Hutch

Blu took a shower and came out in a thick ship’s robe, her hair wrapped in a towel just like a miniature adult.  She sat down with a slump and looked up at me from her bed, pulling the plush robe up to her little chin, eyes big and wide and worried.  “What’s wrong, sweetie?”

“It’s Dana,” she said, her voice cracking with the weight of her burden.

“What about Dana?  You like her, don’t you?”

Blu nodded, but it was the only positive aspect of her sad face or slumped posture.  She said, “And you like her too.”  I nodded, but Blu didn’t give me a chance to say anything.  “I mean, you like her like her.”

I crossed the smaller cabin room and sat down next to my daughter, touching my hand to her cheek, so small and tender.  “Yes, I do.”

“So she’s basically going to be my new mommy?”

“Blu!”

“But it’s true, isn’t it?”  I didn’t answer.  “Isn’t it?”  I stammered just a bit, but that was enough for Blu.  “I knew it.  No, Daddy, no!”

“Okay, first of all, you have to listen to me, Blu.”  I let my voice take that low, authoritative tone that always held Blu’s obedient attention.  “I understand that this brings up a lot of feelings, and it’s okay to have to those feelings; to feel threatened, worried that Dana is going to try to replace your mother in your mind, but Blu -- ”

“No, Daddy, it’s not that!  If Dana becomes my new Mommy, men are going to come and steal her away from us the way they did Mommy!  You can’t let that happen, Daddy, you can’t!”

“I won’t, sweetie, I promise.”

Blu was close to tears, a sob percolating just in the back of her throat.  “But you can’t promise that, Daddy, you can’t!”

I couldn’t disagree, and I struggled to explain the complex balance of pleasure and pain that was modern life, life in any era, sadly even future eras, one of which will be her own.  But how do you tell a nine-year-old that, or anything even close?

So I pulled her close, giving her a loving squeeze, nuzzling her with unspoken love and adoration.  In a voice very low and soft, I said, “I guess you’re right, Blu.  I like Dana, and she likes me.  But we don’t know what’s going to happen.  We could lose her, yes.  She may not even want to come home with us, Blu, I can’t make any promises like that.  I ... we’ve only known her a few days!”  I chuckled at the absurdity of it, but in truth it wasn’t nearly as ridiculous as I hoped it sounded.  “But there’s no promise that things will go bad.  And even if they do, there’ll still be a lot of good things that happen before then, good things and bad, really.  They come and go, Blu, but that’s a part of life.  We both know that, and we’ve talked about it.  We have to be brave enough to endure the bad times, but sometimes to enjoy the good times, we have to be even stronger.  Do you understand?” 

Blu shrugged.  “A great man said something about being afraid of fear or something, how that was wrong.”

I gave it some thought, guessing, “You mean FDR?  ‘We’ve nothing to fear but fear itself,’ that one?”  Blu nodded.  “Who told you that?”

“Dana.”

Dana, I reflected, of course, I should have known.  How perfect.  Most girls her age don’t even know who Franklin Roosevelt was, much less what he said.  But not her, not my Dana.  Instead of saying all that to Blu, I simply answered, “Well, Blu, Dana is right.  We’ve been afraid for too long, don’t you think?”

Blu nodded sadly and I smiled, giving her a little peck on her damp forehead.  I stepped out of Blu’s room and closed the door, giving my child privacy to change.  When the knock fell on the door, lighter than a man’s knock, my first thought was that it was Dana.  I opened the door to see the cruise director, Caroline Something-or-other, the hot redhead with the incredible body, knock-out face, and frankly forgettable personality.

“Hutch, hi,” she said, green eyes as wide as she could stretch them, deliberate cheer oozing from her eager smile.   She looked me over to see me fully dressed and then glanced over my shoulder to the cabin behind me.  “Am I ... interrupting anything?”

“My daughter and I were just freshening up before dinner.”

“Oh, well how perfect.  My shift’s just about over.”  Caroline arched the small of her back, hands behind her, shoulders pressing backward to show her amazing breasts.  They were 36-Ds, perfectly round, pushing out of that stuffy uniform, which seemed purposely tight in all the right areas, as if it had been cut that way.  And just like her breasts, every part of this wanton woman was desperate to burst through those buttons and come spilling out, full thighs and strong calves, nipples hard in my mouth, her fingers combing through my hair, jamming my face into those perfect tits.

I had to admit the temptation was hard to deny, even if I wasn’t very close to succumbing to it.  I’d been a year since my wife died, and except for a few quickie trysts and one or two disastrous dates, I’d been alone for a while.  Too long.  I could sense Dana’s hunger, for example, and this Caroline’s; and more and more I could see it in myself.  It was hard not to picture myself holding that redheaded hottie in my arms, slipped under her white, freckled thighs to pin against the wall, those sexy slopes rising and falling on my cock as gravity and I conspired to give her the ride of her life.  I could imagine her moaning and sobbing and slapping her fists against my chest as her damp back thumped against the hallway wall, then holding her still, immobile in my arms while she came, again and again. 

And she seemed to sense it.  Caroline could smell my lapse of discipline, my primitive instinct to grab her and throw her down and ravage her. stalks of that red hair rising between my fingers, the gentlest yank pulling her head back.  And she wanted it, that was obvious to everybody on the ship and probably a few of the smarter orca swimming alongside Oceania.  I knew it wouldn’t take a single word to get her going, and the idea of those plump, polished lips running up and down on my unit was already making it rise in my slacks.

This caught her eye, and Caroline glanced down and then back up at me with a knowing little smile.  It was all the encouragement she’d need, but more than I intended to give her.  I could see how many men would call me crazy to turn her down, and if I hadn’t met Dana I might have had another perspective altogether.  But I had met Dana, and when I asked myself what I wanted, who I wanted, the choice was clear.  For me, there wasn’t any choice at all.  I said, “Actually, were were going to enjoy a quiet meal ... alone, with regrets to you and your captain and the rest of the crew.”

“Oh, no apologies necessary, Hutch, of course not.  I’m sure you and Blu will have a splendid evening.”

“Thank you very much,” I said, about to close the door on her as politely as I could.

But Caroline said, “Oh, um, Hutch, I wonder ... could I have a word with you?  It’s ... it’s kind of why I came.”  I simply smiled and nodded, but Caroline specified, “Maybe out in the hall would be better.”

I didn’t see the point in refusing her, although I didn’t have much faith in whatever she was about to say.  She wasn’t there to talk; that much, I knew.

She glanced down the hall and leaned closer to me.  “I know Dana’s been showing you ... around, and he’s a great girl, she really is.  But it seems to me that I’ve seen you two apart quite a bit -- ”

“Right, about that -- ”

“I mean, she’s a sweet girl, but you know she’s a virgin, right?”  I didn’t, but I tried not to reveal that.  “I know you know what that means.  She’ll be fumbling around, no idea what she’s doing.  I’ve been watching her, Hutch, and she’s got no experience at all.  But you ... you’re a man of the world, you need a real woman, one who can take you to the edge and throw your hot ass right over the side!”

“”Miss, um, Caroline -- ”

She leaned in a bit closer, voice low and gravelly in my ear.  “You can call me Mistress Caroline if you like.”

I chuckled awkwardly.  “Perhaps I shouldn’t.”

“Is that what you want, to lick the soles of my boots?”  She grabbed my swollen package, giving it a hard squeeze.  “You can pretend all you want, but this is all the lie detector I need.”

She pressed her face against mine, her lips smearing against my face, tongues intertwining.  Caroline pressed her body against mine, and I couldn’t deny the pleasure it gave me, deep-rooted, a powerful pull on my animal instincts.

“Hutch?”  I turned to see Dana standing at the end of the hall, brows arching, bottom lip quivering.  She turned with a gasp and ran off.

I headed off after her immediately.  Turning to Caroline, I pointed an instructive finger.  “You take care of Blu, see to whatever she needs.  Take her out, go down the stairs.”

“I will, yes, of course.  She won’t be scared?”

“Not of you.”  And I knew they’d be fine.  As for me and Dana, I wasn’t nearly so sure.