The Pleasure Cruise Ch. 01

"That relationship didn't last," I continued, "and neither did Lauren's friendship with her. But the two of us kept hanging out, and by fourth year we were living together as roommates. After graduation we coincidentally both got jobs for different firms in the same office tower on Bay Street, and we just never stopped living together. We've both had other relationships, and I was even engaged at one point, but Lauren and I never got together."

"It would be really weird," Lauren agreed.

"So, you still live together?" Miguel asked.

"Not for the past two years," Lauren explained. "I got headhunted by a firm in Vancouver and the offer was too good to turn down. For the past two years I've been living out there, and Sean bought a house after I moved out. He's still my best friend, but we haven't seen each other in over a year. We don't get many chances for a vacation, and I wanted to see him."

"Are either of you dating anyone now?" Alejandra asked.

"I got out of a relationship not too long ago, and Sean's been single for about six months." Lauren didn't further elaborate.

The conversation moved on, as we discussed our plans for the cruise, excursions we'd booked, that sort of thing. After dinner, Lauren and I moved up to the bar on the Lido deck and sat out under the stars, drinking. I often have trouble reading her, but she was even more impenetrable than normal tonight. I tried asking how she was doing, but she told me she didn't want to talk about it, and otherwise, we just kept up the small talk as we polished away cocktails.

Finally, around midnight, we decided to head down to the room and go to sleep.

As I brushed my teeth in the tiny bathroom, there was a shout behind the door. "Sean?"

"Yeah?"

"I didn't pack for a cruise with you."

"What do you mean?" I spit out the toothpaste and moved back into the stateroom, finding Lauren in a red bra and panties, looking through the closet.

"Um... I was planning to sleep naked with Rolf, so I didn't bring any pyjamas." She bit her lip sheepishly.

"You have nothing you can wear?"

"Nope. I've got sexy lingerie and clothes for the beach and that's pretty much it. I guess I won't be wearing the lingerie," she grumbled. "It's not really meant for sleeping in."

"It doesn't bother me if it doesn't bother you. We've seen each other naked before." I shrugged.

"Okay..." She sounded unconvinced, then moved into the bathroom to brush her teeth. I stripped down to my boxer briefs and climbed into bed. A few moments later, she emerged, topless, but still wearing the panties. Even though I'd seen her topless countless times before, it had been over two years, and her tits had lost none of their perkiness in her 30's. I tried not to stare at her pink nipples as she killed the light and climbed into bed.

She snuggled into me, burying her head in my chest. I felt her warmth and softness all over.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm..." she caught herself. "Yeah. I'm okay. Good night, Sean."

I didn't believe her, but I knew better than to pry. "Good night."

She rolled over, and I lay there, feeling the gentle rocking motion of the sea. I could get used to this, I thought.

Several minutes passed, and I was near sleep when Lauren rolled over again and curled into me again.

"Sean?"

"Yes?"

"I'm horny." She suddenly reached into my boxers and grabbed my cock.

"What the fuck?" I pulled back, shocked, yanking her hand away.

"Seannnnnnn... It's been six months," she whined.

"It has been for me too, but... we're friends." I said in disbelief.

"Do you know what it was like on a five-hour flight from Vancouver to Toronto, knowing I was getting laid when I landed? I could barely sit still. And, seriously, I'm already over Rolf, I don't want to talk about him. But my pussy doesn't understand why it still has to wait. I need a dick. I need a dick." She tired to grab me again as I swatted her hand away, and we wrestled briefly, my cock betraying me by swelling into an erection as I fought off the blonde topless woman.

"Lauren, seriously." I finally climbed out of bed to avoid her hands.

"What?" she whined. "Why are you rejecting me?"

"Because you're drunk, and because you're heartbroken, and because I'm not fucking you when you're drunk and heartbroken. We've known each other fifteen years, and if we are going to risk that friendship, it's not going to happen under these circumstances. You need a dick, sure, I'd agree with you on that. But you don't need my dick. We've been friends for too long to change the dynamic for a one-night drunken hookup."

Lauren angrily flipped the light on. She'd kicked the covers off, and her legs were spread wide open. A telltale wet spot about the size of a loonie was visible on the gusset of her panties. Her face and chest were flushed, and her nipples were firm and erect. She stared, in tunnel-vision, at the barely-contained bulge in my crotch.

"I've never seen you with a boner before," she breathed, then reached a hand into her panties and started rubbing.

"Lauren!"

"What?"

"We can't. You can't. Not like this."

With that, Lauren burst into tears - not just a few tears, but a full-on meltdown. She curled into a ball, sobbing, her body heaving.

I climbed back into bed, grabbing her and holding her from behind, and she took my hand and squeezed it hard to her chest as she cried. I tried to just comfort her as she felt whatever she was feeling, rubbing her back, running my fingers through her hair, unsuccessfully willing my erection to quiet down. Despite the situation, I was still sexually frustrated myself, spooning with a beautiful topless woman holding my hand to her breast.

Finally, after countless minutes, Lauren's tears started to cease as her breathing slowed. She finally looked up at me as I held her, rocking her ass against my crotch.

"You've still got a boner, Sean."

"I know," I responded. "That doesn't mean I want a drunken hookup with you tonight." I paused. "I've never seen you cry before."

"No one has ever seen me cry before.," she answered. "Even when my Dad died when I was a kid, I only cried in private. I couldn't do it." She lay silently for a long time. "I guess I must trust you."

She sat up, cross-legged, facing me. I stole a glance between her legs and the entire front of her panties were now completely soaked through, a massive wet patch clinging to her crotch and creating a camel toe. My erection, which had finally started to deflate, sprang back to life.

"We're both this horny and you want to talk about feelings?" She reached back into her panties, touching experimentally, then licking her fingertip.

"Maybe we should get off. Privately." I got up, walking awkwardly, trying to keep my dick in my underwear as I headed for the bathroom. Turning back to face her, I saw Lauren already stripped of her panties and rubbing herself intensely. The sight of Lauren's slit moving in circles under her fingertips caused my cock to jump uncontrollably.

"Can I see it? Please? Just once. Pretty please." She stared at the bulge in my shorts.

I rolled my eyes and dropped my underwear to my ankles, feeling relief as my erection finally was free. I stroked myself a few times for Lauren's benefit before turning, with some reluctance, into the bathroom. I didn't bother closing the door, and I could easily hear wet sounds and Lauren's moans as I started frantically jerking off, unintentionally timing my orgasm to coincide with hers. Between the two of us we only lasted a few minutes.

After cleaning up, I walked out of the bathroom, still naked, seeing Lauren laying in bed, legs spread, her pale skin flushed, a look of satisfaction in her eyes, breathing hard, but no longer touching herself. Her shaved slit glistened with moisture. Her eyes were still damp, and her face was still a mess from crying. She looked as unguarded as I'd ever seen her.

She rolled to face me. "I guess we should go to bed."

"Do you want to talk about it?"

"I will, tomorrow morning," she deflected.

"I know you, Lauren Natalia Kovalenko," I scolded. "You're vulnerable like I've never seen you before, and if we wait, you're going to brush this off tomorrow like nothing happened, and we're never going to talk about it."

"Fuck you for knowing me so well," she griped. "Fine."

I climbed into bed and she again snuggled into me. "I may not have had sex tonight, but at least I get the cuddle afterward."

"I've missed that too," I admitted.

We stayed like that for a few moments. Lauren's body was warm, her breathing slow, her posture relaxed. She was normally such a high-energy type, and I tried and failed to remember if I'd ever seen her this switched off.

"What's bothering you?" I finally ventured.

She sighed. "I don't know."

"You don't know?"

"I promise, Sean, I know I'm not the type to talk about my feelings, but I genuinely don't know what just happened to me. I cry sometimes, but never in front of anyone. I'm as confused as you are." She paused, thinking. "Did turning thirty-five earlier this year bother you?"

"Not really," I answered. "Thirty did, but thirty-five just seemed like a number. Life's been pretty good to me in my thirties. I can't complain. I've got a couple promotions, bought a house, settled down a little bit. Dating is harder, since most of the single women have either kids, serious issues, or both. But yeah, I'm satisfied overall."

"I'm turning thirty-five next month," she began. "I don't know if it's why I just melted down, but I know it's been bothering me for some reason. I look back on the last fifteen years, university, then career, a few vacations, booze and soft drugs, a lot of meaningless hookups. I've never been in love with anyone. I'm starting to feel like I've wasted the last fifteen years. I think my biological clock is starting to tick a little bit, too."

"You've never wanted kids," I said, shocked.

"I still don't. Fuck and no," she shot back. "But... I don't know, Sean. I feel like I missed something. Everyone I knew from my high school and university days except you is settling down, marriage, children, whatever. The wild girls who used to snort rails at nightclubs on weekends are now posting mommy blog posts on Instagram about their little angels. The people I know with kids are all boring now, acting like my parents. They've all gotten old, and I'm still me."

"I think that's normal, and I've felt that too," I said. "It's really challenging to know what to do with your life when you're still single in your mid-thirties. My friends are all married and have no time for hanging out. It wouldn't be appropriate to fraternize that way with my staff, and it's hard making friends as an adult. I miss having you to hang out with."

"I miss it too." She started gently stroking my chest. "It's my biggest regret about moving to Vancouver. I haven't even come close to finding a surrogate Sean."

"Have you cried on your own in the last little while?" I asked.

"No," she said definitively. "It's been months."

"Maybe you needed to feel safe to let it out?"

"Maybe." She thought about it. "I do feel safe with you. In some ways I feel safer with you than I feel when I'm alone. You're my rock, and I've sometimes felt lost without you there since I moved out west. I've also been re-examining my life since I dumped Rolf, and I don't know that I like everything about what I see. That's the first time I've been able to say that since I was a teenager. I'm still the same person I was then, but maybe that's the problem. Getting old sucks."

"Getting old does suck, but it could be worse," I added. "Did you know Dave Jacobson?"

"No, name doesn't ring a bell."

"I knew him in first year, he was on my floor in residence. I heard he died of a cerebral hemorrhage last summer, just totally out of nowhere. He left a wife and two kids."

"That's awful." Lauren squeezed me a little tighter, pausing. "The Rolf thing also bothers me, but that's not just it. Like it's Rolf, but it's also not him."

"I'm listening."

"I never loved him. I was never in love with him." She stopped, collecting her thoughts. "I've never been into monogamy. I've had relationships, but generally they've been open, and open relationships tend to attract only a certain kind of guy."

"I definitely know the type of guy you've been with in the past." I pictured all the men I'd seen Lauren with over the years, generally tall, tattooed, bearded, masculine, alpha male types.

"There have been girls too," she said nonchalantly.

"I remember," I smiled, thinking back to the nights I spent hearing Lauren and one of her girlfriends loudly getting it on in the room next door.

"But yeah. Rolf wanted a real relationship, and... like... I don't know, Sean. I've never been asked to be in a real relationship. Guys don't ask to be in real relationships with women like me. Not since high school, when 'going steady' was all anyone knew how to do. Even then, I knew I didn't want that. Now, it seems like something is pushing me in that direction, so when I was asked to be in one, I jumped on it. I don't know even now why I did that. It was stupid. But the desire to make some kind of change is there in a way it never has been before, and I don't know why. I also don't know what change it is that I need to make, only that I want to do something different."

"Did you like the idea of being with him more than you liked actually being with him?"

"I think so. I liked the idea of settling down with someone, and I could see myself with him. Not forever, maybe, but..." she trailed off.

"Were you projecting a version of what you wanted on to him?" I asked.

"Probably." She looked up at me, grey-blue eyes boring into mine. "I didn't fall in love with him. I don't know if I want a real relationship or if society's expectations are putting that on me. All I know is that I convinced myself that this was what I wanted, and I think I opened up just enough that it hurt like a real motherfucker when I found out it wasn't what I was expecting. Breakups suck, so mostly I've avoided that particular pain by not ever getting into a situation where someone could break up with me."

"Can't have your heart broken if you never use it, right?"

"Something like that."

"Do you want a real relationship with someone?"

Lauren paused for a long time, thinking. Finally, she answered. "I don't know. That's the only answer I have. Everyone around me has grown up, and I never wanted to be the lonely old cougar still picking up college boys on Saturday nights. I'm happy as a single woman, but... I don't know. Maybe I'm ready to be in love with someone. I've never been in love. I don't know how to be in love. And no one's ever been in love with me."

"I love you," I interjected.

"I love you too," she responded immediately, "but things are different with you. We wouldn't work as a couple. There's too much history."

"I agree," I said. "But I trust you more than any woman I've ever dated."

"I trust you more than anyone else in the world," she said honestly. "My Dad's been dead for years, my Mom and I don't get along, I don't have brothers or sisters. I can open up to you because there's mutual trust and respect and no expectations. Because I know it'll never turn into anything more. You make me feel safe, Sean, and I value feeling safe with you more than anything."

I hugged her tightly. "Maybe you just needed to feel safe to let out everything that's been building up. All those emotions, that sexual frustration, feeling like you needed a life change. It's been all bubbling under the surface, just waiting until you felt safe enough to let it out."

"I don't fuckin' know, man." The vulnerability I'd never seen in her before was rapidly ebbing away. Silence fell in the room for a few minutes.

"I'm still horny," she finally said, matter-of-factly.

"Has it been bad?"

"Sean, it hasn't been like this since I was a teenager. This last week before leaving Vancouver I burned out my favourite vibrator from overuse. I soaked through my jeans on the flight to Toronto, just from expectation. That's never happened to me before - panties, sure, but not the jeans too. I'm desperate to get laid. And deep down, I value you too much as you to use you as a random hookup. So, thanks for stopping me earlier. Even though I've now got to live the rest of my life with the knowledge that you've got a really nice cock."

I smiled. "We'll find a way to get you laid this cruise. There are lots of men on the prowl out there, and I saw an LGBT mixer in the ship's program."

"You're a good wingman," she responded, "but I'm going to be one for you too. I'll find you some pretty girl to empty your balls into."

"Much appreciated." I hugged her tighter.

"Who did you think was hotter, Emily or Danielle?" she asked.

"Danielle," I responded. "She's prettier, more down-to-earth, and I like a full figure. And she's more mysterious. She seems sad, like she needs someone to care for her."

"I would have guessed you'd say that," Lauren grinned. "You love women who need rescuing."

I thought about arguing, then shrugged. I definitely had a type.

"I'll take Emily any day," she continued. "She's super innocent and seems a little repressed, but she set my gaydar off just a little. I bet she's never been with a girl, but secretly gets off to lesbian porn and feels guilty about it, wondering if it makes her a lesbian. I could teach her a few things." She sighed.

I suddenly was hyper-conscious of Lauren's nipple poking my side, and I realized that I could feel heat radiating from between her legs against my thigh. "Do you need to get off again?"

"I'm going to try to sleep, I think," she answered. "Do you?"

"I'm good for now."

"Good night, Sean. Thanks for listening to me. I'll regret opening up in the morning, but I can thank you tonight."

"Good night, Lauren. Sleep well."

"I always sleep well on cruises. The ocean motion just knocks me right out." She kissed me quickly on the cheek and rolled back to her side of the bed.

I laid back and closed my eyes, and within a few minutes I was dozing. At one point I thought I felt the bed shaking with repetitive movements from Lauren's side, but I might have dreamed it.

***

The next morning, I awoke to an unusual stillness, and to the bright Caribbean sunshine sneaking through a small gap in the curtains. I looked out the window and still only saw blue ocean, so I flipped on the TV to the GPS channel and realized we were anchored at the harbour entrance to Nassau, Bahamas. I heard Lauren groan beside me and stir, then roll to face me.

"I never used to get hangovers. Fuck everything about getting old," she moaned.

I got up and grabbed a bottle of water out of our mini-fridge, cracked it open, had a swig, and then handed it to her. She sat up gingerly, still naked, and drank slowly while rubbing her temples.

"Are we okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, I think so."

"Good." She sipped more water. "I regret being out of control last night and I owe you an apology for putting you in that spot. Thank you again for fighting me off. I want sex so, so badly, but I don't want to ruin this friendship. Do you realize how cool it is we can just chill naked without it being weird? That kind of intimacy is worth living with these damn blue lady-balls all the time."

"I'd definitely miss it if I never saw you naked again," I mused.

"I'd miss it too." She sighed. "I wish I could put the genie back in the bottle though, now that I know what you look like with an erection. My punishment for last night is I get to have that image tormenting me for the rest of my life."