Safe Harbor (MF, BDSM)

[coldwater]

Disclaimer:  

This is a work of fiction.  It contains some scenes of sadistic behavior.  This is included to provide drama to the story.  The author does not condone such behavior in real life.

End of Disclaimer

Safe Harbor (MF, BDSM)

David was bone tired by the time he rounded the point and entered the harbor channel.  It was 3:30 pm, but he had already put in an 11 hour day.  He still needed to clean up the boat and bring his catch to the market before he could go home for a much needed nap.  He looked at Sampson, snoozing on the fore-deck, with a little bit of envy.  The old mastiff had the life.  Then again, Sampson probably didn’t have many good years left.  He already was having difficulty getting in and out of the boat.  He was going to miss the old guy when he couldn’t bring him along anymore.

David was reminded again of the fact that he kept trying to ignore; that he couldn’t keep this up on his own.  He kept trying to block out the ugly mess that had resulted in the departure of his long-time deckhand, Dennis.  

Dennis had been a good worker for a long time.  After 12 years, he knew the lobster business as well as David.  They didn’t need to speak to each other to get the job done, as each knew what the other was going to do in nearly all circumstances.  At least that was the case until a year ago, when Dennis began to change.  He seemed to lose focus, forget to do things that used to be routine and lack basic judgment.  His motor skills diminished as well.  

It took a while for David to confirm the truth.  Ultimately it took a discussion with Dennis’s sister to verify that Dennis had a drug problem.  A combination of a knee injury and a disastrous ending to his marriage had led to his abuse of pain killers.  When David confronted him, Dennis confessed to the issue and agreed to get help.

Rehab seemed to help for a while, but it was easy to tell two months later that Dennis had fallen off the wagon.  David knew he should have put his foot down earlier.  He was not confrontational by nature and kept hoping against hope that somehow Dennis would find his way.  Dennis almost paid for it with his life.  He stepped into a loop of line after a pot had been released overboard, something he would have been careful to avoid in the past.  He was yanked over the stern, but thankfully surfaced a second later, coughing and sputtering, minus one boot.

David remembered the discussion when they got back to the dock that day.

“You know you can’t come back,” he had told Dennis quietly.

“I’ll go back to rehab.  Give me a week and I can straighten myself out.”

“No, Dennis, I gave you a second chance and you failed.  I can’t risk it.  You nearly died out there today.  If you ever need me, I will be there for you.  You are like a brother to me, but I can’t let you put yourself or me at risk out there anymore.”

David eased the ‘Alice Marie’ into the dock, bringing her to a standstill with just inches between the fenders suspended from her cleats and the weathered planks of the dock.  He had purchased the 34’ wooden hull lobster boat from another local who could no longer fish due to his advanced age.  The 60 year old boat came with the name and he never saw a reason to change it.  While most fishermen would have went with a modern ‘glass boat, something about the traditional carvel planked hull appealed to him.  It almost seemed like a living thing, the way it reacted to its environment.  David often thought to himself that ‘Alice’ was the only female he ever understood.

As he loaded the lobsters from the live well into baskets, it occurred to him that all of his relationships turned to shit, unless you counted the ones with Sampson and his predecessor, a shepherd mix with the rather unimaginative name of Rex.  Besides Dennis, there was his ex-wife, who had left him for a tennis instructor fifteen years ago, and his estranged daughter who stopped talking to him when he tried to steer her away from her derelict boyfriend.
  
Ironically, the fact that said boyfriend was now in prison was probably what was keeping David from being able to reconcile with her.  If Renee were actually living with the scumbag all this time, David was sure she would have come to her senses, but with him gone, she could maintain her romanticized image of him as the misunderstood artist.

David had made some attempts at finding a new deckhand.  He had put out feelers to the other fishermen, the employees at the fish market and the lunch counter regulars at Walter’s General Store.  He knew even as he did so that these were probably all the wrong people to ask.  Walter himself had tried to send him one of his great nephews, but the kid practically got seasick just standing on the dock.
    
David had known what he needed to do, but he was loathe to do it.  He imagined what kind of people might respond to a help-wanted ad in the local paper.  As it turned out, he got very few responses at all.  The first week, he got two phone calls.  Neither of the guys who responded seemed enthused with the description of the work, which David did not soft soap, and said they would “think about it” and get back to him.  He knew he would not hear from them again.

Sampson struggled to his feet and gave a half-hearted, “woof.”  David looked up to see a figure at the head of the dock, walking toward him.  He was mildly surprised, as this was a private boatyard of which he was the only active user.  Earl, the property owner and resident was 95 years old and seldom left the house.  He was the former owner of the ‘Alice Marie.’  

When David bought the boat, he made a deal with Earl to rent the boatyard as well.  It worked out well for both of them.  Earl charged very little and in return David maintained the boatyard in good condition and checked in on Earl periodically, making sure the old salt was still breathing.  David knew that Earl came down to visit the ‘Alice Marie,’ when he wasn’t around.  He would occasionally make a comment that she needed a little paint or repair here or there, things he certainly couldn’t see from his living room window.

The figure coming down the dock was definitely not Earl.  He had the quick, purposeful gait of a younger man; although there was something different about the way this man walked that David couldn’t quite put his finger on.  The man did not look like a tourist either.  Occasionally, tourists would find their way to the boatyard looking to get a better deal on lobsters than they could get at the fish market.  At this point in mid-October, tourist season was over.  At any rate, the man was dressed for outdoor manual labor, not for holiday.  He was wearing a flannel shirt, Carhartt work jacket, loose-fit, worn jeans, work boots and a baseball cap.

As the figure got within conversational distance, David realized the ‘man’ was actually a young woman, hardly more than a girl, in fact.

“Hi,” she said, “I’m Danielle Rogers, most people call me Danni.  I understand you are looking for hired help.  I am looking for a job.”  She held out her hand.

David gave her a firm handshake.  He was a bit taken aback.  “A girl?” he thought.  He hadn’t expected that.  

“Hi, I’m David…David Cortland.  Yes, I am in need of a deckhand.  You know anything about the lobster business?”

“No”

“Are you familiar with boats?”

“Not really.  I’ve never been on one.”

“This girl is wasting my time,” He thought to myself.  Time to go in for the kill.  “Are you comfortable getting up at 4 am and putting in 10 or more hours of hard physical labor in a dirty, stinky job?”

“Yes, that’s right up my alley.  I was born and raised on a dairy farm in Iowa.  That pretty much describes every day of my life from about age 9 until I left at 18.”

David had to give her some grudging respect with that answer.

“Which was how long ago?  You still look like you’re a child”

She looked a bit put out by the comment.

“I’m 22”

David didn’t know what to do.  He couldn’t think of an immediate reason why she couldn’t do the job, although it would be heavy labor even for a farm girl.  He never thought of himself as sexist, but he just didn’t feel comfortable with the idea that his new deckhand could be a young lady.  He needed to think this over.

“Give me a phone number I can reach you at.  I will think it over and give you a call back.”

“What’s to think about?  You’ve been looking for help for a month now, right?  It doesn’t seem like you have other candidates lining up to apply.  I’m willing to do the work and you need help.  Why not just give me a shot?”

She had a point.

“Fair enough, be here at 5:30 am tomorrow.  At the end of the day, if I’m happy with your work, you’ve got the job.”  

“OK”

“I gotta warn you, I don’t talk much.”

“Neither did the cows and we got along alright.”

At this point Sampson had finally managed to lumber onto the dock.  He apparently didn’t share David’s reservations.  He approached Danni wagging his tail furiously and leaned into her, looking to be scratched.  She obliged and he immediately decided she would do just fine as the new deckhand.

“Damn traitor,” David thought to himself.

He had an idea.  No time like the present to put Danni to the test.  “Before you go, would you grab one of those baskets and bring it to my truck?”  He pointed to the fullest of the lobster filled baskets.  The basket was heavy, he wasn’t sure if she was going to be able to handle it.

“Sure,” she said.

She picked up the basket.  By the time she was half-way to the truck, the wire handles were digging into her hands and the strain on her back was starting to take its toll.  She gritted her teeth.  She was being tested and she knew it.  She was not about to give in.  She slipped into her mental zone, where she had learned to disassociate her conscious mind with pain in her body.   She made it to the truck bed without putting the basket down.

David could see she had struggled, but she persevered without complaint.  It was a good sign.

The next morning, Dave arrived at the dock at 5:15 and Danni pulled in 10 minutes later.  Another good sign; she was prompt.

David showed Danni the bait cooler and set her to work filling bait buckets.  Meanwhile, he helped Sampson aboard and fueled up the boat.  A short while later, they were underway.

It was a perfect fall morning; crisp, calm and clear.  Mist rose off the glass smooth water of the harbor, as the air temperature during the night had dropped well below the water temperature.  The thermal mass of the harbor was still retaining much of the temperature rise that had built over the summer.

As they rounded the point, the sun just peeked over the horizon, setting the ocean surface ablaze with sparkling reflections.  The ‘Alice Marie’ rose and fell gently over the incoming swells as they turned toward the fishing grounds.

Over the next half hour as they transited, David ran down what he expected of Danni.  Her job consisted of: fill the bait bags, bait the pots, shove the rebaited pots overboard, tend the lines as they payed out, sort the lobsters, band the claws of the keepers, toss them in the live well, clean any debris off the deck and repeat 100 times.  Occasionally, she would need to swap out a damaged pot for a spare one they carried on board, requiring some heavy lifting.  Not much different, David supposed, to manhandling bales of hay on a farm, except the ground didn’t usually move under your feet in Iowa.  Looking at Danni standing on-board next to him, it struck him that she really was a tiny little thing.  He hoped she would hold up.

As they approached the first string of pots of the day, they plowed toward a standing line of choppy waves.  Danni was intrigued at first, but as they got closer he could see fear in her eyes.

“I don’t get it, why is the water flat over here and all…um, wavy…over there where we are headed?”

“We are on the outgoing tide and it runs hard through this area.  Where you see that transition is where there is a major depth change.  It’s like rapids on a river.”

Danni braced herself as they reached the choppy water.  She looked at David and he seemed completely relaxed.  No matter how the boat pitched and rolled, his body compensated.  If she looked at his head, it barely seemed to move at all.  

David watched her out of the corner of his eye.  Every movement of the boat, she reacted to after the fact.  The result was that every correction she tried to make only threw her off balance more as the next pitch or roll came.  “She’ll get it eventually,” he thought.

They came to the first pot.  The tide was still running strong and the fluorescent orange buoy was a foot below the surface, making it difficult to find.  David hooked the line below the buoy with his gaff and pulled it in.  He hauled in enough line to get past the watch buoy and loop the line over the davit pulley.  Using the davit pulley for leverage, he pulled until he could wedge the line into the pulley on the hydraulic hauler.  From there, David eased open the control lever and hydraulics took over.  

The boat rolled a little as the pot resisted moving at first, but then it broke free from the bottom and the line began to come in quickly.  David thought about the old times, when the lobstermen used to pull the pots entirely by hand.  He couldn’t imagine how exhausting that would have been.  There is certainly no way he would have been able to pull 100 a day.  

As the pot broke the surface, David eased off on the control lever, slowing the speed smoothly until it stopped with the pot swinging about 8 inches below the davit pulley.  David knew from experience that if you let the pot reach the davit pulley at full speed, the line would pop and $200 worth of gear would fall back into the ocean and sink to the bottom.  David reached out and swung the free end of the pot over the gunwale, while reversing the hydraulics to drop the other end until the pot rested on the gunwale.  David slid it aft onto the hinged, fold out platform that extended inboard from the gunwale.

He opened the door of the pot and quickly pulled out the lobsters and tossed them behind him onto the lobster table.  He tossed the obviously undersized ones overboard, as well as the miscellaneous other sea critters trapped inside.

From there Danni took over, swapping out the empty bait bag with a fresh one and closing the pot.  She gathered the coils of line on the deck aft of the pot, ensuring there were no tangles.  She shoved the pot overboard, then gathered up the coils of line and tossed them overboard as well, and finally tossed the end with the buoys back into the sea.  

Tending these lines was the trickiest part of the operation and was the easiest way to risk your life, as Dennis had found out.  First and foremost, you needed to avoid getting any part of you tangled in a loop of line as the pot pulled it down.  When you gathered up the coils to throw them overboard, you needed to keep a few coils of slack between you and the sinking pot.  It was tempting to stack the coils and the buoys onto the pot and just shove the whole mess off the boat at once, but it was amazing how the line would find a way to tangle on the pot as it descended and everything would sink to the bottom, never to be seen again.  David could not afford to have this happen on a regular basis.

David noted with satisfaction that Danni had handled the pot and lines flawlessly.

Once the pot was gone, Danni turned her attention to the lobsters.  She approached them cautiously, as they were clearly armed and dangerous.  She managed to find her way around all of the snapping claws without mishap.  She stretched a rubber band around each claw, holding it shut.  A lobster has a vice-like grip when closing its claws, but has very little strength to open them, so a stiff rubber band on each claw is all it takes to disarm the crustacean.  The lobsters that appeared on the small side, Danni checked with a size gage, hooking one end into the eye socket.  If the other end of the gage reached beyond the edge of the carapace, the lobster was undersized and she released it overboard.  The rest went into the live well, which was simply a 55 gallon drum with water circulating through it.

As Danni cleaned up the seaweed and other detritus on the deck, she felt confident she had done everything right.  Catching David’s eye, he nodded slightly in approval.  “One down, 99 to go,” she thought.  Her satisfaction was tempered by the fact that her stomach was starting to feel queasy.

On the second pot, Danni lost concentration for a second when reaching for a lobster.  Another one next to it reached out and grabbed her thumb with its crusher claw.  She cried out in pain as it felt like a vice was tightened on her knuckle.  She reached with her other hand to try to pry open the claw, but the lobster latched onto the pinky on that hand with its cutter claw.  Blood spurted through her glove as the sharp serrations punctured her finger.  Damn that hurt.

David chuckled a little as he pried open the claws to free Danni from her trap, carefully banding the first one before prying open the second.  Danni was a little pissed that David found her painful predicament amusing, but she held her tongue.  She was trying her best not to show weakness in front of him.

“Don’t worry, it happens to all of us.  You’ll want to put some antibacterial ointment on the cuts when you get home or they will surely get infected.”

By the tenth pot, David saw that Danni was looking very green.  He knew she was trying to keep her breakfast down.  He also knew that was the wrong thing to do.

Danni couldn’t ignore it anymore, she was seasick.  She got angry at her body for betraying her.  She knew she could work hard, hell, she liked physical labor.  She had thought there was no way she would fail at this job if she just paid attention and forced herself to work hard, but she hadn’t factored in this sneak attack from within.  She desperately tried to keep from retching as the waves of nausea overwhelmed her.  “I can’t puke in front of him or he will surely decide I can’t handle the job,” she thought.

As if he read her mind, David said gently, “I won’t think any less of you if you puke.  You will find that you feel much better if you do.  Just as long as you get it all overboard and go back to work, you get no demerits from me.”

“Thank you,” Danni thought silently as she raced for the gunwale.  The word, “puke” spoken aloud put her over the edge.  There was no way she could keep it down any longer.  From the bow, Sampson whimpered, seemingly in sympathy for his new friend.  David was right, she immediately felt much better.  She launched into her work with renewed vigor.  Unfortunately, the relief didn’t last long and soon she was retching over the side again.

Mercifully, the water gradually calmed.  Suddenly Danni realized they were surrounded by bobbing buoys of assorted colors and patterns.  Up until now, it seemed to be a mystery how David found each succeeding pot, but now Danni could see their string of fluorescent orange buoys stretching out into the distance among all the other buoys.

“Where’d they all come from?” Danni asked, mystified.

“They’ve been here all along; they were just underwater, pulled down by the current.  The tide has gone slack now.”  The water was glass calm.  “Watch in the next half hour or so, the buoys will all turn around and face the other way, then eventually they will start submerging again.”

Her previous misery temporarily forgotten, Danni was struck by the beauty of her surroundings; the glassy calm water reflecting the blue sky and wispy white cirrus clouds, the bobbing multicolored buoys, the cries of the gulls, even the salty air.  David cleared his throat, snapping Danni out of her revelry.  He was waiting for her to bait the next pot.

Danni got into the rhythm of the job.  As their pot count got into the 80’s the tide had turned and was running hard in the other direction.  They got into some rougher water once again and Danni’s misery returned.  She lost count of the number of times she had to lean over the rail, although by the end there was nothing left in her.

When they finally headed for the harbor, Danni was exhausted.  Her entire abdomen hurt from all the retching.  Her fingers hurt from being pinched.  Her legs were tired just from trying to stay balanced on the moving deck.  Her upper body was tired from moving heavy pots.

“Do you pull all 100 pots every day?” Danni asked.  She hoped she didn’t sound like she was whining.

“Not the same ones, no.  I have 300 of them out here.  Each one gets pulled every third day”

When Danni stepped off the dock onto the ground, she got a new surprise.  The ground felt like it was lurching under her feet.  She felt another wave of nausea but it quickly passed.  She looked at David and he understood.

“You need to get your land legs again.”

When the lobsters were in the truck for delivery to the market, David turned to Danni. “You had a pretty rough day out there.  If it’s not for you, I understand.”

“No, I’m fine.  Have I got the job?”

“For now.  See you tomorrow at 6:30.  The tides shift by an hour each day, so we can start later.”

David couldn’t help but be impressed with Danni’s spunk.  She had fought sea sickness all day, but she didn’t give in and she was willing to come back.  In spite of his earlier reservations, he found himself rooting for her to succeed.

The next day wasn’t as bad as Danni’s first one, it was worse.  The weather was bad.  There was a cold driving rain and gusty winds.  Sampson hid in the cabin.

Danni didn’t have proper foul weather gear, so David loaned her some that had been Dennis’s.  She couldn’t wear the pants, though, because they were so big on her it would have been unsafe.  Her jeans were soaked all day.  The tidal chop from the previous day was a gentle ripple compared to the angry seas they faced.  Danni was violently ill all day, but she kept working.  She found that mentally detached zone and kept going.  

She was terrified of the heavy seas.  Terrified she would fall overboard.  Terrified they would capsize.  She was amazed how calm David was and how easily he moved about the boat.  At one point she lurched into the lobster table and thought for a moment she had cracked a rib.

At the end of the day, David asked her again, “Have you had enough?”

 “No, I’m fine.  Have I got the job?”

 “For now.  See you tomorrow at 7:30 am”

The next day was breezy, but clear.  Danni only threw up four times.

“Ready to throw in the towel?”

“No, I’m fine.  Have I got the job?”

“For now.  We start tomorrow at 8:30”

If you want to meet me at Walter’s tomorrow at 7:30, you can borrow some breakfast, my treat.”

“Borrow?”

“Well I doubt you’ll keep it all day.”

“Good point,” she conceded.  She grinned, realizing it was the first time he had revealed his sense of humor.

The truth was, David could be very witty when the mood struck him.  It was one of the things that had attracted his ex-wife to him initially.  He felt a little guilty about that, feeling like he had deceived her, because he had stopped making the effort to maintain that witty repartee after a few years of marriage.  Then again, she had stopped wearing sexy clothes and acting seductive around him, which was what usually prompted the banter.  He wasn’t completely sure why everything had fallen apart, but he suspected it was mostly his fault.

David drove through the quaint New England town on the way home from the fish market.  He really liked living here.  It suited him.  Pretty much everyone knew him, but they gave him his space.  They said hi and chatted amiably with him at Walter’s but never tried to get too personal with him.  

Except Mrs. Crandall.  She had been pursuing him for the last five years.  Sometimes he thought he should let her catch him.  Sharon was a pleasant enough woman, intelligent and her cooking was almost legendary in town.  Looking at her objectively, the 40 year old divorced math teacher was pretty and had a nice figure, though a little on the busty side for his tastes.  Dennis had actually had a real thing for her.  Then again, Dennis was famous for his roving eye, which undoubtedly played a hand in his divorce.  

David’s brain told him settling down with Sharon made perfect sense.  It would be nice to come home to a hot meal and a loving wife.  He wanted to be attracted to her.  When she was not around, he would try to convince himself he was.  He had actually dated her twice and had spent time with her at social events in town, but when he was close to her he couldn’t deny that she didn’t appeal to him.  He didn’t know why.  

Every encounter with her ended the same way.  She would make it known in no uncertain terms that she was his for the taking, but it would just make him feel uncomfortable and he would give her a peck on the cheek and leave.  Maybe he would feel differently if he went through with it, he thought.  Maybe after a night in her bed he would see her in a whole new light and a passion would be kindled.

David thought he just didn’t understand women, but then he corrected himself.  He understood Sharon just fine.  She was an open book.  It was his own reaction he didn’t understand.

Sharon liked to refer to David as the most eligible bachelor in town.  It surprised him a little that anyone would see him that way, especially with his…history.  He had moved into town 12 years ago in a vain attempt to escape his past.  In retrospect, it was foolish to think he could pick such a small town to escape to and remain unnoticed.  It took Walter’s wife Mildred, the town gossip, all of three weeks to uncover his dark secrets.  He probably could have moved to a larger fishing town like Gloucester and remained anonymous.  Much to his surprise, the town accepted him anyway.  It probably helped that his troubles were so long ago.

If David ever had thoughts of bringing romance, or even just sex, back into his life, it occurred to him he had two choices.  Either shack up with Sharon or look out of town.  There weren’t that many available women in town anyway and none of them would step in on what they considered Sharon’s territory.  It seemed everyone in town had decided it was a done deal except him.

Danni pulled up to Walter’s just after David and Sampson at 7:20.  Sampson stayed in the truck and the other two went in together and sat at the counter.

“Morning Mildred”

“Hello, David.”  She poured him a coffee without asking. “…and who is this pretty young thing hiding in those manly work clothes?”

“This is Danni, my new deckhand”

“Really?” Mildred was clearly taken aback.  She recovered quickly. “Coffee?” she asked Danni.

Danni nodded.  As she poured the coffee, Mildred looked at David with a raised eyebrow.

“Don’t let that pretty face fool you, she’s tough as nails,” David said.

Danni felt an unexpected rush of pleasure from that description.  She wasn’t sure why that pleased her so much and whether it was because he appreciated her toughness or because he called her pretty.

When she looked at the menu, it occurred to Danni that she had been set up.  Given the issues she had with seasickness, the right thing to do was probably to stick to something light and bland.  After the “tough as nails” comment, she felt like she was expected to wolf down a hearty meal.

“Fuck it,” she thought, “I’m starving.  It’s probably coming back up no matter what I eat, so I might as well enjoy it.”  She ordered “The Works” special.

David gave Danni and amused look.

“Fuck you,” she thought silently.

Mildred turned to Danni, “So, honey, did you just move into town?”

“Yeah, I’m staying at the Seagull Motel for now.”

Mildred paused for a few seconds, looking like she was trying to recall something, then said, “You’re the Iowa farm girl, right?”

“Yes, how’d you know?” She looked at David with annoyance, thinking he must have been telling the townspeople about her.  She was surprised because he didn’t seem the type to engage in town gossip.

“Rochelle owns the Seagull, she mentioned a new renter.  Once the tourist season is over, she doesn’t get many customers, so each one is news.”

So it wasn’t David’s fault, it was hers.  Now she remembered making small talk with the chubby Italian lady that was working the motel office.  She made a mental note: she would need to be more careful if she didn’t want everyone knowing her business in this town.

Mildred was still looking at her, “Do I know you from somewhere? You look familiar.”

“I don’t think so.  I had never been to this town before last month, so it seems unlikely.”  Danni tried to reassure herself that it was just mistaken identity.  This pleasant, if nosy, old lady couldn’t really recognize her unless…no, it didn’t seem plausible.

Mildred’s eyes betrayed her.  They opened wide as the recognition hit her.

Danni saw a whole host of emotions cross Mildred’s broad, plain face: shock, titillation, embarrassment, fear.  No question Mildred recognized her and had figured out from where.  That also meant Mildred had her own dark secrets.

Danni wondered what Mildred would do with her newfound information.  Mildred was the town gossip and she now had some of the juiciest dirt about a fellow resident that had come along in a while, but to spread it would be tricky without revealing her own secrets.

Danni shook her head slightly and silently mouthed, “No…please” hoping Mildred would understand.

“You must just look like someone else,” said Mildred.

“Yeah, I get that a lot.”

Before they left Walter’s, Danni went to use the restroom.  Mildred took the opportunity to pull David aside.  “Where’d you find this girl?”

“She just showed up at the boatyard looking for work.”

“…and you hired her just like that?”

 “I’ve been looking for a new deckhand for a month now, she’s the first one that actually wanted the job”

“But what do you know about her?”

“Just what she told me.  She’s a farm girl from Iowa,” David said.  He was used to Mildred being nosy, but this seemed different.  “Do you have some concern about her?”

Mildred hesitated, “No, no, just being a busybody like usual.”

Certainly, it was true that Mildred was a busybody, but David thought there was something more to this conversation.

Danni returned and looked at Mildred and David.  She wondered what they had just been discussing.  There was an awkward silence for a few moments, then David said, “We’d better get going.”

“You two be careful out there…Nice to meet you honey.”

The day went well on the water.  Remarkably, Danni kept her breakfast down all day.  She had a few twinges of queasiness, but they passed quickly.

As they entered the harbor in the late afternoon, Danni asked David, “What were you and Mildred talking about when I came out of the ladies room this morning?”

“She was just pumping me for information, like usual.  I bet she’s gonna try to fix you up with someone.”

“Good luck with that, me and men don’t mix too well.”

“And here I thought we were getting along famously.”

“No, no, I meant…you know, romantically.”

“Well, Mildred would be just as happy to find you a girl, if that’s what you like.  We’re not as old fashioned around here as you think.”

“That’s not what I meant either, I’m not a lesbian.” Danni realized David was pulling her leg a little. “I’m just a train-wreck in the love department.”

“You and me both, young lady…you and me both.”  David looked serious, and kind of sad.  Then he deadpanned, “You know, maybe it’s because we both smell like dead fish.”

For some reason this struck Danni as really funny.  She had been drinking from her water bottle and her unexpected laugh sprayed water everywhere, which made her laugh even harder.

David couldn’t help but laugh too.

It was nice to hear a girl laugh with him.  That hadn’t happened in a long time.

“David?”

He looked at Danni.  She looked serious now.

“Yes?”

“When you hired me, you never asked what I did in the four years since I left the farm.”

“I figured if it would help me catch more lobsters, you would have told me.  Otherwise, it was none of my business.”

Danni wished more people were like David.  She wasn’t sure how much she should tell him, but if Mildred was going to spread any gossip, she felt like David should have some warning.

“It’s just that…well…there’s some things that I’ve done.  Things that I’m not proud of.  Things that other people might not accept.”

David’s heart went out to her.

“Come over here,” he said.  She did.  He put an arm around her.

“Look, I’ve been there.  I have some dark stuff in my past.  In my case, it’s no secret anymore.  Mildred found out three weeks after I moved to town and made it public.  If they didn’t burn me at the stake, I’m sure they’ll get over whatever baggage you’ve got, too.”

Danni felt comforted by this.  She wrapped her arms around David and squeezed briefly. Without thinking, he gave her a kiss on the forehead.  Both of them suddenly felt self-conscious about their impulsive physical contact and separated quickly.

“Just one question: are you hiding from the law?” asked David.

“No.”

After a long pause, Danni asked, “If I was on the lam, would you hide me?”

“Probably…I’d want to know what you did though.”

Danni thought about that answer for a while.  Was he saying he didn’t want to know her dark secrets, so long as she wasn’t wanted by the police?  Was this blind loyalty?...or did he just not care?  

What was that kiss on her forehead about?  It seemed out of character for David.  When it happened, she had felt warmth, safety and comfort.  Now she felt a twinge of disappointment, a reaction she didn’t understand at all.  She tried to sort this out.  She was disappointed because…because what?  Because he was a more caring person than he let on?  Why should that disappoint her?  She realized it reminded her of her dad.  Dad used to kiss her like that.  Come to think of it, David was a lot like her dad.  Gruff, stoic and quiet, but showing occasional glimpses of humor.  OK, that made sense…she missed her dad.  She felt better, having sorted that out.

Meanwhile, David was sorting out his own thoughts.  What the hell did he kiss her on the forehead for?  He hoped he hadn’t made her uncomfortable.  They were turning out to be a good team and he didn’t want to jeopardize that.  She was kind of like a daughter to him.  Yes, that was it…he used to kiss his daughter on the forehead like that.  That made sense…he missed his daughter.

Back at the boatyard, David went to the house to check on Earl.  He brought Danni with him.  “Brought a new girlfriend with you, eh, David?” said Earl, “she’s a pretty one.”

“No, not my girlfriend, she’s my new deckhand,” David said.

“If you say so, you sly dog.”

When they left, David said to Danni, “Sorry about that, old Earl has an active imagination…and an eye for the ladies.”

“I think he’s cute.”

Three weeks passed and Danni became more efficient at her job.  She learned to move with the pitching and rolling of the deck instead of against it.  David was impressed with her seemingly limitless endurance.  They developed an easy familiarity, comfortably working side by side without feeling the need for small talk.  Occasionally they would exchange sarcastic barbs and sometimes when Danni least expected it, David would say something laugh out loud funny.  Invariably he would wait until she was taking a swig from her water bottle, prompting her to snort water through her nose.

One day, David looked at Danni and asked, “Would you like to try your hand at hooking the next one?”  He gestured to the helm.  Danni took the wheel with one hand, gaff in the other.  She attempted to maneuver to the next buoy.

“A little slower…more to starboard…more”

She missed it.  The buoy passed just out of her reach.

“It’s OK, turn and make another pass.  You need to avoid those other buoys, though.”  There were several other buoys in the vicinity, marking the pots of other lobstermen.  Danni made her turn and headed for the orange buoy, picking her way through several others.  As she set her sights on her target, she failed to account for the cross wind.  Too late David realized what was about to happen.

“Danni, turn to port…you’re going to run over that…” thump, thump, “buoy.”

David held his breath as the buoy slid under the hull.

Several larger thumps, a lurching of the hull and a bogging of the engine confirmed David’s fears.  The line was wrapped around the prop shaft.

David took over.  He tried reverse, hoping that would free the line, but it was hopeless.  He shut down the engine and set anchor.

“I’m so sorry,” said Danni.

“It happens.”

“What do we do now?”

“I go overboard and cut the line out.”

“You’re kidding.”  It was 45 degrees.

David kept a wetsuit in the cabin for this purpose.  He stripped down to his boxer/briefs to put on the wetsuit.  Danni couldn’t help but sneak a peek.  She was impressed with David’s powerful physique, honed from physical labor.

David cut the line free.  The green and white buoy had been chopped up by the prop.  He couldn’t leave the line with no buoy or the pot would be lost.  He hauled the pot aboard.  He knew who it belonged to.  He would return it to its owner when they got back into the harbor.

Later that day, they pulled up to the dock of Andrew Perkowski.  David never got along with Andrew.  Just as David set the wayward pot on the dock, Andrew came out from his boat.  “What are you doing with my gear, Cortland?”

“It got hung up in my prop.  Chopped the buoy up.  Thought you’d want it back.”

“You ought to be more careful around…Woah, what have we here?  Who’s this fine young lady?”

“Danni’s my new deckhand.”

“Pleased to meet you, I’m Andrew,” he said with a bow.  “I’m surprised you’re hanging out with an old crook like David.”

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Every year, the town held an autumn dance at the Community Center.  All of the residents generally attended.  Mildred was in her glory in the weeks leading up to the dance, playing matchmaker for the single residents, whether they wanted it or not.

David stopped in to Walter’s one late afternoon about a week before the dance.  He was craving Mildred’s meatloaf.  Mildred looked pleased with herself when she approached David.

“I set up a date for the dance for Danni…Andrew Perkowski is very interested in taking her.”

“Why would you do that?  Did you even ask Danni first?”

“I think they’re a good match.”

“Andrew is trouble and you know it.  Why not your grandson Peter?”  Peter was a pharmacist in town.

“There are things you don’t know about Danni.  She’s not the innocent little girl you think she is.  Peter’s a nice guy, but he’s a wimp.  Danni would chew him up and spit him out.  No, Andrew is a much better match.  He can handle her.”

David narrowed his eyes, “Mildred, what the hell are you talking about?  What do you know about Danni?”

Mildred hesitated, then said, “No, I can’t say…I’ve already said too much.”

David was exasperated, “Mildred, you have never kept a secret in your life.  Why start now?”

“I just can’t tell you.”

“Well, Danni is not going with Andrew.”

“She already said ‘yes’.”

“Dammit, this is a bad idea.”

David confronted Danni the next day, “I hear you agreed to go to the dance with Andrew.”

“Yes.”

“Why?  He’s trouble.  You should stay away from him.”

“David, men aren’t exactly beating a path to my door to date me.  He’s interested and I’m going to give him a chance.  Don’t worry, I can handle myself.”

“Yeah, that’s what Mildred said too.”

Danni looked worried, “What else did Mildred say about me?”

“Nothing, really, but she seems to think you are some kind of a man-eater.  Look, I just worry about you.  I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Danni thought to herself, “Then there’s a shitload of photographs out there you probably wouldn’t want to see.”

What she actually said was, “don’t worry…’Dad’.”

As David pulled his truck into Cecil’s Fish Market, he noticed Sharon’s green Jeep Liberty parked out front.  He knew exactly why it was there.  She was waiting for him to arrive, although she would give some other excuse for being there.

David pulled around to the back entrance and lugged in his catch to be weighed and credited to his account.  When he headed back out to his truck, Sharon had pulled around back and was there to greet him.

“Hey David, what a coincidence, I was just picking up some steamers when I noticed your truck.”

“Yeah, imagine that, running into me here where I go every day,” David said sarcastically.

“So, you have a busy weekend coming up?”

“No more than usual.”

“I hope you won’t be too busy to show up at the dance.”

“You know me, my day starts early and ends early.”

Sharon couldn’t decipher whether he was saying he would be free by the time the dance started, or that he didn’t want to stay out late.  He sure wasn’t making this easy.

“So are you planning to go?”

“Everyone in town is kind of expected to,” David said vaguely.

“Well, I’ll be there even if I have to go solo…it would sure be nice to go with someone though.”

“I suppose.”

“OK, look, David…I’m done dropping hints.  You know what I am getting at and you are just playing dumb.  If you don’t want to officially be my date Saturday, will you at least agree to show up and save a dance or two for me?”

“Ok, I can do that.”

Now that she had pushed aside any pretenses, Sharon decided she might as well keep going.  She wanted David, but she was tired of chasing him.  “David, can we just be honest with each other?  Where do I stand with you?”

David was taken aback, but thankful for the chance to get things in the open.  They probably should have discussed it a long time ago.

“Sharon, the truth is…I really don’t know.  I know that sounds like total BS, like I’m just trying to avoid the question, but it’s true.  You are a wonderful woman.  You’re intelligent, kind and attractive.  You are also the best cook in town.  You’ve made it no secret that you want me.  It’s just that when I’m around you…well, I’m just not feeling it.  I can’t explain why.  I feel really bad about stringing you along, but I feel like it makes perfect sense for us to be together and I keep hoping somehow a spark will be ignited, it just hasn’t happened yet.”

After she paused a moment to contemplate this, Sharon said, “Well, I appreciate your honesty, but you managed to say the one thing that doesn’t resolve the issue.  I guess I can hold out hope a little longer.”  She paused again, and added, “If it helps, I’m willing to let you sample the merchandise.”

“Thanks, I’ll take it under advisement.”

“David, is it possible you are pining for someone else and maybe don’t even know it?  What about your ex?  Could you still be carrying a torch for her?”

“No, definitely not her.”

“Then maybe it’s someone else?”

“Sharon, I lead a very simple life.  I spend most of it on my boat.  About the only other woman I talk to around here besides you is Mildred and I am pretty certain I am not pining for the old lady,” he said with a grin.

“What about your young deck-hand?”

“That’s different.  She’s like a daughter to me.”

“Are you sure?”

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

David arrived at the dance dressed in his best suit, which in truth was his only suit.  He scanned the crowd at the community center, looking for a suitable place to sit down.  He spotted the table in the corner where Mildred, Walter and Sharon were sitting. He took his expected place next to Sharon.  David sat quietly while the other three made small talk.

“Oh my god!” exclaimed Sharon, looking past David toward the front door.  David turned to see what she was looking at.  The sight took his breath away.

“Who knew your little deckhand would clean up so well?” asked Sharon rhetorically.

“Wow,” David blurted out before he could stop himself.

Sharon shot him a look, like “I told you so.”

Danni had arrived with Andrew.  She was wearing a lacy little sleeveless black dress with a high neck and an open back.  Her hair was pulled up off her face.  She looked stunning, sophisticated…sexy.  David realized he had never seen her in anything except her bulky work clothes.  If he hadn’t been subconsciously pining for her before, he was very consciously doing so now.

Andrew looked a little unsteady as he led Danni to a table where a number of his friends were sitting, on the opposite side of the room from David.  David realized that Andrew was drunk.  “That bastard,” David thought.

Danni seemed to be scanning the room, looking for someone.  David realized with a jolt that she was probably looking for him.  He gave a little wave and the motion caught Danni’s eye.  She looked relieved and smiled at him.

After finishing the only drink he planned to have for the night, David steered Sharon out to the dance floor.  He held her loosely as they swayed to the music.  He had to admit, she felt pretty good in his arms.  Still, there was an awkward silence between them.

Andrew and Danni had taken to the floor as well.  David kept stealing glances over at Danni.  The younger couple was pressed together in a seemingly passionate embrace.  David felt a pang of jealousy.  And yet…something seemed off with the way Andrew and Danni were holding each other.  David realized that while Andrew was clutching her to him, Danni was trying to create some space.

“You lied to me, David,” Sharon said.  She didn’t seem angry; she just stated it as a fact.  “Any fool could see that you are smitten by her.  You haven’t taken your eyes off her since she came through the door.”

It seemed pointless to deny it, but David wanted to clarify.  He hadn’t intentionally deceived Sharon. “No, I didn’t lie…I just didn’t understand my feelings until I saw her in a different context.”

“’Different context?’  Interesting choice of words.  I would have just called it a sexy dress.  I don’t know that I blame you though; she looks like a god-damned movie star tonight. You know, she doesn’t look too happy with her dance partner.”

Sharon was right.  Andrew looked like he was trying to kiss Danni’s neck, while one hand was reaching for her ass and the other trying to fondle a breast.  Danni was trying her best to ward off his groping.

“You know you want it,” David heard Andrew say.  David felt a surge of anger and adrenalin.

“Get off me.  You’re drunk.”

Sharon said, “David, she needs help!”

Just as David moved toward the struggling couple, Danni appeared to reach her limit and delivered a swift knee to Andrew’s groin.  Andrew doubled over in pain.  “You fucking bitch!” he screamed.

David stepped between Andrew and Danni.  He was relieved to see two uniformed police officers making their way toward the commotion.  Without warning, Andrew came up swinging.  He was a good 4 inches taller than David and had a long reach.  David barely ducked under the roundhouse and delivered his own uppercut to Andrew’s chin.  He put all of his anger into the swing.  David felt a stab of pain in his hand as Andrew fell to the floor.

The two officers pounced on Andrew on the floor and cuffed him.  They then dragged him off, as he sputtered and shouted expletives.

David turned to Danni.  She dove into his arms and clutched him tightly.  “Thank you so much.  You were right, he was such a jerk.  I don’t know what I would have done if you hadn’t rescued me.”

“You probably would have kneed him in the balls again.  I may have rescued him from further harm,” replied David.

David brought Danni back to his table.  “Would you like a drink?”

“Yeah, maybe a little red wine would calm my nerves.”

David returned shortly with her drink.  Mildred was apologizing to Danni.  “I’m sorry, I knew he could be a little rough around the edges, but I didn’t realize he would treat you like that.”

“Mildred, I told you he was trouble, didn’t I?” said David reproachfully.

“It’s alright, guys.  I’ve dealt with groping drunks before. I’m fine now.  Mildred, I know you were only trying to help,” said Danni.

“Danni, do you want one of us to bring you home now?” asked David.

“No, I’m all dressed up and the night is young.  Let’s try to enjoy ourselves.  C’mon David.  Let’s dance.”

David led Danni out onto the floor.  They turned toward each other, but David held her out at arm’s length for a moment and said, “Danni, you look positively stunning tonight.”

Danni blushed and thanked David.  

He pulled her in to his embrace. His hands found the warm bare skin of her back.  He hesitated.  That seemed too intimate, too soon, yet the open back design of the dress really gave him no choice.  If he wanted to keep his hands off her bare skin they would have to end up cupping her ass, which would be even less appropriate.  He might also end up a soprano if he wasn’t careful.  David settled for lacing his fingers together behind the small of her back.  Still, the bare skin against his forearms and heels of his hands seemed to transmit raw sexual energy.

Danni for her part didn’t seem to have any reservations about the intimacy of their embrace.  She plastered her body against David’s and rested her head on his shoulder.  As they swayed to the music, David could swear he felt an ever so subtle grinding of Danni’s hips.  

It had to be his over-active imagination, David thought.  He felt a stirring in his loins.  He had to get a grip or this could turn embarrassing quickly, or perhaps painfully, considering how effective a weapon she had already shown her knee to be.  The thin fabric of his slacks and that of her dress were not going to keep many secrets between them.  Another thought popped into his head that didn’t help the situation one bit.  He realized that with the design of her dress, there was no possible way Danni was wearing a bra.  It probably didn’t make that much difference physically, but now his mind locked in on the sensation of her firm breasts pressed against him.

They had spent weeks working side by side, completely at ease with each other.  Now, in the space of two hours he had gone from seeing her in a whole new way to drowning in desire for her.  He had to take action.  Perhaps the best approach was a direct one.

He turned his head toward hers.  She picked up her head off his shoulder and tilted her face toward his with a questioning look.  

“Danni?”

“Yes?”

No turning back now, he thought, “Would it be inappropriate if I kissed you?”

“Well that depends.”

What kind of an answer was that?  “Depends on what?”

“Depends on whether you are prepared for the consequences.”

David winced, thinking about her knee.  Still, he had to ask, “And what would those consequences be?”

She smiled, “I’d kiss you back…” She brought her lips to his ear and whispered, “…passionately.”

Their lips met an instant later.  As promised, she met his kiss with passion and urgency.  When they came up for air a minute or so later, David suddenly realized the whole room was watching them.  A smattering of applause broke out.  Someone in the back said, “Get a room!” which was met with laughter.

David and Danni both blushed.  In their newfound passion for each other, they had not accounted for the fact that they were in a small town where everyone knew everyone else’s business.  The formation of a new couple was big news.  A similar public display in the city would have gone completely unnoticed.

As they made their way back to their table, hand in hand, the spell was broken and people went back to their business of drinking and dancing.  Sharon greeted David at the table with a broad smile.

“I knew it.  I knew there was something between you two,” she said.  She did not seem at all upset that she had lost her bid for David’s affections.  Perhaps she was relieved that she could now move on with no regrets, and of course, Mildred would now fix her up with someone else.

Danni looked up at Dave, kissed his neck and said, “Let’s get out of here.”

David unlocked the front door and opened it.  Sampson greeted them, wagging his tail extra hard when he realized Danni was with David.  David thought to himself that maybe Sampson was smarter than him, as the huge dog had been smitten by Danni from day one.  Meanwhile, it had taken him weeks to figure it out.

“I’m sorry, Danni, but I need to take Sampson out.  His bladder isn’t what it used to be.”

“No worries…point me to the bedroom and I’ll be waiting for you.”

David found her in the doorway to the bedroom.  She had let down her dark brown curls and they cascaded over her shoulders.  She slipped into his arms and their lips met again.  This time more softly, the tips of their tongues gently meeting.  Danni nibbled on David’s upper lip and he sucked on her lower.

With their lips still locked, Danni unbuttoned David’s shirt and pulled it open.  She broke from his lips and moved down his neck and onto his chest with little kisses.  She playfully bit his nipples, sending little shock waves through him.

Danni stood up and stepped away from David, turning around.

“Could you unbutton my dress?” she asked, pulling her hair to one side to reveal two buttons at the back of the neck.  David reached out and undid them and the dress fell away down to her waist.  Even from the back, David thought she looked unbelievably sensuous, standing there nude from the waist up.

Danni hooked her thumbs into the dress at her waist, wriggled it over her hips, let it fall to the floor and stepped out of it.  She was left standing with just a black satin thong and shear black stockings that stopped at her upper thighs.  Her ass was firm and rounded, showing faint traces of tan lines, vestiges of many summer hours spent outdoors in a bikini.

David stepped up behind her, kissed her shoulder and slipped his hands around her slim waist.  He ran his hands slowly up her tight stomach, over the ribcage and up the swell of her breasts.  He cupped her small breasts gently as he moved his lips to her neck.  Danni groaned and rubbed her ass into his groin in small circles.  He stuck his tongue in her ear and gently pinched her nipples.  Danni cooed with pleasure.
  
He pinched her nipples harder and she suddenly tensed up.  She stood still and stopped the movement of her hips.  It was like he had hit an “off” button.  Apparently she liked to keep things gentle.  

David’s ex-wife had liked her sex particularly rough, so he was going to need to adjust.  David switched to gently rubbing the areola around Danni’s nipples and she sighed and began gyrating her hips again.

Danni turned in his arms so she was facing him.  She kissed him passionately for a few seconds, then gently pushed him away.  She stepped back and gyrating her hips suggestively for maximum effect, wriggled out of her panties.

David now had the opportunity to take in the heavenly sight of her fully naked body.  She was tiny, just as he liked, yet she had a strong, athletic build, reminding David of a gymnast.  Her breasts were small, somewhere on the border of an A and a B cup.  They were shaped about halfway between spherical and conical with rosy protruding nipples that turned up slightly, making them look extra perky.  She had a cute navel that was slightly “outie” at the top and “innie” at the bottom.  Casting his gaze lower, Danni was clean shaven and he could just see hints of her inner labia beginning to poke out from her pronounced camel toe.

David realized he was holding his breath as he took in this vision.  He let it out slowly and breathed, “Wow.”

“Are you planning to just stand and stare?” Danni teased.

David grabbed her by the waist and effortlessly lifted her and tossed her onto the bed.

He unbuckled his belt and let his pants drop to the floor.  His underwear soon followed.  He heard a little intake of breath from Danni when his penis was freed.  He was not overly endowed, but it was certainly more than adequate, and Danni was so small.

David picked up one of Danni’s feet and began sucking on her toes, which evoked giggles from her.  After working on all five toes, he switched to the other foot.  From there he lifted her leg and worked his way down the underside, licking and kissing.  He paid special attention to the sensitive skin at the back of the knee.  He continued working downward until he reached the base of her buttock.  Danni was breathing heavy now.  He moved up and in, running his tongue up the seam between her thigh and her outer labia.  Danni moaned.

David repeated the process on the other leg, again finishing by licking along the crease of her inner thigh.  He stopped to admire her waiting pussy, before he went to work on it.  He started at its base, just above her anus and worked slowly upward, alternately licking and sucking, moving ever closer to her clit.  Danni was whimpering and her breathing was coming fast.

Danni shifted her hips to bring her clit to David’s tongue, but he moved just out of her reach.  He amused himself by playing an erotic game of tag with her clit.  Danni kept chasing and he kept just out of reach of the little button with his tongue, licking on one side or the other, or above or below.  She was panting heavily, punctuated by load moans.

Danni went for a sneak attack.  Without warning, she grabbed David’s head with both hands and forced it into her.  When David’s tongue came in full contact with her clitoris, she came almost instantly, crying out David’s name over and over while her whole body shuddered.

After her orgasm subsided, David worked his way up to Danni, pausing for detours at her navel and each nipple.  Eventually, he reached her mouth and they entwined tongues.  Danni broke away from his kiss and said, “You’re a scoundrel.  You really made me work for that orgasm.”

“Yeah, I might have tortured you a bit.”

At the word, “tortured,” Danni froze again.  David had found another “off” button.  This time she thawed after just a second or two as if nothing had happened.

Danni maneuvered herself from under David and climbed on top.  His cock was pinned between her and his stomach.  She sat up and slid back and forth so the opening of her wet pussy rubbed the length of his cock.

David moaned slightly at this warm, wet contact to the underside of his cock.  Danni slid back and grasped David’s rod firmly, pointing it straight up.  She raised herself up and placed the tip into her, then dropped down, impaling herself completely on his cock.

Ooooh! Ohmygod!  She exclaimed.  She sat motionless for a moment, adjusting to the fullness.

“Holy shit you are so hot and tight,” said David.

Danni rocked back and forth, fully impaled.  This position put direct stimulation on her clit as she ground against David.  He reached up and played with her nipples as she threw her head back in ecstasy.  It took little time for her to return to the brink in this position.

“Oh David, I’m going to cum again.  Oh god, David, I love your hard cock inside me.  Oh, oh, oh, oh, fuck me, fuck me hard, OH FUCK YES! I’m cumming!”  Danni rocked back and forth furiously as she came.  

She rested for a few moments as she came down from her high, then repositioned into a squat.  David slid his hands under her ass and she began riding up and down his cock.  David thrust up every time Danni reached the bottom.  They moved faster and faster in unison.  David could feel the pressure build as he spiraled closer and closer to the point of no return.  

“Oh my god Danni, you’re so fucking hot.”  He groaned as he came deep inside her.  Danni felt David’s cock spasm within her.  She lowered her chest onto his and met his lips.

They rested a while, then David went and found a bottle of wine.  They sat naked on the living room sofa, drinking the wine.  David looked at her.  He could scarcely believe that this gorgeous creature was sitting naked beside him in the afterglow of sex.  For that matter, he could scarcely believe the deckhand he had worked beside for the last month was this same gorgeous creature.  He marveled at how oblivious he had been.

David became aware of a sensation he had been ignoring in their passion.  His hand was throbbing in dull pain.  He looked down at it and saw that it was swollen.  Danni followed his eyes and noticed his hand as well.  “David, you should get some ice on that.”  He went to the freezer and got an ice pack.  He sat back on the couch with his right arm on the arm-rest and placed the ice pack on his hand.  Danni snuggled up against his left side.

David looked down at Danni.  In the brighter light of the living room, he noticed something he hadn’t before.  There were faint scars running down Danni’s back.  He traced one with his finger.  She stiffened, then turned to him, memories of fear and pain evident on her face.  

“Don’t ask,” was all she said.

“Ok, but if you ever want to talk about it, I’m here.”

“Thank you…maybe someday.”

It was getting late.  They went back to the bedroom and got into bed.  Spooning against Danni’s warm naked body, idly fondling her breasts, David thought, “I could get used to this.”

His alarm went off at 4 am.  Danni turned and looked at David pleadingly.  David laughed, “Oh, hell no!”  He shut off the alarm.  The lobsters could wait another day.  David’s rock hard erection pressed against Danni’s ass.  She reached back and steered the tip to her vagina.  David fucked her from behind.  After they both orgasmed, they fell asleep again with David still inside her.

The sun was streaming in when David awoke again.  His hand was throbbing.  He looked over at Danni.  She was still asleep.  She was lying on her back, uncovered down to her stomach, her tousled curly hair spread out like a halo around her head.  God, she is beautiful, David thought.  A patch of bright sunlight was working its way up her abdomen.  Her skin practically glowed under it.  He noticed faint scars here, too.  Smaller and even fainter than the ones on her back, but if he looked hard for them, they were there.  There were even some on her breasts, near the nipples.  What the hell had this poor girl been through?

“They’re called breasts…you’ve never seen any before?” a newly awakened Danni teased him.

“Never any quite so beautiful,” David said.  He truly meant it, despite the fact that he had actually been looking for more telltale scars.

He leaned in and kissed her.  He heard a whine from behind him and turned to see Sampson by the side of the bed, pleading to go out.

“Mood killer…c’mon old man, let’s go out before you pee on the floor.”

David threw on some clothes and took Sampson out.  When David returned, Danni had pulled back the curtains and was stretching lazily in front of the bedroom window, the bright sunlight outlining her entire naked body.

“Wow!”

Danni turned to David, “I’m starving.”

“Well, I’ve got bagels or…well, that’s just about it, actually.  Or we could go to Walter’s and see what Mildred is cooking.”

“I vote we go see the old gossip.  ‘The Works’ breakfast is sounding pretty good right now.”

“You want a shower first?”

“No, I am way too hungry to wait.”

David thought about it and realized that was probably the best choice if she was that hungry.  He doubted they would make it through a shower without having sex again.  Just thinking about wet soapy hands wandering over bare skin…”stop, stop it, David”, the thought to himself, “think about bacon and eggs.”

“Ummm…David?  I just realized I don’t have any clothes, except my dress from last night.”

David rummaged in the back of his spare bedroom closet and found an old box with some clothes that had been his daughter’s.  Danni found a flannel shirt and an old pair of sweatpants.  They were big on her, but it would have to do.  Danni needed several pairs of socks to keep Renee’s old pair of sneakers from falling off when she walked.

“Ah, new love,” Mildred said with a nostalgic sigh when she saw them.  “Look at you,” she said to Danni, “all tousled hair and borrowed clothes…every man’s dream.  Probably a few women’s, too.”

After breakfast, David dropped off Danni at the motel and went to the walk-in medical center to get his hand checked out.  The pain was increasing and it was turning ugly colors.  It turned out he had broken a bone.  They put a waterproof cast on.

The next few days, David and Danni got back into a routine.  On the boat, they needed to make a few adjustments, as the bad hand limited what David could do.  Their relationship when they were working was for the most part they way it was before they became a couple.  Occasionally they would steal a kiss and sometimes Danni would need to remind David of the task at hand, because she would find him simply staring longingly at her.

When they were done for the day, they would go to David’s place and shower.  As David had anticipated, they found it impossible to make it out of the shower without having sex.  Danni slept over David’s place for the first few nights, but it was too hard to keep their passions in check to allow them enough sleep.  They both agreed that it would be best for their health and safety if she slept at the motel most nights.

David couldn’t believe how good his life had become.  He had found a beautiful, sexy girl who actually liked his simple, hard-working life and wanted to share it with him.  He worried that he didn’t deserve her.

David knew he needed to come clean with Danni about his history.  He hadn’t hid from her that he had a dark past, but he also had yet to share the details with her.  He needed her to know.  He needed her to accept everything about him.

Danni contemplated her new life.  She loved the simple, hard-working lifestyle and more importantly, she loved David.  He was honest, strong and dependable, but he could also be playful and witty.  He had a secret sensitive side that was endearing.  Danni worried that she didn’t deserve him.  

There was something more that took Danni a while to put her finger on.  She realized that, for the first time in many years, she felt safe.  That feeling would be shattered a few days later.

One afternoon as the Alice Marie rounded the point to head home, David turned to Danni.  “Danni, I need to tell you something.  It’s time you understood my past.  I’m an ex-con.  I did five years in the pen for assault and robbery.”

David proceeded to tell his story.  He had gotten into drugs in high school.  He started college, but dropped out after he progressed from pot, to cocaine to heroin.  His life had spiraled downward until one day, desperate for his next fix, David had held up a convenience store.  The owner had lunged for his gun, and in the ensuing struggle, David had shot him.

“To this day, I thank the lord that he didn’t die.  He was a good, hard-working family man and I nearly killed him.  When I sobered up in prison, I came to grips with the magnitude of what I had done.  I realized I could never forgive myself, but I could change my life.  That was almost 20 years ago.”

David held his breath, waiting for Danni’s reaction.  With tears in her eyes, she came to him and embraced him.

“I don’t recognize that man you are describing from so many years ago, but I know who you are now, and that’s all that matters to me.  You are a good man…and I love you.”

“I love you too, Danni.  More than you know.”

Danni and David stopped into Walter’s for a snack late that afternoon.  Mildred came to them immediately, looking shaken.  “Danni, a man named Rocco came in this morning asking where to find you.  I didn’t like the looks of him, so I told him I didn’t know.  He said if I saw you, to tell you that you couldn’t hide from him.”

The color drained from Danni’s face.  David could see that this was bad news.

“Danni, who is he?  Are you in some kind of trouble?” asked David with concern.

“No, it’s fine.  He’s just an ex-boyfriend who can’t take a hint.  If I run across him, I can take care of it.”

That evening, David convinced Danni to stay at his place, for safety sake.  

They were on a late tide, so they did not need to be at the boatyard early.  They stopped at Walter’s for breakfast, then Danni went back to the motel to get clean clothes while David headed for the boatyard.  When it was time to catch the tide, Danni still had not arrived.  When another 15 minutes went by, David knew something was wrong.  In a panic, he headed for the motel.

The door to her motel room was ajar.  Danni’s clothes were strewn about and there was a kitchen knife on the floor, but Danni was not there and her car was gone.

David went to the motel office and found Rochelle.  She told him two men had come asking for Danni and she had directed them to Danni’s room.

David didn’t know what to do.  He called 911.  The dispatcher seemed unimpressed with David’s story, but said they would send someone.

Officer Mitchell arrived 10 minutes later.  “What’s this about David?”

“Hello, Arthur.  It’s Danni, she’s missing.”  He told Arthur the story.  Arthur didn’t seem overly concerned.

“Usually these things have a simple explanation.  I wouldn’t be too worried yet.”

But David was worried…very much so.  He knew something was very wrong.  He felt like he needed to take action, but what could he do?  Mildred…yes, Mildred knew something about Danni’s past that she had been unwilling to divulge.  Maybe it was related to her disappearance.

David headed back to Walter’s.  He burst in the front door.  “Mildred, Danni’s missing…I think someone has taken her.  I need to know what you know about Danni’s past.  No more secrets.”

Mildred just stood looking at him in shock.

Suddenly there was a commotion and armed men burst out from the kitchen.

“FBI!  Put your hands up!”

David was thrown to the ground and cuffed.

“What’s this about?  Where’s Danni?” David asked, bewildered.

“David Cortland, you are under arrest for the torture and murder of Jennifer Griffin.”

“Who?  What are you talking about?”

The FBI read him his Miranda rights, but didn’t seem interested in enlightening him any further.

When they arrived at their destination, David was brought to an interrogation room and was placed at a metal desk.  An agent in a suit came into the room with a folder.  A uniformed officer came in with him and stood by the door.

“I’m Special Agent Wilkins.  Mr. Cortland, do you know why you are here?”

“No clue.  They said something about torture and murder of a Jennifer something…”

“Griffin.”

“I don’t understand, I’m a lobsterman, a simple fisherman, ask anyone in town.”

“You have a criminal record…”

“Yes, I do.  That was a long time ago.  I have turned my life around.  What does that have to do with this? …and where’s Danni?”

“By Danni, you mean Danielle Rogers, AKA Lacey?”

“Yes!  She’s gone missing this morning.  I’m worried she’s in danger.”

“What is your relationship with Miss Rogers?”

“She works for me.  She’s my deckhand.  She’s also the love of my life.”

“How touching,” said Wilkins sarcastically.

Wilkins tossed three photos on the table.  They showed a naked woman; bound, gagged and bloody.  Her face had a bluish tint and she was obviously dead.  David turned away.  It was awful to look at.

“Tell me about her.”

David forced himself to look at the photos again and studied the woman’s face.  “I don’t recognize her.”

“What happened?  She got too old?  The market dried up for her so you killed her?  Maybe it was an accident.  The torture scene got too extreme and you accidentally killed her.”

“I have no idea what you are talking about.”  David was baffled, but whatever this was about was very disturbing.

“If you don’t know her, care to explain why your fingerprints were in her car?”  

Wilkins dropped two more photos on the table.  The dented blue Taurus with the “This car climbed Mt. Washington” bumper sticker looked familiar.  It took a few moments for David to recall.

“I broke down on I95 a couple of months ago.  It was a nasty night, pouring rain and windy.  Stupid me, I had left my cell phone at home, so I was walking in the breakdown lane to get to the next exit.  That car stopped for me.  The woman who was driving gave me a lift to the truck stop at the next exit.  I never got a good look at her.  It was dark and she didn’t seem to want to make eye contact.  I was just grateful for the ride.”

Special Agent Wilkins threw another dozen or so photos on the table.  “How about these, tell me about these.”

David looked.  The women in these photos all appeared to be alive.  All of them were nude and in various forms of bondage.  Some of the more mild ones, David would probably consider erotic in better circumstances, others looked like pure torture.  One showed a girl bound to a post with her back facing the camera.  In the foreground stood a leather clad woman with a whip.  Bloody welts covered the girl’s back.  He recognized that pattern…Danni!  The bloody welts matched the scars on Danni’s back.  

In shock, he realized a number of other photos also featured Danni.  In some of them, Danni looked to be in excruciating pain.  “Oh my god!  It’s Danni…where is she?  Tell me she’s safe…please!”  Tears sprang to David’s eyes.  He started to stand up, but the agent pushed him back down.  “Take it easy, buddy.  You don’t want to do that.”

David realized the photos had to be old.  Those scars on Danni’s back had healed a while ago.  He felt desperation rising.  He no longer cared what trouble he was in, all his concern was for Danni. The longer the FBI wasted their time with him, the more danger Danni was in, he was sure of it.

Wilkins dropped one more photo on the table, “Do you recognize this man?”

Indeed, David did.  “Yes, that’s Rocco Angelini.  He was my cell mate for the last month that I was in the State Pen.  I haven’t seen him since.”  David shuddered at the thought of Rocco.  He was a sadistic bastard.  He finally made the connection to the “Rocco” that had come looking for Danni.  This was bad.

“So let’s recap,” said Wilkins, his voice dripping with sarcasm, “Your prints are in the dead girl’s car, you’re shacking up with this other bondage slut, who is now also missing, and you were cell mates with the kingpin of this bondage/torture empire, but it’s all just coincidental, ‘cuz you’re just a simple fisherman.”

David cringed at the crude reference to his beloved Danni.

“Mr. Cortland, where were you on the night of November 21st?”

David thought for a second.  That date sounded familiar, like it was important.  Then he remembered, it was the night of the dance.  The night his whole world changed.

Wilkins and Special Agent Bennet met with their superior officer.

“He’s got to be our guy, everything points to him," said Wilkins

“I hate to burst your bubble, but his alibi is rock solid,” replied Bennet.

“You’ve got to be joking.”

“I’m afraid not.  The entire fucking town places him at this community dance, a six hour drive from where the body was found.  We couldn’t find anyone who didn’t see him there.  Apparently he had a memorable night.  Punched a guy’s lights out and got the girl.  Even the town cops confirmed it.”

“Damn”

The Senior Agent spoke up, “Alright…cut him loose, but tell him not to leave town.  Put a tail on him just in case.”

The FBI dropped him back off at Walter’s where they had picked them up.  David begged them to find Danni.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Danni opened her eyes.  She was groggy and her vision was blurry.  She was confused.  Where was she?  She couldn’t make sense of her thoughts.  She was bound by ropes to a chair and her hands were cuffed behind her.  A gag was in her mouth.  All this seemed normal…

David!...the memory of the last few blissful weeks surged back.  Had that been a dream?  She realized she was back at Rocco’s studio.  Had she never left?

As the fog cleared in her brain, she remembered the struggle at the motel.  Rocco’s thugs had taken her by surprise.  She had grabbed a kitchen knife in a desperate attempt to ward them off, but it was in vain.  One of them had injected her with something…and now she was here.

Rocco walked in.  “Ah, you’re awake.  Your little disappearing act cost me a lot.  The clients have been clamoring for you.  I told you if you ran I would find you.”

Rocco pulled out a knife and pressed it to Danni’s throat.

“I should gut you right here.  Gut you like a pig at the slaughterhouse.  You are lucky that you are worth more to me alive than dead.”

Despair swallowed up Danni.  She couldn’t go back to this hell.  It occurred to her that her head was not restrained.   A quick thrust forward with her head and the knife would plunge into her throat.  With any luck she would bleed out and it would be over.  But she couldn’t.  Not with David out there.  He was worth fighting for.

Rocco left the room.

Danni flashed back to the last four years.

She had become restless living a farm girl’s life.  She headed to New York, excited to make her own way in the world.  She took a menial job as a waitress.  

A customer had offered her a chance as a model.  She was not completely naïve, she knew that these offers were usually about selling overpriced portfolios to gullible girls who hadn’t the slightest chance of actually modelling.  She researched the studio and it appeared to check out.

They had not made any ridiculous promises about making her a supermodel.  She knew at barely 5’ 2”, that wasn’t happening.  They did, however, get her some paying shoots for local business catalogs and weekly flyers.

One day, the studio owner came to her.

“I have an opportunity that you would be perfect for, if you are adventurous enough for it.” Mr. Ferrara said.  “I have a friend who shoots more…extreme material.”

“By extreme, you mean nudity?” asked Danni.

“Among other things, yes.  Also some bondage.  Feel free to refuse if you are uncomfortable with this, but the pay is many times what you are getting from me.  You have just the youthful, innocent look they like.”

“I don’t necessarily have an issue with nudity or mild bondage, but I wouldn’t ever do anything my family could end up seeing.”

“I don’t think that would be a problem here.  Look, why don’t you just meet Rocco and see what you think.  No obligation.”

Danni agreed.

Rocco explained his business model.  “I have a website on the “dark web”.  People need to really know how to look for this kind of stuff to get there.  Trust me, your folks ain’t getting there from Google. The front page of the website has some fairly tame bondage photos of a few of my models.”  

Rocco tapped the keys on his laptop and turned the screen around for Danni to see.  These pictures were no big deal and some of the models weren’t even showing their faces.

“The front page is free, and its only purpose is to attract members.  On the member’s page I have photo sets and videos of each model.  For a small fee, members get access to this material.  We have measures in place to ensure that members do not try to copy any of our material and post it on the web.  A couple of members tried it early on and we made sure they regretted it.”

Rocco brought up the member’s page and let Danni explore it a bit.  She thought she would be comfortable posing for the model sets she saw, as long as she knew her parents would never see them.  To be honest, she was getting a little excited looking at these photos.

Then Rocco explained the final part of the business.

“This is where the real money is made.  Carefully screened clients are offered custom photo shoots and videos of their favorite models to order.  They come up with the scenario and the props.  I bring their proposal to you.  If you are comfortable doing the shoot, I negotiate a price with the client based on how extreme their wishes are.  You get 50%.  You are free to turn down any shoot that is too extreme for you.”

Danni agreed to give it a try.  Rocco gave her the name “Lacey” for the website.

She had thoroughly enjoyed making her member’s page model sets.  The bondage was mild.  They mostly just tied her hands and feet and posed her in various settings.  She hadn’t anticipated how exciting being nude in front of the camera would be.  She had masturbated in the changing room after the first shoot.

Likewise, her first custom shoot went smoothly.  Rocco came to her with the proposal and she quickly accepted.  The client had a thing for tickling, so the shoot consisted of tying Danni up and tickling her with feathers.  The rope tied tight around her neck was a little frightening, but she got through it.  Again she was incredibly aroused when the shoot was over.

Most of the custom requests weren’t bad.  The clients mostly got off on her being tied up naked, looking helpless and vulnerable.  

There were a few more sadistic clients, and she found herself being pushed closer to her boundaries on occasion.  She soon found out there were all sorts of tools in the business, some more painful than others.  Sometimes the client would send their own “hardware” to Rocco.  

The first shoot she flat out refused was due to some client provided nipple clamps that looked too nasty.  She worried about suffering permanent damage more than actual pain.  Rocco had let her get away with her refusal, negotiating down to a pair of clamps Danni could tolerate.

The next time she refused, Rocco was not so agreeable.  “Lacey, what the fuck’s the problem with this video shoot.  Ropes, nipple clamps, ball gag…there’s nothing here you haven’t done tons of times.”

“They want me to masturbate on camera, that’s just too personal.”

Rocco flew into a rage.  “All the fucking painful shit you do and you won’t do the one thing that actually feels good?  No fucking way are you refusing this paycheck for that!”

“You said I could refuse anything I didn’t feel comfortable with.”

“You refuse this shoot and I’m sending an anonymous box with your last shoot to your parents in Iowa.”

Danni was shocked.  She didn’t recall ever telling him where her parents lived.  She did the shoot.  She felt ashamed afterwards.

Things got progressively worse.  It seems she had accumulated a following of more sadistic clients, and with each request, they wanted to push the limits further.

One client had a thing for whipping.  The first shoot he requested was mild.  She was cuffed to a bed and lashed with a whip that had multiple soft fabric tips that really didn’t hurt.  The second time he upped the ante.  He sent a leather whip with a single braided tip.  He wanted Danni bound to a post and he wanted her to be whipped “hard enough to raise welts”.  Unfortunately for Danni, the other model that Rocco chose to have inflict the whipping had her own sadistic streak and she got carried away in playing her role.  Danni’s back was a bloody mess before someone stepped in.  Rocco had actually screamed at the other girl for what she had done.  For a moment, Danni actually thought Rocco was concerned for her well-being, but then she realized his concern was that she would lose market value if she sustained visible scars.  The client loved the video.

Another client liked seeing her choked, while a third was fond of electric shock.  These two also requested an escalating series of videos, each one raising the level of pain and danger over the previous one.

Danni reached a point where the requests became too brutal and even the threat of telling her parents wasn’t enough.  She knew she had to get out at all costs.  Rocco simply switched to threatening bodily harm, hinting that even killing her was not out of the question if she didn’t cooperate.  He also told her if she left, he would track her down, no matter where she fled to.

Danni vividly remembered the shoot that pushed her over the edge and prompted her to flee.

“The client wants what?!” Danni asked, incredulous.  She looked apprehensively at the 7 inch knife in Rocco’s hand.

“He wants video of you inserting this”

“Fuck, no!...No way!”  Who the fuck was this sadistic bastard of a client?

“Lacey…Danni, this is a huge payday.  You need to do this.”  Rocco mentioned her share.  It was triple what he had paid her for any previous job.  Danni knew there was a veiled threat in his shifting to her real name.  She didn’t know why he bothered, she knew it was an empty threat.  Once they had reached the point where she no longer cared whether he showed her parents her “work” it became useless as a threat.  Besides, he had already threatened her with much worse.

Danni knew she didn’t have a choice.  She was at his mercy, except the word had no meaning to him.  No, her only hope was based on her market value.  She was now in huge demand with Rocco’s sick clients, so he had a vested interest in keeping her alive and looking young and innocent.  Anything that didn’t compromise those things was fair game, no matter how painful.  

She made one last attempt, “I can’t do it...are you trying to kill me?”

“Don’t be so fucking melodramatic.  It’s not going to fucking kill you.  I’m sure you’ve taken bigger cocks than that.  You might get a few cuts, but they’ll heal.  I’ll give you two weeks off…and if you don’t do it, yes, I might just fucking kill you.”  So much for veiled threats.

In the end, of course, she did it.  Rocco’s last instruction before the cameras rolled was, “Give me some tears, too.  The client loves that.”  That would be the easy part, thought Danni.  The hard part would be making them stop.

Danni stripped and laid down on the wooden bench.  She was tied to the bench at her waist, neck and ankles.  They left her hands free.  She masturbated first.  She needed to be as lubed up and relaxed as possible.  Rocco gave her a “what the fuck!” look, because the client hadn’t asked for that, but then he decided to roll with it.  She slowly and carefully slid the blade in.  As she did, she let her mind wander to the farm and her family.  Real tears flowed freely.  She got the blade about three quarters of the way in when the point cut her somewhere deep inside and she felt searing pain.  

“Ow, FUCK, SHIT!”  

Rocco nodded in approval.  Droplets of blood ran down the blade and onto the handle.  He motioned furiously to his still camera guy.  This was gold.  He needed to get some stills of this.

Danni had taken the money from this shoot and ran.  She simply got in her car, picked a direction and drove.  She figured the most likely place Rocco would look for her was back in Iowa, so she headed in the opposite direction.  She stopped when she ran out of land.  She had pulled over and stared out at the Atlantic Ocean, not sure what to do next.  After a few minutes she turned around to see a motel.  It seemed like as good a place as any.  She barely left the room for the first two weeks as she healed internally.

“Lacey?”

A voice barely above a whisper from behind her snapped Danni out of her recollection.  The girl stepped in front of her.  Danni recognized her as “Lexi”, one of the other models.  Danni tried to say something to her but the gag in her mouth prevented it.

Lexi put a finger to her lips to indicate silence.  She unlocked the cuffs and removed them, then untied the ropes.  Danni removed the gag.

Then Lexi said, “Your car is by the back entrance, the keys are in it.  Get the fuck out while you can.”

Danni asked, “What about you?”

Lexi answered, “He doesn’t know I’m here.”

When Danni got to her car, she found that it was 1 am.  

Danni went to the nearest police station.  She waited for an hour before someone would finally listen to her.  As her cell phone was back at the motel, she asked to use a phone in the station while she waited.  She tried to call David but got no answer.  She knew he had no voice mail set up for his cell.  She had teased him about it just last week, laughing at how behind the times he was.    

A police officer finally summoned her.  As she told her story, she could see the officer was not taking her seriously.  She had no proof of the abduction and had arrived at the station in her own car.  She had to admit she had signed a written contract to do bondage photos and videos with Rocco.  She had no proof that he had ever threatened her or that any of the photos or videos were anything but voluntary.  The officer said they would “look into” her allegations.

Frustrated, Danni left the police station and headed for the only place left in the world she felt safe…in David’s arms.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

When he got back to Walter’s, David immediately went to find Mildred.

“Mildred, you have to tell me what you know.  Danni is in danger, I’m sure of it.”

Mildred broke down and cried.  She confessed to David that she had a fetish for bondage.  She belonged to a website that catered to all types of BDSM fetishes.  Her favorite model was a girl named “Lacey” and she had ordered several custom photo sets of her.  “David, I never asked for anything that would actually hurt her.”

When David had brought Danni to breakfast that first time, Mildred had recognized that Danni was “Lacey.”

David pulled out the business card that Special Agent Wilkins had given him.  He convinced Mildred she needed to tell the FBI what she knew.

David went home and paced the floor.  He was terrified and frustrated.  He knew Danni was in trouble but didn’t have any information to go on to look for her.  He could do nothing but wait.

Day turned to night.  He finally dozed off at about 1:00 am.  He awoke to the sound of his cell going off about an hour later.  He picked it up but he was too late.  He didn’t recognize the number.  He called it and got a recording that indicated he had reached a police precinct in New York and asked him to key in the extension he wanted.  He decided it must have been a wrong number.  

He woke up again at 5.  He made some coffee and began pacing the floor again.  His cell phone rang again at 7.  It was Earl.  “Someone is snooping around the Alice Marie,” he said.

David wondered if it could be related to Danni’s disappearance.  He figured he should check it out.  He and Sampson got in his truck and headed for the boatyard.

Nothing seemed amiss when they got there.  He didn’t see any cars in the yard.  He walked down the dock and climbed aboard the Alice Marie.  Sampson clambered over the gunwale after him.  Sampson stopped and stared at the cabin door, growling.

The door swung open and a stocky Italian man emerged, pointing a handgun at David.  “Tell your dog to back off, or he gets a bullet in the brain.”

“Sampson, go lay down,” David commanded, and pointed to the stern.  Sampson did as he was told.

“What do you want, Rocco?” David asked.

Rocco looked disconcerted for a moment, then said, “David?  What the fuck are you doing here?”

“This is my boat.”

“Small world.  Where is she?” asked the Rocco.

“Who?”

“Don’t play dumb with me.  I’m talking about Danni, where is she?”

“I wish I knew.  She was abducted yesterday, but I’m thinking you know that.”

Just then David heard tires on the driveway.  He turned to see Danni’s car pulling in.

The Rocco ducked back into the cabin doorway.  “Let her come down to the boat.  If you warn her I’m here, I’ll blow your brains out.”

Danni got out of her car and headed down to the dock.  David didn’t know what to do.  He hesitated for a moment, then made a decision.  He had to warn her before it was too late.

“Run Danni! Run away!”

A fraction of a second later, a shot rang out and David fell to the deck in pain.  Danni screamed.  Rocco came charging out of the cabin and leapt onto the dock.  Danni knew it was too late to run away.  She turned to face Rocco and saw a huge tan blur bearing down on him from behind.

As angry as he was, Rocco still savored the look of fear on Danni’s face.  God, he loved that look.  Too late, he heard a scrambling noise behind him.  He turned to look just as 200 lb. of angry canine hit him at full speed, and massive jaws closed on his throat.  Rocco was already bleeding out when Danni reached the gun that had clattered onto the dock.  She didn’t care.  She was blinded by raw fury.  She ordered Sampson aside and pulled the trigger again and again.  She pumped the entire clip into Rocco’s chest.  She kept pulling the trigger after all the bullets were gone and the gun just went “click, click, click.”

David! She thought in horror as her fury subsided.  She dropped the gun and ran to him.  He had regained his feet and climbed onto the dock, holding his hand against a spreading stain of blood on his shirt.  They heard sirens in the distance, heading in their direction.

David’s wound was not serious.  The bullet had passed all the way through him but missed his vital organs.  The hospital bandaged him up and discharged him that afternoon.

When they arrived back at David’s house, there was a cooler on the step.  A note on it wished David a speedy recovery and was signed ‘Mildred’.  The cooler contained food and supplies from Walter’s, including a tray of Mildred’s famous meatloaf.  Sharon showed up later with lasagna.  Likewise, other neighbors showed up throughout the day with food, as the news of their ordeal spread.  Danni’s dark past was now public knowledge, and everyone accepted her without reservation.  Danni realized she was among good people.

A group of fellow lobstermen got together and agreed to pull David’s pots for him and put the catch on his tab at the market while he was recuperating.

The FBI raided Rocco’s studio and found ample evidence that he had killed Jennifer Griffin, as well as two other models over the past 10 years.

The hospital had told David to move as little as possible during the first couple of days, to ensure that the bullet wound would heal quickly.  Danni took this advice to heart and waited on David.  He reflected on what a precious gift she was, especially after having lost her, if only for a day.  He was frustrated, however, that she said sex was off limits, in the interest of his recovery.  By the third day, he realized she was having a little too much fun with the “sexy nurse” role.  She was teasing him on purpose, wearing sexy outfits and making double entendre comments.  The last straw came on day 4 when David was eating breakfast in the kitchen and Danni decided to wash the dishes naked.

David scooped her up and placed her on the kitchen table.  “I can’t take it anymore, you little tease.”

“Oh god, David, I want you so bad,” whispered Danni.  David stripped down and rammed his hard rod to the hilt with one stroke.  Danni’s pussy was already dripping with desire.  She arched her back and cried out in pleasure.

“Fuck me, David, fuck me hard.”  David complied.  Danni rubbed her own breasts and bit her lower lip.  It didn’t take either one of them very long to reach orgasm.

David went to take a shower.  A few minutes later, Danni slipped in behind him.  They explored each other’s bodies with wet soapy hands.  David knelt down and his tongue drove her to spiraling sexual heights.  Then Danni returned the favor.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

One September day, when they were about 10 pots into their day, David looked over at his new deckhand.  He wasn’t sure if this new guy was going to work out.  He was looking pretty green.  He remembered almost two years ago when a much prettier deckhand had been in a similar predicament.

“I won’t think any less of you if you puke.  You will find that you feel much better if you do.  Just as long as you get it all overboard and go back to work, you get no demerits from me,” said David.  The new deckhand rushed to the rail.

David missed having Danni on the boat.  It had been nearly 3 months since Danni had told him she was through, that she couldn’t go on.  They both knew the time had come.

David had struggled on his own for a while, but he knew he needed help.

Some eight hours later, they returned to the boatyard…the boatyard he now owned.  Earl had passed away about a year prior at 96.  He had willed the boatyard and the house to David, much to his surprise.  David had moved in about four months ago after completing some renovations.

As they pulled in to the dock, a lone figure stood waiting.  It was Danni.  David tied off the Alice Marie, then swept his very pregnant wife into his arms.

“Hello, my love.”

“David, it’s time…”

“Time?”  David looked puzzled.

“Yes, darling, time…my water just broke.  David Jr. is on the way.”

[Meatbot]

Beautiful! Great characters and an interesting story. And sexy.

This was great and I learned more about the lobster industry than I ever wanted to. The characters are engaging and it's a great story.

'bot

[coldwater]

Original post got cut off, sorry about that.  It looks to be fixed now.

[herschel]

Great story! A cut or two above what we normally find on amateur boards. You have the gift. I say all this, and the main theme is not even in my usual ballpark. I see commercial potential here, if you care to take on that kind of drudgery.

[coldwater]

Thank you so much for the kind words, Herschel.

I got to tell you, though, when I read "commercial potential" I had a laugh out loud moment as I imagined what the typical romance novel cover artist would put on the front.  Can you just see David portrayed as this bare chested beefcake guy with long flowing hair and Danni swooning in his arms in a ripped bodice...on the deck of a dirty, smelly lobster boat?  Hilarious.

I don't think I want to put in the work it takes to make money at writing.  I think it would take the fun out of it.

-cw

[IdleBoast]

I like how his stories have, well, stories in them.

Pure porn writing is enjoyable, but sometimes it's nice to have some context to make the sex scenes mean more.