chapter one

She leans against the evening's cool sea breeze, a glass of Australian black cabernet sauvignon within reach on the salt-bleached railing of her deck. She is naked to the world, save for a cast-off white tuxedo shirt she rescued from an ancient clothing store. Now and then she'll seem to get a ghostly breath of the shirt's past...an opera somewhere, a gala opening somewhere else perhaps.

The shirt is tight on her petite form this evening for some reason, its buttons straining across her bust. Pleasured by the sensation, she feels it hug her as she slowly moves to the deck railing. She inhales sharply and its buttons spin into the lowering darkness and she smiles at the cliché, she is free at last.

She is content. Her duty to the world complete. She has has left the mob-ridden city that made her rich. She has abandoned her past...what people know of her, and what people think of her. And, with great humor she has "let herself go." She does not care what people say...or what people think. This is her time. This is her body. As she reaches for her glass, her breasts sway in a manner beautifully strange, and immensely sensual to her.

She smiles. Yes, this is her time. This is her gift to herself.

Toasting the setting sun as her only companion, she lifts her glass slowly, admiring the reflections dancing across the tan of the soft, rounded swells of her breasts and gently curved abdomen. The cut prisms transmit startling contrasts with the deepening paleness of her skin.

She is fulfilled. Complete, she tries to tell herself...but is she? An ocean breeze teases the tendrils of her long hair; the sun effortlessly broadcasting its last gleams as it slowly sinks into the endless horizon awaiting a new day.

As the last rays peak up from beyond the horizon, she is startled by a flash of paleness tumbling in the surf! Something has caught her eye. What is that? A body. Is it alive? Yes; she sees weak movement. It is male. Is he hurt?

Down the twisting stairway. Who is he? How dare he? Is he hurt?

As she gains the base of the stairs, she sees the man slowly pushed further up the sand by the breaking waves. Is he hurt?

She reaches his side. He is big. Good lord he his big. How will I move him. She kneels at his side, her weight sinking her deep into the wet sand. She leans forward unmindful of her breasts spilling out of her open shirt. Tugs his arm. It is muscular. Soft.

She turns him over. Handsome, a soft bulging roll of fat under his chin. Is he breathing? Yes. He is firm, but soft. Is he still breathing? Yes. He is wearing white. A uniform! No. Like a uniform. A banded collar. In the deep side-light of the setting sun she sees an insignia! Some cruise line she vaguely recalls hearing about in another life. Wait, there is a badge. I can't read it, wait, yes..."Sous-Chef". She gently cradles his head in her lap, unmindful of her nakedness. The man is wounded. He is bleeding from a cut in his head. Perhaps fallen and slipped overboard unremarked.

Naked but for her frivolous shirt, she leans over him to protect him...shelter him from the gathering darkness. Thoughts flicker through her mind. She gathers him into the softness of her lap. His badge comes off in her hand. She slips it in her shirt pocket...and ignores its hardness against the hardness of the nipples underneath. Is he still breathing? Yes. How can she move him? She turns to look down the beach. It is growing dark. As she turns, the soft undercurve of her breast brushes his forehead. Her body tingles. I wonder?...she thinks, her mind imagining. She feels movement against her belly, against her thigh. The touch of her warm softness apparently began a new flickering of awareness. His eyes open to her swelling over him, her round breasts glowing in the dying embers of the setting sun.

There is a sudden afterglow as the sun's last rays flash beneath the cloud-lidded horizon. Their eyes meet.

Who am I he asks softly.