The Hemingway Maid ('16 revision)

This storm was beginning to feel like a beast out there, hunting me. I knew the feeling well enough, well enough to know you didn't go out and play with it, then I wondered if the pressure was going to go lower, and how fast, and if this little beast was going to turn into a monster, turn into a hurricane.

+++++

When Elise and I returned to Sabrina several guys on their boats started applauding - quietly. Whoa. Like burning medical waste by the beach made us some kind of heros! We jumped onto Sabrina, and grinning Ron met us in the companionway.

"Way to go, sport! Wish I'd had a video of that action - I could make some real money selling shit like that."

I looked blankly at him. "What?"

Jeez, Sport, you were right there," he said pointing to a spot about 50 yards away where smoke still rose from the little fireplace. "Everybody in the fuckin' marina was watching you two go at it, and that security guard. That prick, you know, that fat one, hell, he must've jerked off five times!"

Poor Elise! I had no idea a human being could turn into a beet so quickly. She rolled her eyes and darted into the forepeak, slamming the door behind her.

"Fuckin-a, Sport, I've never seen anyone cum so much in my life. That ain't normal!"

"You could see us from here?" I asked, sullenly.

"Well, Sport. Binoculars helped!"

"And the horse you rode in on, Fuller," I said as I walked forward, following in Elise's smoking vapor trail.

+++++

We slept until noon. In the raging humidity it felt like we were glued together, only now I could hear a fairly strong wind whistling through the rigging. Sabrina was rocking noticeably now, as well.

I felt her hand reach over my waist, slip to my cock, and she rubbed it slowly. I turned to face her, but she pushed me back down and slid up over my groin and placed my cock on her smooth, moist slit, then she sat down on me slowly -- again. She let it stand there in the warmth for a moment, then she started gripping it with her vaginal muscles. She was all very smooth now, very rhythmic, and her intent unmistakable: she was jacking my cock off with her vagina, and not moving her body at all! I was shocked! Never in my life had I heard of anyone doing this, except, of course, in Paris. She looked down in silent majesty, her eyes closed, a sly grin on her face, lost in her control of my desire.

She continued to do this gentle milking motion, maintaining a steady pace for several minutes.

I felt every nerve in my body firing simultaneously, building with an incredible, blinding intensity. Her body remained still - and totally silent - yet her inner muscles kept their steady gripping impulses streaming upward, ever locked to my cock, and I could feel every molecule, every atom inside my head blazing with unexpected sensitivity. There was no motion to interfere with this most pure form of sensation; the gripping motion started at the base of my cock and slowly moved up to the tip, then released and started again. Relentlessly.

I could feel the burning intensity of orgasm start in my balls, the muscles in my anus contracting in almost painful spasm, the boiling eruption ran up the vein along the bottom of my cock and exploded into her cunt, and then my cock began pulsing with a will of its own. I could feel my semen coating the walls of her vagina, coalescing with her juices, forming a new matrix that could only stand to define this new love we had for one another. Stand together for all time, I think you could safely say.

I was so lost in this new world she had just created -- for me, for us -- that I was almost completely unaware of the shuddering ripples that coursed through her belly. Her outstretched arms rested on my chest, and I could feel her trembling in my heart. I fought to remain still, not to breech the sanctity of this moment, somehow willing it to become our one true place to spend eternity.

I felt her tears on my chest, then on my face as she lowered her face to mine.

Oh, thank you my love. Thank you for this place you gave me.

She seemed to flow onto me, melt away from the very essence of this new place, and I held her close to my heart, but in truth I couldn't tell where her body ended, and mine began. Perhaps on this errant tide we had fused, fused in some aboriginal coalescence of being, lost to the flow of time.

+++++

By late afternoon word filtered through the marina: our little tropical depression was only a few knots away from hurricane force, and the barometer was falling - rapidly. Ron and the Amigos huddled with me in Sabrina's salon; we were going over weatherfax charts and listening to single side band broadcasts out of Norfolk and Miami. Winds tonight were forecast at 90 to 100 knots, wave heights up to 25 feet forecast in the Straits -- possibly much higher near the axis of the 'Stream.

I shook my head when I looked at the predicted isobars on the fax. "There's no way, Ron," I sighed. "Everyone will die out there if we go."

"Well, odds are Sport, everyone will either be killed or imprisoned if we stay. We drilled a couple of their security people in order to get these girls out, and I'm afraid the trail will lead here before too long."

"The only way to do anything like what you've got in mind would be to get outside and run down the coast. Run to the west, watch the storm, and cut north or south after we clear the western tip of Cuba."

"Won't work, Sport. They could keep us on radar all the way, then those Migs would hit us as soon as the weather calms down. We won't have indefinite air support, and we won't have a carrier battle group to hide behind. Like I said, we just need to get about 15 to 20 miles offshore. Then we're home free."

"Well then, it'll depend on the axis of rotation, where the eye is," Buzz said.

I nodded my head in agreement. "If the north-western radius of the eye wall is over the Straits, I'd say we won't make it five miles before we're swamped. Not going beam-to those seas."

Ron nodded his head in agreement with my analysis. "Jim, I can't force you to go, I can't and I won't. But if you stay, Elise will be dead before the week's out, and you probably will be, too."

I nodded my head. "Between a rock and the fucked place, I'd say. We can't use radar, right?"

"No, that'll cue them in on us immediately. Navy pukes only want to go active jamming if the MIGs come up. Once that happens, the bad guys won't be able to see shit on their radar. Besides, with these wave heights I doubt radar will do any good anyway."

"So how do we find the Battle Group?"

"Jim, all you need to do is lead us right here," he said, pointing at the chart. "Those ships have got enough mass to shield us, and get all our people on board."

"What? Do you mean I should abandon ship out there? I can't do that, Ron."

"After you drop your people, well, if you decide to head for Key West, that's your choice. It's your vessel, Captain. Once your mission is accomplished you can take off or join your group on the carrier. Your life, your choice, Jim. Clear enough?"

"Yeah, clear enough, Ron."

+++++

After a light dinner, Elise and I made up storm berths for our elderly guests, and we got the wounded Seal strapped into the aft berth. He was pale and clammy, but his vitals were good, and the medic was going to stay on Sabrina through the night, as well.

It was going to get crowded, and crowds on boats are a recipe for trouble. Too many flying elbows, too many hard things to slam into.

I got Buzz and the doc briefed on how to set our storm sails, how to strap into the safety harnesses and attach them to the jack lines. These would keep people attached to the boat if a wave washed them overboard, and hopefully someone would be able to get them back on board. Still, with these winds and the towering waves expected, I doubted the lines would hold.

As darkness fell an elderly couple appeared out of nowhere with Ron at their side; he took them below and with Elise got them strapped in. He came back up a few minutes later and pulled me aside.

"It's a worse case deal now, Jim. Winds are 85 in town, but 104 in the Strait. The eye wall will transit the Strait, as well, westbound."

"O.K., Ron. When do you want me to start off?"

"I'd like you to head out in about 30 minutes; I'll be last out, and I'll try to keep as close to you as I can. With your displacement, you'll have the best shot at making it, you might beat the worst of it."

I held out my hand again and he took it, then pulled himself into me and gave me a quick hug. He pulled back and looked at me again, then said good bye -- and was gone.

And I assumed that would be the last time I saw Ron Fuller. Elise came up a few minutes later and kissed me once, then she too disappeared into the wind and the rain.

+++++

The wind gauge in Sabrina's instrument pedestal showed a steady 80 knots - with frequent gusts over 90 - as we motored out of the marina. We set the storm staysail as we cleared the breakwater, if only to steady the motion a little, and I had sea anchors and a storm drogue set and ready to deploy as well.

As we cleared the breakwater the full force of the wind slammed into Sabrina's right side, her starboard beam, and the force drove her port beam down into the water. I fell away from the wind a bit and she stood back up as we gathered speed, and the little storm sail bit into the wind and began to pull us back up to a heading close to due North.

Buzz pulled out a little Trimble GPS receiver and we began a plot, but what I saw was an act of pure will. The waves were getting vicious after only a couple hundred yards, and I hoped they would settle down as we made deeper water, but doing even the simplest task had -- suddenly -- become dangerous. And futile.

But the waves only grew taller, even more pyramidally steep as we slugged our way offshore. The full force of the southeasterly winds and waves ran smack into the east-setting Gulfstream, in effect the two forces colliding. In that perfectly dreadful set of circumstances, the waves instantly built to pyramid shaped mountains -- moving mountains -- that I guesstimated were already at least 30 feet -- and growing. Thirty two was half of Sabrina's mast height, and I'd never been out in conditions remotely like this before, anywhere, in any type of vessel, and as I looked at the waves my confidence level dropped like a rock. Or more accurately, like the barometer over the chart table.

But now I had to fight the wheel with all of my strength just to keep Sabrina on our baseline course, and as she came to the top of each rolling mountain the full force of the wind would hit her broadside like a freight train -- knocking her on her port beam -- then the old girl would slice down the backside of the departing wall in a roaring, barely controlled fall. The bow would dive into the next wave, and Sabrina began to fight her way up the face of the next mountain. On the wave-tops the wind shrieked and howled through the rigging, in the troughs Sabrina was awash in a momentary silence, resting before the next roaring onslaught.

At the end of 15 minutes we'd clawed our way perhaps a mile offshore, then I heard a different kind of roar.

I turned and saw three MIG-29s fighting through the storm -- turning for our little convoy -- but I couldn't afford to take my eyes off the waves for long and turned back in time to see a huge monster wave breaking just ahead - and braced to meet the force head-on.

+++++

Another several minutes of this, then the roaring sound changed yet again and I turned in time to see a fireball erupt on the surface of the sea several hundred yards behind us. Something had been hit; I saw glowing wreckage on the churning surface of the sea, then I felt the roar of jets as they thundered-by just overhead, but I soon lost them in the storm. I couldn't see anything now, but I guessed they were turning to the west, to our left, and getting ready to come in again.

I never thought I'd live to be happy to see a Queer coming for me, but when that great gray whale of a jet thundered across Sabrina's bow I started yelling like crazy. So did Buzz, but the doc and all the rest down below were clueless - as all the hatches were sealed shut - so I doubt they heard anything. Which was a good thing...

...because as I'd watched the Queer streak past I lost concentration and Sabrina wandered up the face of the next rolling mountain, and now heading right up the face of the wave she began to stall. This could lead to an interesting maneuver called 'pitch-poling' -- kinda of like running down your front yard -- doing somersaults -- only worse. Forty ton sailboats aren't real graceful when pitch-poling end over end; point of fact, few people have lived to describe the phenomenon.

The only way out was to surf down the front of the mountain and hope to get out of it's way before it turned into a breaker -- and swamped the boat. This I did, and I even managed to find the groove I had been in and slice through the next set of waves.

Then I felt a concussive boom, and seconds later was aware that a MIG had just gone thundering by right behind us, billowing flares out its belly. The pilot had gone super-sonic -- in a hurricane, no less -- just a few meters off the surface of this roiling sea.

The guy had balls, that's all I can say.

Then a double boom, and this one knocked me off my feet. Buzz, too.

Two Navy F14s had just flown directly over our mast, also super-sonic, and had disappeared into the rain, and those were the last airplanes we saw that night. Then I noticed something odd: I couldn't hear, not a thing, then I saw blood running out of Buzz's ear canal, and reached up to feel the same coming out of mine.

So, almost an hour gone and the storm was only getting stronger -- and -- we were approaching nine miles from shore. And now, I was deaf as a post.

What the hell, I thought as I flipped on the radar. About three miles ahead there was the promised armada, and I felt it's presence like an injected rush of adrenaline-fused joy, a feeling you can't imagine unless you've been there. I steered what looked to me like a good intercept course to the biggest thing out there, surely the carrier, and pointed at the screen so Buzz could come see. I pantomimed 'radio' and pointed at the radar; he nodded his head and went to the companionway hatch -- and I guess the doc figured out we were both deaf.

+++++

We were driving well across the rolling mountains, yet I sensed the waves were diminishing, slightly but noticeably. I could feel the wind falling too, and saw it drop into the seventies on the dial, then the fifties, and then there were stars overhead. We had hit the eye, and strung out in front of us was the entire United States Navy. Well, some of it, anyway.

The waves were still towering, but I could steer with little effort now and made for the battle group. The hulking carrier was oriented north south, beam to the wind, and the doc indicated that they wanted me to maneuver into the dead spot in the lee created by the mass of the huge ship. Soon she was only a few hundred yards away -- a piece of cake, I thought.

But as we got closer I saw that the waves there were still a good twenty plus feet - or more. Not a piece of cake, at all. The doc appeared and indicated a platform on the side of the ship, one of the huge elevators used to take aircraft to and from the hanger deck to the fight deck, and pointed to the mass of people waving at us. There were hoists rigged, and men in rescue-diving gear were waiting to be lowered onto Sabrina's deck.

We slipped behind the carrier and fell into a windless island of near-sane sea conditions. Lines were thrown, men lowered. Medics dropped down, then lowered a litter to hoist up their wounded comrade. The elderly Cubans were hoisted up next. Then the doc. Soon only Buzz was there, standing next to me, pushing me to the hoists, pointing up.

I shook my head, and pointed at Sabrina, and stood my ground.

He nodded his head then was gone. I watched as he lifted off Sabrina's deck, was carried aloft into the arms of his comrades. Their was one last Navy man there with me.

"What about the rest?" I called out.

He bunched his lips, shook his head.

"Anyone?" I yelled.

He shook his head again.

I felt cold inside, pulled out my chart, told the man I was heading for Key West.

He shook his head, pointed at the carrier with a hitchhikers thumb.

I shook my head again, said an emphatic Good Bye and the man hooked himself into the last hoist -- then he did the wildest thing. He saluted me, right there in the eye of a hurricane.

So, what the hell, I saluted him right back -- before I jumped behind the wheel.

In a heartbeat Sabrina was free of the lee, and I engaged the motor and bore off to the north. The big carrier silently slipped away, and in an instant Sabrina and I were back in the belly of the beast. I turned one last time to look at the huge gray ship, hoping against hope for one last glimpse of Elise.

But no, of course she was gone. Elise, Ron - and Pedro. Another boy, claimed by the sea. I felt sick, sick and tired of Death and his dominion...

...but the wind slammed home again as the eye passed, the waves rose up in earnest anger once again, perhaps mad at having been cheated out of more victims. Buzz had left his little GPS by the helm, and it was giving me a true heading to Key West. I put Sabrina's nose on 12 degrees magnetic and off we went, heading slightly into the wind. According to the little unit, we had about seventy five miles to go. Maybe 15 hours, if I was lucky enough to survive that long.

I kept the radar on, thinking there was no need to run around blind out here with all these Navy ships steaming through the straits, and it was peaceful in an odd sort of way: not hearing the wind, relying on sight and touch to feel my way through the storm, some of it's anger spent now. I'd never had any real idea just how much hearing played a role in sailing, or anything else, for that matter, until that night. You take things for granted until they're gone.

Had I taken Elise and Pedro for granted? And Ron Fuller, too? I thought of that glowing mass - Blade Runner's final resting place - and I thought I saw a flashing Cheshire Cat's grin afloat in the storm, passing by on a gust. I could just make out the carrier on radar - yet there was already more than ten miles between us -- and growing, but now all I could see in my mind's eye was a woman I had loved -- disappearing in a flash of thunder.

We had said 'Good Bye,' hadn't we?

No. She had slipped away from me. Slipped away like the wind. All that love. The hope she brought to my life, gone now, without even a passing nod.

Yet Sabrina was not just a boat, not to me, anyway. She was my home, and in an odd way, she was my life. I took care of her, and in her way she took care of me. What had we just done together? Crossed one of the most foul, storm-tossed bodies of water -- under the most horrid conditions imaginable? Then it hit me like a body-blow: Ron and the Amigos? Gone?

Dead? Dead and gone? All of them -- gone? Just like that? The Storm? The MIGs? What had claimed those poor souls? Was someone looking for survivors?

And then, softly at first, I could hear the wind. The sound was distant and hollow at first, but sounds of the sea and my little ship were returning to consciousness, but I struggled to contain the random stream of anguished thoughts that came to me as I steered.

Hours later and I could make out the mass of Key West ahead on the radar, and I adjusted my heading to keep far to the west. The wind remained constant now, though in the mid-forties, and I could make out the looming gray horizon under walls of scudding cloud. Sabrina was like a horse headed for the barn now; hungry, thirsty, and wanting very badly to be done with this ride. I reached down and rubbed her teak coaming, thanked her for the sheltering grasp she kept on her passengers throughout our wild, malicious night.