted.

"Tim, you really did well. I can see you're tired, but you concentrated on the right stuff: not too much speed, watching out for other traffic, keeping track of our location on the chart, you even used the right marine channel to call the marina. You should be proud of yourself."

"Thanks, really, thanks, I appreciate your help, your... your just being there in case I screw up. And tomorrow I may need your help big time."

"Yeah, tomorrow we head thru the Big Apple, down the East River and over to Liberty Island. No docking tomorrow night. Private boats are not allowed to dock or anchor right at Liberty Island, so we'll head past and then drop anchor on the New Jersey side past the island. Don't look so nervous; anchoring will give you a chance to learn a new skill. And I've done this route before. It's a little tricky, especially getting into the East River, but we'll be fine."

"Yeah, okay, we'll be fine." A little trepidation there. "How about we skip fixing dinner and find a nice little restaurant nearby? We go and have someone else fix us dinner."

"Okay, I even have a dress. You find the restaurant and I'll be ready to go in a half hour." Of course, it was a bit more than a half hour, but pretty soon they both had their winter coats on and were in a cab heading to Alfredo's, a cutesy little Italian restaurant in Bridgeport. They arrived, were shown to their table and Tim helped Lucinda take off her coat. And then he just stood there.

"What? What's wrong?" she asked him as he continued just standing there.

"You lied to me," he said. "You claimed you're not beautiful and now here you are in a dress that makes you look even more beautiful than in your boat clothes. It's not fair."

"Tim, you're beginning to wear me down. Not enough to go to bed with you, but I admit I'm beginning to like all the compliments. But we are here for dinner. Let's sit down and enjoy." And they did. Then they took a cab back to the boat after a nice dinner with a bit of wine and limoncello to follow. A bit inebriated, maybe more than a bit, they stumbled onto the boat and into the salon. They looked at each other, neither making a first move. Lucinda turned away to her cabin; Tim stood there a while longer and then headed to his cabin.

The next morning, Thursday, Tim was first up and when he looked outside, he knew they were not going anywhere that day. The blizzard he was looking at closed Connecticut schools and businesses and left folks cooped up, just like he and Lucinda on The Great Escape. After she woke up, a bit hungover but still hungry for some breakfast, he fixed breakfast for both of them, they cleaned up and then, with a long day stretching in front of them, they sat down to talk some more.

"Lucinda, maybe enough talking already? Neither one of us is committed to any kind of significant other. I haven't had sex in a while, and I think you haven't either. Maybe we just take our clothes off in the big cabin and spend the day in bed, discovering each other, playing together, seeing how we fit together. No commitments beyond this snow day, a day out of time if you will."

Lucinda looked at him for a long time. He could almost see brainwaves rolling around her head. Finally: "Tim, I'll go to bed with you, today, but I agree: no commitments, just sex today." They moved toward each other, started to kiss, and then jumped back.

"Brush teeth," one said, and they ran to the heads. Then in the forward cabin they approached each other again. "Uhhh," one started to say something. "No talking," the other said, and the kissing started again. The kissing started involving tongues and their bodies started taking over from their nervousness.

Tim pulled her sweatshirt over her head and then went back to kissing while he unclasped her bra. He pulled his own shirt off, so they were standing kissing, their chests pressed together: hers soft and billowy with two little points and his pressing tighter as those two little points got bigger and harder. Tim bent down far enough so he could kiss those nipple points and then started sucking on them as Lucinda's nipples got even harder and she started moaning. He turned her so her back was to the berth and gently pushed her back onto it. She was unzipping her jeans and he helped by starting to pull them down her legs. Her panties came with the jeans, and he stopped pulling and just stared.

"What?" Lucinda said, as she reached down to cover herself.

"I'm sorry, I got lost in just looking at you. You look absolutely delicious, and...." He stopped talking, moved her hands away from her mound and buried his face in that delicious-looking triangle. No licking at first, just smelling a pussy that smelled as delicious as it looked. And then he tasted it, little nips at first along the outside of her nether lips. Lucinda squirmed, trying to get more from him, but he was in charge, at least right then. His nips did get more forceful, and his tongue moved to her center and then up the middle of her pussy toward her clit. She grabbed his head and pulled him up so his tongue did hit her clit. She started bucking and he kept his tongue moving hard and wet against her hardening clit. He loved the taste, the feel, the wet, the bucking. She loved the tremors thru her clit as she bucked harder and felt that climb toward orgasm. She pulled his head as hard as she could into her clit and his tongue flattened itself against her clit as her orgasm washed over her and she shuddered and cried a bit and then pushed him away.

"Enough, enough, I think you have killed me. But a wonderful way to die." He pulled himself up to lie beside her, with his cock's head staring up at the ceiling. She reached over to hold it, and reassured him: "Give me a minute to recover and it will be your turn."

His cock stayed hard, and she soon moved down the bed to take it into her mouth. "Just a taste," she said, as she sucked gently. Her sucking intensified and he started pushing his cock into her mouth. When she tasted his precum she moved back just a bit, so she was licking just the head of his cock. That was too sensitive for him, and he turned to roll on top of her.

"Uh, wait, wait, can I... is it ok if I ride you, just for a little?" she said. How could he say no to that?

"Sure, I would love that," he said as he rolled onto his back, and she squatted over him.

"This guy needs some riding," she said as she grasped his cock and slid down onto it. She started a slow up-and-down, leaning back so he had a great view of her pussy lips surrounding his cock as she rode.

"Wait, wait, now you have to wait," he said as he held onto her hips and stopped her riding. "If you keep that up, I'll come already, and I don't want to yet. I want to look at you and feel you and do this." He clenched his penis muscles and she responded with her vaginal muscles clenching him. They played that game for a few minutes until she couldn't help it: Her up and down riding started again and then he was holding onto her hips and thrusting hard against her. "I can't help it, I can't... oh fuck, oh my.... Cora, I'm coming, I'm coming," and he did come, hard into her grasping pussy.

"Don't stop, don't stop, keep, keep, yess, yessss, Oh sweet Jesus. Thank you, thank you," she said as she collapsed onto his chest. They both lay there, catching their breath, until finally Lucinda started laughing.

"What? What's so funny?" Tim had to ask.

"You are. You made me come, not just once with your mouth, but then you did it again with that very nice penis of yours. But when you came, you called out your wife's name, not mine or 'babe' or 'sweetheart' or something, you know, generic. Now I totally believe your story. And I have to ask: is this the first time you've had sex with someone not your wife in, what did you say, 30 years?"

"Well, Lucinda, first, I was afraid it was the sex that made you laugh, and I didn't know what to think about that. And then I guess I should thank you for not being offended that I said my wife's name in the, uh, heat of the moment. And yes, counting time before we got married, I guess it has been about 30 years. And, if I had known it would be like this, I would have been out searching for you years ago."

"Wow, you are sweet, but you know, if you're going to be a divorced guy you need to practice calling your ladies 'babe' or 'honey' or something like that. Anyway, I am totally not offended since you did such a good job on my kitty. But I am hungry again and...." When Tim raised his eyebrows at that, Lucinda quickly added, "For food, you know, it's lunch time."

Hunger did get them out of bed. They had lunch and then spent the afternoon practicing radio procedures and studying charts. The two feet of snow outside kept them onboard for dinner that Tim fixed: baked salmon with grilled vegetables and dinner rolls. Not bad, Lucinda thought, and told him so. She cleaned up, and then came to sit by him in the salon.

"So, what now?" she asked. Tim leaned back, not away from her exactly but enough so they could look at each other as they talked.

"You mean, after our time in bed today, which, by the way, was just incredible, what do we do? Where do we sleep? That sort of question?"

"Yep. I know neither of us wants to spend the rest of our lives together. But we are on this boat, nice boat, but pretty small, and we need to decide how we are going to do this. Whatever 'this' is."

"Lucinda, we are both coming out of relationships that, for me, was, yeah, 30 years long, produced two beautiful daughters, had.... Goddamn, I really was in love with my wife. A week ago, it was impossible for me to imagine being here, on this boat, with you, having sex, which I keep saying was incredible, my wife having an affair. I mean, I really am the walking wounded right now. And you: you just broke up with your boyfriend, or, actually, worse, he broke up with you, and in a pretty brutal way. So, you're the walking wounded too. And where does that leave us? I think we go to bed tonight, together, hold each other, maybe cry a little bit. Try not to think about those mean, rotten, no good, awful people in our past. Instead, we hold each other and think about tomorrow, and heading south to warmer weather on this fine and not-so-small boat. Okay?"

"Wow, quite a speech. Yep, you're right. So, okay, let's go to bed. But no crying." And so they did, go to bed. They both slept well. They did hold each other, and there may have been a bit of crying, by one or the other in the dark stretches of the night, but dawn came with a blue sky showing on the horizon.

Looking out at Bridgeport the next morning Tim saw a frozen city. The snow had stopped, but when he checked, the temp outside was 7 below. Even the blue sky looked frozen. Lucinda was still asleep, wrapped in blankets. Tim was tempted to climb back into bed with her, but he was also tempted to go for a run. He had run a few times in temps below zero, but not very far or very fast, and never if the wind was blowing. Windchill was real, Tim was thinking, as he heard Lucinda stirring.

"Coffee? Warm weather? Sandy beaches? Any of the foregoing?" she asked. Tim laughed; he really did like her.

"Okay on the coffee. The others will need to wait until we are about a thousand miles south of here. Speaking of here, it's 7 below outside and the high is forecast at zero. This boat barely kept us warm last night, and I'm a little concerned about trying to head out today. Have you and your dad ever taken the boat out in weather like this?"

"No, no, no. We're not crazy, I mean my dad and me. You, the jury is still out. Let me find my phone and I'll call Dad. I need to let him know where we are and that we're surviving the weather." Lucinda did find her phone and did call her dad. He strongly advised against risking the bad weather and told her to look at the forecast: better weather due soon. They quickly decided to hangout, be patient, maybe experiment with a little more sex, and wait for better weather.

Chapter Three: Cora's Story Cont'd.

That Friday morning, after Cora discovered the photo, the CD and Tim's wedding ring on her kitchen table, she called in sick to her job at the hospital. She really was sick. She was hungry, but couldn't eat, she felt like vomiting, but nothing came up, she needed to talk to Tim, to hug him, to beg his forgiveness. But he was gone, and didn't want to talk to her. Cora was a smart woman; she knew she had to figure out a plan that would get her Tim back with her. So: first things first.

"Mark Hanson," he answered his private cell phone on the first ring.

"Mark, this is Cora. Please listen carefully to what I'm going to tell you. We are finished, done, we can't ever talk to each other again. Tim has found out about us. He has disappeared and left me a CD. Mark, the CD has video of us in bed together, having sex. I don't know how he got the CD: maybe he suspected something and hired a private eye, or maybe your wife did, and sent the CD to Tim, or.... Jesus Christ, Mark, this CD doesn't come from you, does it?"

"Cora, Cora, calm down, please. Take a deep breath, and again, and...."

"Fuck you, Mark, my life is maybe over and you're talking about deep breaths. I need...."

"Cora, stop. I understand. This is really serious. No, I did not send any CD, I have never videoed us. I did take those pictures of us that one time, when we were a little drunk. But..."

"Oh God, he left one picture too. It's...it's...a picture of... of... me sucking your cock. It looks horrible. Mark, I'm smiling in that goddam picture, smiling around your cock between my lips. And Tim saw that, he saw that and left it for me, and put his ring, his wedding ring, on top of it, and..."

"Cora, Cora, you do need to take some deep breaths. C'mon, you're a surgical nurse, for God's sake. You need to calm down. You can't do anything about this if you're fucking hysterical."

"Okay, okay. You're right. But what am I going to do? Tim has disappeared, and his law firm, his best friend there, says he doesn't even work there anymore."

"Cora, think about it. Do some analysis, for God's sake. Where would he go? A relative, a friend? Is his car gone? Check your credit card activity. Oh, maybe most important, check your bank accounts. If he took all your money, that would be really bad."

"Mark, he has a truck, not a car. But you're right, I do need to get proactive. I need to find him and beg his forgiveness, and I need to never see you again."

"I get that, and I'm sorry we have to end our... our...."

"Just say what it was: it was our cheating on our spouses. You better think about what you're going to do if that CD came from your wife, or if Tim decides to share what he knows."

"Yeah, yeah, you're right. And I understand: no more contact between us. But, just one more thing: if either of us learns anything, about the CD or where Tim is, like he reaches out to my wife, or anything that could help the other, we should reach out, ok?"

"Alright, Mark, I get that, but it better be really important. If I stand any chance of putting things back together with Tim, you and I have to be totally done with each other. Got it?"

"I do, Cora, and uhh, thanks for calling. Good-bye." They hung up and Cora sat at her kitchen table, brooding more than thinking, until she forced herself to get up and start the most important job of her life: finding Tim and, despite her stupidity and betrayal, getting him back.

She started with a list: the bank, credit cards, maybe filing a missing person report, the... the bank, right now. What if Tim did take all their money? She almost ran to the computer on her desk in their shared office. As she turned it on she looked at Tim's empty desk and started crying again. But she stopped that; crying wouldn't get her anywhere. She logged in to their online bank accounts and let out the breath she didn't know she had been holding. No big withdrawals that she could see. But she forced herself to think some more: Tim's law firm must have just distributed profits to the partners, and there was no big deposit to any of their bank accounts. That must mean, and she started to cry again, but....

"No, none of that shit," she said out loud, "no crying." And she went back to work. She looked back a year ago to see what Tim's profit share had been and assumed the same amount for this year. He could stay away a long time with that much money. The current balances in their accounts, added to her income, were enough to pay the mortgage and utilities. The girls' tuition payments wouldn't be due again until the fall. So, she was okay for money. Next step: where would he have gone?

The answer to that question was actually pretty straightforward. As soon as she started analyzing instead of feeling sorry for herself, she knew where he had to be. It was already late in the day that Friday, so she did finally eat something, and went to bed early. She would find Tim on Saturday.

Saturday morning Cora was up early, and found herself humming as she fixed breakfast and then fixed a picnic lunch she would share with Tim. By 9 am she was out the door and driving out of town. Two hours later she pulled into the marina on Lake Champlain where they kept the Catalina sailboat. Before she even parked her car, she could see lights shining in the boat's cabin. She gathered her picnic supplies and then sat a moment. How should she approach Tim? She knew she had to grovel, beg forgiveness, promise never to stray again, cry some more.... Analyze, she told herself, analyze. Tim is a lawyer; he is a calm and rational person, so she needs to be calm and rational.

"Okay, I can do this," she said to herself as she walked toward the boat. The stern door to the main cabin was closed, to keep heat in she supposed. She pulled herself into the cockpit, carefully holding on to the picnic food, and, taking a deep breath, pushed open the stern door. She screamed, the children in the cabin screamed, their mother screamed, and their father came running from the forward cabin yelling at her. She dropped the picnic food and just stood there, frozen.

"Who are you? What are you doing? You're trespassing." The father was yelling at her.

"No, no, no," was all she could say as she collapsed onto the steps leading down into the cabin. "Who are you? Where's Tim Peterson? Where's my husband?"

"You mean the guy who sold this boat to us? Listen, lady, I've got a signed bill of sale, and I can prove I already transferred the money to him. You're scaring my kids and you're just about to ruin our first day on the boat."

"Honey, let me talk to this lady." The wife was helping Cora stand up and she was pushing and guiding Cora back up into the cockpit. "You stay with the kids. I'll be right back." She got Cora back on the dock and walked her away from the boat. "I think there must be a problem between you and your husband. Did he sell the boat without telling you?"

"Oh my god, I, I, I don't know what to say. He, he, he's gone. I knew he would be here. When our girls were little, even in the winter he would take them up here, he would take all of us up here, and we would just sit in the cabin and run the little heater and pretend we were camping and...." Cora stopped herself, took a couple of deep breaths, looked at the lady who was trying to be nice and sympathetic.