Chapter 15: Alexis

Chapter 15: Alexis

In Stephen King’s magnum opus, The Dark Tower series, the term used for fate was ka. In his fantasy series that fabled the life of a lone gunslinger in a post-apocalyptic wasteland, ka was described as a wind. Ka was magical. Even though I didn’t live in a world created by Stephen King, I adhered to the principles of fate. And sometimes, fate has a way of blowing like the wind and guiding you to the right place at the right time.

Such as what happened earlier today. Yesterday, when Will had spoken so kindly to me about me being smart and talented, I took his words to heart. Later, when he had left for his home after we’d shared that undefinable kiss, I stayed up all night for several reasons that included speculating on what I’d do for a living, checking on Maurice’s emulated phone to see if he was talking to Ralph or Blair again, wondering what my kiss with Will meant, and trying to sleep but being unable to because of the wild energy coursing through my body.

It dawned on me that I was not going to go back to the diner. At least not now. Sooner or later, I’d have to face some of the pack members. It was kind of hard not to when you lived in the same city. So why not sooner?

At the start of the day, I got into my truck and headed down to the wharf, where Mallory, one of the pack members, was just getting set up in her office. Back when I used to work data entry shifts at the wharf, Mallory was my supervisor. As far as people go, Mallory was a stone-cold, disaffected, calculating person, but that didn’t mean that she didn’t extend the odd helping hand every now and then.

“I see your plight, and I raise you one of my own,” Mallory had said at around six in the morning when I’d gone to ask her if there was a job opening that would be worthy of my time and effort. “More and more fishermen are leaving this place. That means what? Deserted ships. We can’t have deserted ships on an active wharf. The harbor becomes overpopulated. We can’t decommission those ships either. Where do they go?”

“I’m guessing some sort of warehouse?” I’d replied, not really in the mood for her riddles.

“Right you are!” Mallory said. “But here’s my plight. The warehouse has been nonfunctional for years now. Yeah, I agree; the fault lies with me. I could have been a better manager, but when your resources are stretched as thin as mine, you can’t spare any men or women to go handle the warehouse.”

“I’ll do it,” I said. “Does it pay more?”

“You mean, does it pay more than the mindless data entry stuff you used to do? Of course! But have you ever managed inventory before? Do you know the first thing about warehouses? Can you make sure that all the decommissioned ships go in there and are stacked atop each other? Will you take responsibility for the biannual maintenance of those ships? Kid, it pays almost two thousand dollars more than your last job, but it’s a ton of responsibility.” Malloy had made sure to make the job as unappealing as she could with her eloquent verbal description, but I knew her better than she knew me. She was dissuading me. She didn’t know how desperate I was for a job.

“I’ll do it. All of what you’ve said. It’s gonna keep me busy and away from people. Right? I’ll be the only one there? I won’t have to interact with the wharfmen and the fishermen and all the rest of the pack members?” I asked.

“There’s an automated crane in the warehouse that picks up all the ships and places them on the shelves. All you gotta do is feed the coordinates and watch the thing do its robot magic. What more do you need? There ain’t gonna be anybody there with you. The job gets kinda lonely at times. But you get to pick your hours as long as you do all the work within the week.”

I agreed to the job, and as soon as I got the keys to the warehouse, I went down there with my first assignment. The warehouse was at the far-left end of the wharf. It had an indoor harbor from where the crane could pick up moored ships. The crane wasn’t as big as I was expecting. It was a relief that it was automated. I didn’t know the first thing about working a manual crane, but these automated ones were just a YouTube tutorial away from understanding.

The fated moment came when I was making my way through the warehouse, tallying the inventory, and making sure that all the old ships were accounted for. That’s when I saw it.

That’s when I saw Will.

***

“Can I open my eyes now?” The floor is slippery and wet!” Will protested.

“Oh, just trust me,” I said, holding his hand and guiding him inside the warehouse, positioning him right in front of the harbor, where his surprise bobbed up and down in the water. “Okay, now! Open your eyes.”

I was staring at Will, who was staring at his surprise. His face had turned long, and his mouth hung open, his eyes round, and his cheeks stretched to their limits.

“Is this…”

“The Grimm Reaper!” I squealed.

Although its wood was old, with its polish chipped off at most places, and although it could use a couple of coats of paint, Will’s old ship that he’d sailed across Europe to America was still reflecting its old resplendence through its size, its sails, and its massive hull. It was bigger than your average sailboat but smaller than a yacht. I hadn’t gotten the chance to go inside it or climb above deck. I wanted to surprise Will first.

“This is my ship,” Will whispered, his mouth covered by his hands. “I thought it was destroyed or lost or sold or worse. I thought it had sunk to the bottom of the sea!”

“I was checking inventory in the warehouse when I first saw it. At first, I thought I was hallucinating,” I said, unable to hold my excitement. “But then I saw the name painted on the side. It doesn’t look exactly like it does in the old pictures, but it’s the same ship, right?”

“Oh, God in heaven, it’s the same ship. The same one that I captained across the ocean with my entire pack inside it.”

“How’s that even possible? How did you fit around twenty or so people in it? I mean, it’s big, but it’s not that big,” I said as we walked closer to the harbor to take a good look at it.

“We were packed under the deck, body against body. It wasn’t about comfort. It was about voyaging to safety. This is the vessel that saved all our lives,” Will said.

“And now it’s yours again,” I said.

“Are you sure?”

“Hell yeah. I checked the archives in the record room. The ownership document still has your name on it.”

Will was still in disbelief. It was evident in the way he kept walking around the harbor, looking at the Grimm Reaper. He squinted and stared at every part of the ship for ten whole minutes while I stood there in complete silence, watching the gentle waves come inside the warehouse harbor.

Then Will suddenly jumped aboard, touching the handles on the wheel, walking to the capstan, then to the main deck, and then eventually down the hatch. After he did not appear for a long time, I got worried and jumped aboard the ship as well. From there, I went down the stairs into the cabin.

“Will?”

“Look,” Will said, pointing to a notch in the wooden wall of the cabin. I went closer to take a better look at it. It was dark in the cabin, with the only light coming from the dusty windows. But I could still make out the W.G. carved with a knife on the wood. “It really is my ship.”

“What are you going to do with it?” I asked. “Does it make you happy, being reunited with it?”

“Happy? Happy doesn’t even begin to cover it. I feel as if I’ve been made whole again. This ship, for the longest part, was an extension of me. I trusted this vessel with my life and the lives of all my pack members. It feels like I’ve reconnected with an old friend,” Will said.

Then he turned to me, standing close enough that I could feel his breath on my face.

“How can I ever thank you for this?” He whispered.

“Will, come on, it’s not a big deal,” I said, but these words came out of my mouth on their own. There I was, entranced again, captivated by his presence so close to me. My body was tingling, and my extremities were jittery.

“Your capacity to be kind to me continues to amaze me,” he said. Then he lifted his hand and placed it under my chin. He tilted my face up till both our faces were perfectly aligned. “How can someone be so kind to someone who has treated them so badly?”

“Will…” I pleaded, unable to foresee what was going to happen.

“You are not like any person I have ever met,” Will said. “You are—”

He never finished his thought. Instead, he grabbed me by my waist and pulled me closer to him. I pressed myself against him, and our lips touched.

This time, there was no inhibition in our kiss. I kissed him fiercely, and he returned the favor, running his hands over my body, my lips in his mouth, and sucking on them.

A moan escaped me as the pleasure started blooming all over my body. I raised my hands to his face, cupping his cheeks, feeling his hair, grabbing the nape of his neck, my body burning with desire.

He cupped my breasts gently in his hands, caressing them as he glided his grip from my chest to my waist, from my waist to my hips, and then he lifted me by my hips, pressing my body against his.

I could feel him stiffen. His hard shaft bulged against my inner thigh. I wound my arms around his neck and hoisted myself up till he was lifting me in his arms. He passionately pinned my body against the wall of the cabin, making the entire boat swoon as he pressed me harder against the wall, burying his face in the small of my neck, kissing, licking, sucking, cherishing the taste of my skin on his tongue.

“Will!” I moaned.

This sudden utterance broke our sexual reverie. He looked at me with concern, then whispered, “What?”

“I have never done this before,” I panted.

“Neither have I,” he said, then kissed me on my mouth, and our tongues clashed. I could still taste the Slurpee on his tongue, and the sudden introduction of that flavor in my mouth turned me on even more than I already was.

I was back on my feet now. Will was gazing at me with a look that I had never seen before. It was a look of love. Unmistakably. Being with him here felt right. I could feel myself forgiving his previous lapses in the wake of this new persona that had awoken inside him. All I wanted to do was to accept him and for him to accept me.

But so much was left unspoken as we embraced each other again, smothering the other with our kisses.

I could feel wetness emerging between my legs. Underneath my shirt and my bra, my nipples were getting hard. The primal part of me, the part that was on autopilot, guiding my intuition, wanted me to take off my shirt and my bra and show him my breasts.

I took off my shirt and flung it across the cabin. Will held my body in his hands as I took off my bra. He lowered his face to my breasts, kissing them first, then playing with my nipples, gently licking them, taking them in his mouth, and pressing his lips firmly against them.

Pleasure throbbed in my chest as he handled my breasts with his warm hands. But it wasn’t enough. I needed more. As if he was reading my mind, he took off his shirt, revealing a toned body riddled with scars. Right now, I wasn’t fixating on the scars. My mouth was becoming wet looking at his pecs, his ripped abs, and his muscular arms. I let myself loose on him, kissing his body with a ferocity that would leave hickeys later.

In the midst of all this, our pants came off till we were lying next to each other on the wooden floor of the swaying ship, only in our underpants. Even in the little light, I could make out the shape of his erection bulging in his underpants. I wanted to touch it.

I wrapped my hand around his cock, gently squeezing it and gasping audibly when it twitched in my hand. Will slid off his underpants, now lying next to me entirely nude.

I promptly responded in kind, taking off my panties and throwing them on top of the pile of clothes.

Skin to skin, we lay onto each other, feeling every part of each other’s body that our hands could reach, kissing each other with a deepening intensity that left us hoarse.

Out of the periphery of my vision, I saw his penis twitching wildly as my nude body slid over his. It was fascinating and also the first actual dick I’d ever seen. When I slid down between his knees to take a closer look at his glistening member, his immaculate shaft, and the shiny tip, my mouth became wetter than it already was.

I kissed his cock, slobbering it with spit, then gently wrapped my lips around the tip, feeling it fill my mouth. Above me, Will moaned loudly as I let his cock go further into my mouth. My tongue slid against his shaft, and my lips wound tight around the tip. My mouth was filled with his scent and the salty taste of his throbbing penis.

Will wasn’t lying idly as I sucked him; his fingers found their way between my legs, touching me where I yearned to be touched. His gentle prodding and fingering unleashed a carnal pleasure unlike I had ever felt before. My eyes welled up with tears of pure pleasure as I moaned louder and louder, my voice echoing in the empty chamber.

The next thing I knew, I was lying on my back, my eyes closed, my hands on my breasts, and Will’s head between my legs, kissing my pussy, gently licking away at its wetness, sending waves upon waves of cresting pleasure up my vagina and into the rest of my body.

In yet another haze of fleeting motions, he was lying on top of me. My legs were parted open, and his cock was on the brink of penetration. I grabbed his head and lowered it till our lips were locked again and our tongues swirling around in each other’s mouths.

Then he slid in me slowly. At first, there was pain, sharp enough to draw a small yelp. But as he thrust himself deeper into me, the pain gave way to a profound sexual pleasure deep within my body. I lifted my legs and wrapped them around his hips, trapping him in this position so his only recourse would be to thrust and thrust.

His bulging cock slid in and out of my warm, tight, soft, wet pussy, sending quivers up my pelvis, making my thighs shiver, and turning my whole body hot.

Louder and louder, I moaned, unable to stifle myself, as he fucked me steadily. I could not take it anymore. My nails dug into his back and tugged at his skin as he slid into me.

The crescendo of our mutual movement was a bright, intense, and powerful burst of orgasm that rocked my entire body and left me lying there, panting, moaning, and sweating.

As he came, he collapsed on me, breathing hot air on my face, then slid off me and lay beside me, panting just as loudly as I was.

As if to remind us of the act that we had just performed, the ship swayed and swayed on the otherwise still harbor water and kept ebbing till it swayed no more, leaving us lying in each other’s arms, tired and sated.