Footprints in the Sea Volume 3
Chapter 54

By
Frances Penwiddy

Copyright©Frances Penwiddy 2015

The characters in this novel are fictitious and any resemblance to persons living or dead is coincidental.
Footprints in the Sea is not suitable reading material for minors.

The Chapter numbers of Vol 3 continue from where Volume 2 ended. If you have not read Volumes 1 and 2, it is recommended that you do so before starting Volume 3.

Footprints in the Sea Volume 3

Chapter 54

“I must congratulate the ladies present this evening on their appearance, bearing in mind that only a short while ago, they were carrying out a difficult exploration of the sea bottom in the lagoon.”

“Marine biology is included within my remit, Captain Wellington,” said Emma with a voice that dripped honey. “My current position in the Anglo-New Zealand Antarctic expedition specifically states that I should explore both the land and sea life forms paying particular attention to the discovery of new species and sub species of both animal and insect life.”

“Did you discover anything?”

“I think I may have identified a new form of salt water plant but as that is within the sphere of Doctor Elizabeth Johnson, I passed further investigation to her.”

“And you Miss Pemberton?”

“Definitely some very oddly shaped grains amongst the sand and a strong presence of feldspar, silicon and pieces of what I am sure are of volcanic origin and perhaps some manganese but as yet, no evidence of precious or semi-precious stones.”

“A pity but it is early days yet and you Commander Broughton, what of your exploration?”

“I had in mind the suitability of the current position of the jetty for mooring and must advise you that there is less than a half a fathom under the keel at the bow of Pacific Wanderer. I would recommend the jetty should be moved to a position closer to the mouth of the river to the right, that’s stab’d in navy English, of the lagoon”

“Thank you, we were aware that there was barely sufficient depth and do indeed intend to move the jetty in the near future, subject to your approval as owner of the island of course.”

“Please feel free, Captain. I hope our unorthodox approach to science and exploration did not interfere with the smooth running of the ship.”

“Not at all, the OOD and petty officers assured me that the crew were paying particular attention to your techniques in avoiding a sea predator and were particularly impressed with your methods of removing clothing to allow you greater freedom of movement. I was also gratified when I won the bet on whether you would touchdown before Commander Devonshire.”

“You were betting on the outcome?”

“Indeed, it is a method that increases the pleasure of the learning experience.”

“She cheated,” said Will.

“Come-come, Commander Devonshire, I’m sure Commander Broughton did no such thing. She simply demonstrated that sound training in underwater techniques helps when faced with adversity and surely one must use every tool in the box to guarantee survival?”

“He might have strangled me with a bootlace had he caught me.”

“I was wearing beach sandals.”

“You could have cut my throat with a buckle.”

“They were Velcro.”

“Scratched my skin then.”

Auntie Kate giggled, “He had to catch you first.”

“I did manage to steal a kiss at the end though,” Will smiled, “It was worth the chase.”

I became serious, “Byron, the water in the lagoon is warm and safe and I think it would be okay for the crew to swim in if you were to allow it. There is a little risk of a stray shark I suspect but I think that if you had a boat out and a man with a rifle on the deck, that would be enough.”

“It’s unlikely that sharks are in the area,” said Emma, “There isn’t very much to attract them, the Antarctic current has moved south, the water is too warm. There’s fewer fish because they will follow the colder water and the predators will follow the fish.”

“I will consider it, the men are familiar with the dangers associated with sharks so I will probably allow swimming parties once the more urgent tasks have been carried out.”

“A shark net across the entrance to the lagoon would help, failing that we might try training a pod of dolphins.”

“I’ll do that, Emma, you just entice them in.”

Gwyneth nodded her head, “Charlotte is very good with dolphins, she has swam with them under the most adverse conditions.”

“I’ve had such a lovely day, such a perfect, perfect day.”

Will smiled, “Even the swimming?”

“Especially the swimming,” and I took a hold of his upper arms, stood on tiptoe and kissed him, “That’s just for starters, the beginning of my making amends.”

“So you admit it, you did cheat?” he asked as I lowered myself.

“Sort of. I had help at hand if I needed it. The sort of help no mortal can compete against.”

“Ah, I see.” He was still smiling but his face was lit by the moon and his eyes sparkled and the tops of his lips had a silvery tinge so I stood on tiptoe and kissed him again. “You see what?”

“Does this have anything to do with your visit to the glade, the visit with Penny?”

“A bit, the butterflies had a hand in it I think.” I took his hand and we continued our walk along the deck of Pacific Wanderer and I told him about the butterflies and the hand and body image that hadn’t shown in the pictures that Penny had taken, “Penny could see her as well though she did say she thought Penelopeia might have been a ghost because she could see through her, see the trees and underbrush through her body. But she was certainly touched by the visit and a little shocked that Penelopeia knew so much about her. I’ve sworn her to secrecy though and she didn’t say a word when she showed the pictures to Emma and the girls.”

“And what about you, do you believe you saw a ghost?”

I shook my head, “No she definitely wasn’t a ghost, she was warm but I really don’t know, don’t understand it, understand how a women who lived thousands of years ago can visit me. I’m not frightened, in fact I like her and I wondered if I was having some sort of hallucination but if Penny can see her as well, it can’t be that. I don’t think I’ll try to work it out, I’ll just have to accept it but she was there, Will and she told me there were others watching over us.” I nodded and smiled, “That’s why you were beaten in the swim today. I was far from swim fit, I’ve not swam since the rescue of David and you should have caught me but Penelopeia sent for Poseidon and he must have been lurking down there and told me what to do. You didn’t have a chance against that sort of opposition but it doesn’t matter, I’ll still make amends.” ‘Where you’re concerned Will Devonshire, I’ll make amends as often as you like,’ but I didn’t say that to Will, a girl still likes to be courted, even chased, chased on land and in the water so I wanted him to know he still had to work at it, keep that look in his eye, that passion for me firmly embedded in his heart.

We stopped at the corner of the stern and looked out to the west. The night sky still had the faintest tinge of yellow light to it and above it a thin band of light blue but above us the sky was the deepest velvet blue and there were a trillion stars looking down on us. To the left stood the constellation of Canis Major with the Dog Star, I pointed, “Sirius, our guard dog and where Sirius stands so does Orion, they are inseparable, Sirius is Orion’s hunting dog so it is waiting in case Orion’s bow misses the target, Lepus the hare. Then Sirius goes after the prey because he is the fastest dog and the only one who can catch a hare, he must be a greyhound. The other dog is in Canis minor and he’s a mastiff and he chases after Sirius ready to protect him if Taurus tries to intervene. I looked a little east and higher, “There’s Orion his bow at the ready and over there, Taurus getting ready to charge.”

“You make it sound like a story. I just look up and see all the stars but you see more, you see the drama.”

“It was the trawler skipper I dived with. He used to tell me the stories when it was dark and we were returning from a dive. He said it was easier to remember a good yarn than the position of a star. Once you’ve found Sirius, the brightest star at night you can locate Orion’s belt and his legs, then it’s easy to find Gemini and then Cassiopeia that’s the one that looks like a ‘W” and moving my hand, “There’s Gemini and there to the north just above the reef you can just see the Big Dipper and just above it, the Pole Star, the sailor’s guide. Well it is in the Northern Hemisphere but down here we need the Southern Cross and if you don’t know what that looks like, just look at the Australian and New Zealand flags.” I turned in to him and we kissed again. With so many Gods looking down, nothing would be allowed to interfere and spoil the moment and when we finished we looked up to the sky directly above us and through an unpolluted sky into the Milky Way and saw a trillion stars lighting the way back to our cabin.
The ship was quiet now, most people were tucked up in their beds and bunks with just an anchor watch under the command of Sub Lieutenant, (soon to be Admiral), Tamati Sandler.

I stopped as soon as we entered the cabin and waited for Will to close the door, “It has been such a wonderful day,” I repeated, “But with all the excitement I’m quite exhausted and we still have to walk all the way across the sitting room to the bedroom and then across the bedroom to our bed, I really don’t think I can go that far. Would you mind if I just went to sleep here by the door, the carpet is very soft?”

“I could fetch you a cushion from the armchairs to use as a pillow or…” he stooped and lifted me into his arms and cuddled me close to his chest, “…I could carry you to the bed.”

“You won’t throw me out of the porthole and into the sea again, will you?”

“No, I want you to tell me more about the stars.”

He leaned his head down and kissed me lightly on the lips and walked across the sitting room and as he turned sideways to pass through to the bedroom, he kissed me again on the tip of my nose and finally as we arrived at the bed, he kissed me on top of my head, paused to bury his nose in my hair and breathed deeply, “You smell like a summer garden, I like it and there’s not a suggestion of seaweed,” and he lowered me gently to stand on the floor. “If you’re still tired, I could undress you?”

“Thank you.”

He slowly undid the buttons on the front of my dress, reached the belt and unfastened that and the fingers of one hand slip round my back and softly lowered the concealed zip before rising again to my shoulders, pausing just for a moment to rest gently on my breasts. He eased the shoulders of the dress down my arms and over my hands and then past my hips and still keeping a hold of it, down to my thighs where I helped him and lifted each leg in turn so he could slide the dress off me and drop it gently to the floor behind him. He stepped back and studied me and then he reached for my shoulders and as I leaned into him he unclipped my bra, eased the shoulder straps down and it joined my dress on the floor. Again he slid his hands slowly down the sides of my ribs, his touch so soft, so gentle and pausing again at my breasts he lightly caressed the nipples with his thumbs before continuing down, past my hips to my thighs until the found the suspender clips and eased them open and then slid his hands round to the back and repeated the operation. Then his hands started gently upwards until they reached my buttocks and I felt the palm of each hand caress me before moving up to the suspender belt fastening and unclipping that he pulled it free from my waist. It too joined the dress on the floor and without losing contact with me, his hands dropped to mid-thigh and with a little pressure lifted first my left and then in turn my right legs and the stockings slid with just a whisper off my legs and fluttered down to rest on top of the suspender belt.

Once again he stepped back and looked at me before reaching out and with just a suggestion of a tickle I felt my panties eased down and off my legs. I still had control but only just and I knew my nipples had hardened and my breathing had deepened, “My turn now,” I managed to whisper in a husky voice, and I loosened his tie and began to unbutton his shirt, slowly pausing twice to let my fingers caress his pectorals and then his shirt and tie joined my clothes, lying across them as if trying to protect their silky softness.

I stepped back and looked at him and reached out and with the flat of both hands I caressed his chest and let my hands lower gently until I reached his abdominal muscles and here I lifted the palms of my hands and let my fingers caress them. They were strong, well defined and it felt as if I was caressing waves as I let my fingers find their way down to his trousers and unclipped the waist band, found the zip and then slide inside whilst my thumbs hooked over the top of his waist band and I slid his trousers down a little before pausing to gather his underpants and easing them down to the tops of his thighs, I let them drop.

I knelt down and eased them off his feet, bunched them up and tossed them onto the pile and then looked directly at the penis that was staring straight at me. I couldn’t resist it, leaned a little forward and kissed the tip, opened my lips and took just the head in my mouth, tickled it for a second with my tongue and then closing my lips, I slowly eased my head back but kept my lips firmly around it until just the tip remained in my mouth and tickled it again before releasing it and heard a soft moan come from him. I straightened up and smiled softly, “I need your help to climb into bed.”

He startled me with his reaction. He lifted me and with his arm around my waist and his hand supporting my thighs with one of my arms flung over his shoulder he turned sideways and releasing the arm around my waist he flipped the bed cover sideways, lowered me onto the satin sheet and then pushed me so I slid to the centre of the bed. Without straightening he slipped in beside me, reached across my chest and rolled over, taking his weight on his hands he hovered over me, his body inches clear of me and looked down.

“I’ll drive,” I whispered and opened my legs, slipped them over his waist and raised myself just high enough for the tip of his penis to touch my labia and then I rocked a little; slowly, backwards and forwards so his penis caressed the labia without entering and almost immediately the shocks began starting at my stomach and fanning out to my breasts and down to my thighs. I wasn’t going to be able to control this, I knew I had to do something, do something that would send both of us into that interstellar world we visited at times like this. I lifted myself a little but still kept up the rocking motion and I felt his penis slip inside a little so that it was now caressing my vulva and then it happened, it touched my clitoris and the shock went through me so hard my body started shaking and I lost control completely thrust myself up and felt him penetrate me and my mouth opened ready to scream as I began to explode but his mouth clamped down on mine, muffled it and then I was gone. He came with me out of the ship and into that velvet sky with the planets, stars, galaxies and nebulae, the home of the gods that waited for us and still the explosion in my body continued and our atoms spun, danced and crowded around us until we were a golden cloud of atomic particles and we swooped through space, danced around stars and flew to the edge of our galaxy and then past it.

Out, out into the void thrusting through space to the next galaxy and the next through nebulae until far out, the explosion slowed and we had reached the edge of our universe and in the quiet moment we approached the edge and then we smashed into a transparent shield, glass, a force field, magnetism, I don’t know what but we smashed through and I felt it and us shatter and there in front of us a void, dark, soundless but far away there was another universe, more galaxies, more stars, more places to visit but not now. I was not in control and this was not the right time to go further so we turned and went through the wall again and exploded back into our own universe, a universe with galaxies and stars I recognised. My explosions were now a slow burn as we flew towards the centre and then I saw Cassiopeia and far beyond it Ursa Major and the Pole Star and between it and the tiny nebular that Will and I had become, a tiny blue speck, our home, Earth and we changed direction and once again I felt the heat build, felt another explosion building and it happened as we burned through the atmosphere, bored our way through Pacific Wanderer’s steel and I blew apart as we collided with the bed and for the third time I felt Will’s orgasm match mine and a thin white line kept his atoms anchored to mine and as we quietened it pulled us back together, we solidified and the string, the thin line of his sperm slowly disappeared inside me and cemented us together.

I lay quietly calming myself down, shivering a little, part with fear of what had happened to us but more with the excitement, the sheer joy of our passion. Will was breathing more steadily and I felt his heart slowly quieten down and I listened half expecting to hear alarm bells sounding on the ship as she rocked with the force of our impact but everything was silent and the only movement the gentle rise as a wave in the lagoon lifted Wanderer’s hull. Nobody had heard us, nobody!

I felt Will move and he lifted himself and looked down at me, “Promise me one thing,” he said quietly, “Promise me that once a month or once a week you will tell me about the stars before we come to bed and then take me out there, show them to me.”

“We went right to the edge of the universe and then through it before turning back.”

“Yes, I felt it, I felt your explosion mix with mine, I felt the slow burn as we came home and then the explosion again as he arrived.”

“It was the nebulae. As we passed through them they fed us the fuel we needed and the colours, they were incredible.”

He smiled, “Tomorrow, a scientist using the Hubble telescope will ponder on the scorch marks that have suddenly appeared on the surfaces of the Crab Nebular.”

I chuckled softly and shook my head, “We were travelling so much faster than light, the scorch marks won’t be seen here on Earth for thousands of years yet. They’ll never be able to pin it on us.”

“We’re clear to do it again then?”

“As often as we like. We’ve never seen anybody else up there, do you think we’re the only people who do that when we’re making love?”

“No, there are others, people so in love they can make miracles like we do but as you say, we’re all travelling much faster than light so we’ll never see them.”

“Perhaps I should try and slow down a bit and then we might meet a few. We could compare notes and discover the locations of other places worth visiting.”

He chuckled and lifted himself and I felt his penis slip out. “I didn’t know you were still inside me!”

“Want me to put it back?”

I shook my head, “Not tonight, I’m exhausted and if we’re to crash through the barrier at the edge of the universe again, I want a clear head or we might get lost and never find our way back.”

“Not you, you love this island and would always find your way back here.”

I smiled and stroked his face “Our launching pad,” and I went to sleep. Such a lovely, lovely day.

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Footprints in the Sea Vol 3 is now published on Kindle Ebooks.
Vol 4 will follow in November.

This is the final chapter of Footprints that I can publish here without contravening the Kindle terms but I have other TG writing that I will post until I publish Volume 4 of Footprints later in the Autumn.

I mentioned in my blog that some of my work under my other name is being moved to my Frances Penwiddy Amazon Author’s Page.
I drew attention to it because they are not TG books and when I add them I will give you notice so that you don’t purchase one thinking it may be TG. They will not of course be sampled or teased here other than to mention the name.

The first of these books will probably be transferred and authored under Frances Penwiddy on or soon after the 9th August 2017and is entitled Pagan Dawn and is a light comedy.

To access my Kindle page, use the link in the right hand column of this Big Closet page.