by Hazel Keys
What drew me to a career working aboard a cruise liner? I’m not sure, except that I’ve always been fascinated by water. In another life, I might have been a fish because I shower twice a day and just feel alive with the gentle caresses of warm streams. Where does that come from? My mom once told me I never looked happier than when I was having a bubble bath.
I remember the first few times I rode on a cruise liner…the majesty of the waves beneath me. Speeding on the ocean and miles and miles of another world under the water I would never know. This was what it must be like to fly, I remember thinking years ago, even back then always wondering about Connor’s perspective on life. Traveling far and wide, open air and the smell of ocean breeze. I felt wild and free, like anything in the world was mine for the taking, if I so chose.
We never think much about what lands us into each other’s lives. Why did I suddenly dive into Cammie and Connor’s life? Why did we end up friends when so many other people gradually come and go, entering and exiting each other’s existence as traveling in an elevator?
I ignored my existential cravings and focused on Cammie who repeated her question. “I said, do you want to go to go to Six Flags with Connor and his date?”
“Oh? He’s already met someone else?”
“He said he might bring a date,” Cammie replied. “But I suspect if he brings anybody he will probably bring Karen. I know Connor. He feels guilty about ending a relationship for about a week and rebounds with the girl for like one weekend. And then he gets wrapped up in another stewardess pretty quickly…er, so to speak.”
Connor surprised me and didn’t bring anyone to Six Flags. In fact, the whole day was kind of a strange surprise, since Cammie got stuck in traffic, leaving Connor and I alone for most of the afternoon and evening.
It was a little awkward at first. I just went along to drink and ride roller coasters. All of a sudden I’m stuck with Connor and treating him like a pseudo-date. And there’s nothing wrong with that. Connor is great…
Well, obviously. So I figured, I would just stroll along awkwardly for a while until Cammie caught up to us. What I got though, was far more than I expected.
“What’s your favorite thing to do at a theme park?” I asked him.
“Hmmm,” he said, giving my silly question some serious thought, which is such a Connor thing to do. “Probably just walking around.”
“No way!” I tease him. “You’re a pilot. You’re supposed to say ‘Being in the air’!”
He laughed. “You’d think so, but it’s kind of like small potatoes once you’ve actually been miles high into the sky.”
“Why do you like walking around?” I asked him, finding his eyes and watching him stare into space, pontificating.
“I wish I could say I had a great metaphor here. But actually…I just like the idea of hundreds of people walking around aimlessly. None of them under my care, just free to do what they want. All co-existing peacefully, people who’ve never met each other. Something very profound about that image.”
“I like that answer,” I said with a smile. “That’s what everyone likes about you, Connor. You never see what people expect.”
“Yeah, but what do you like about me, Dana?” he said, challenging me with squinted eyes. “He’s obviously bored of being respectful and kind to his sister’s friend. Might as well make this an interesting talk.”
“What I like about you? That you’re a good brother to Cammie. That you’re always there for her.”
“Yeah,” he said, nodding proudly, and letting me off the hook. “I’ll take that. Even though that’s a lame compliment, but I’ll let you slide on that.”
Connor did submit to a few roller coasters, bravely putting his life in the hands of other operators and machines. To my fascination, he hardly flinched even with the wind whipping his hair. He smiled slightly, as if laughing at an inside joke that only he understood.
I still felt the awkwardness, especially when our arms got too close and accidentally touched. I was the first one to yank my arm away from him but Connor just looked at me and grinned. Unflappable man! And he never screamed once one all four roller coasters we rode…much to my disappointment. I kind of wanted to see him frazzled.
While we were on a hot dog break from all that roller coaster riding, Connor finally decided to broach the sensitive subject.
“Apparently Cammie got lost somewhere.”
“I guess so. Did you try her cell phone?”
“Yeah but it’s not working. Maybe she’s in a valley somewhere or the countryside with no service?”
“I have no idea. I’m sure hope she’s okay.”
“Yeah…I hope she didn’t kill anybody.”
“No!” I said with a laugh. “That’s your first thought? Most people worry that their sister is helpless or suffering…you’re afraid she’s killing people.”
“Well, she’s a tough girl.”
“So…” I said moving the conversation along, as we snacked on funnel cakes. “Are you actually done with Karen?”
“Yeah. It wasn’t a serious thing.”
“And-”
“It wasn’t because of Cammie.”
“I wasn’t going to say that!”
“She just wasn’t what I wanted.”
“Connor, what DO you want?” I asked him with a slinky smile. Connor was always this adorable teddy bear of a guy who had the most congenial smile. Totally confident about his demeanor and his good looks, and yet boyish in his own way. Whenever I questioned him on his future, he would always tilt his head and think it over, taking his time, and thinking of the perfect thing to say.
“I want who I see in my mind’s eye. I want someone perfect.”
“Yeah right you always say that, but nobody like that exists.”
“Well, isn’t perfection relative? Perfection exists when I say it exists. So it’s not impossible. I just haven’t met the right perfection.”
I put my hand on his shoulder, almost without thinking.
“But what does she look like? I want to know who you think is perfect. And I don’t want to hear anything about Cammie. Believe me, I love Cammie too! But sometimes it seems that when Cammie decides she doesn’t like somebody, you decide the same thing.”
He laughed. “Oh damn! You’re brutally honest tonight, Dana. Those funnel cakes must be loaded with crack.”
“Seriously!” I said, laughing along with him and definitely getting high on laughter. The two of us had been alone for two hours and we’re talking as honestly as we had ever done, for the entirety of our lives. I kind of selfishly hoped Cammie would stay on their road trip excursion a little bit longer, so Connor and I could actually talk this issue through.
“Just say the first thing you liked about Karen when you met her?”
“I actually really liked her voice. It made me pay attention to her. And then when she spoke, I was amazed.”
“So perfection to you is a good voice and big brains.”
“Right…well, good voice, big brains and then some.”
“And then some. Yeah every guy wants the ‘and then some’. So if you don’t mind me asking, why did you break it off with her? Did you just stop feeling the attraction?”
“I just realized she didn’t wow me,” Connor answered honestly. “Should I feel bad that I dumped her? I didn’t mean to do it in a cold way.”
“Nah, it never feels good, I suppose. We just do what has to be done. Like a band-aid, that’s what my mom always said. Although she was talking about actual band-aids and cuts, so bad analogy…”
It seems like such a strange thing in hindsight; that intimacy can grow or shrink according to the roads we take in life. Sometimes according to a look or an accidental touch. I don’t know exactly how to define what happened next…
“It’s like with you, Dana. You’ve been a friend to Cammie and I for most of our lives,” Connor said. We could never just dump you like a bad habit. It would be like losing a piece of ourselves…our circle of f
riends.”
“Aww that’s sweet,” I said with a smile. “Although I’ve never actually slept with you, so I don’t think that analogy counts.”
Connor laughed and stared at me in curiosity. That was a can of weird sexual tension I suddenly opened. And it wasn’t one-sided. For just a moment, and through my own statement, I forced Connor to visualize it. Sex between friends. Oddly, a thought that never seemed to come up with him, but one that didn’t necessarily seem vulgar or inappropriate. Maybe even a moment of “Why didn’t we ever…?”
We prattled on for another hour and eventually stood in line for the Terror Giant roller coaster, which took forever.
We had no choice but to make a helluva lot of ridiculous small talk.
“I feel bad for guys who have sisters in lesbian relationships,” I said. “Only because then the brother can’t say, ‘If you ever hurt my sister I’ll punch your lights out!’ He’s a man…he knows he can’t punch out another woman if she breaks her heart. So what can he do?”
“Maybe throw a good pillow to the face?”
“Or maybe just financially destroying her?”
“Oh wait I know,” Connor replied. “Turns her over his knee and spanks her.”
“Oh yeah right, in your dreams buddy,” I said to Connor who cracked up. “And then they strip down to their bras and panties and just start wrestling in front of you. You’re such a jock, Connor.”
I smiled as I recalled something Little Connor said many years ago while we rode the park train. “You know I still remember a long time ago, you told Cammie and I what you were looking for.”
“Really? I don’t remember that. As a teen?”
“Yeah. You said, ‘I want to marry someone from the ocean.”
“What?!” Connor cracked up and I joined him. “I said that as a teen? Sounds like something I would say at eight.”
“No, you were very adamant about why you would marry Ariel from the Little Mermaid.”
“Well, she is hot.”
“Yeah but I’m pretty sure I asked you why and you told me.”
“And what did I say? Let me guess…you’re going to turn this into a feminist thing, where I chose the girl who was unable to speak. Because patriarchy, right?”
“Believe it or not, no. You said, ‘I respect a woman who can jump into the sea at anytime and escape her problems.’”
“Really?”
“Yeah. You have a weird thing about wanting to escape and flee the world. I noticed you also became a pilot.”
“That I did.”
“And you were like, really annoyed that I would tell you about your flying fantasy. You took issue with it.”
Connor laughed, for once not getting sore about his flying fetishes.
“Yeah. I did used to take it way too seriously. I thought people were making fun of me because of my airplane models. Of course now I just realize people were only trying to connect, trying to make friends with me. They knew I was the Airplane Guy. That was my calling card.”
“And you sure went all the way with it, didn’t you?”
“Yes I did. Now that I’ve actually achieved my dream and become a pilot…it’s much easier to laugh at the whole plane obsession now.”
“I imagine so. And what does it feel like, Connor, to achieve your dream and find happiness?”
“Hmmm…” he replied, in deep thought. “Happiness feels a lot like unhappiness. Which is to say…they feel the same. It just depends on whether the glass is half full or half empty.”
“And are you a half full of half empty kind of guy?” I teased him.
“I drink it all, baby,” he said with a mock smile.
We rode the Terror Giant after a nearly hour long wait. It was a monstrous contraption and took us several stories in the air on an exceptionally bumpy and wooden track. Every time we soared down we felt every kick and hike in the track, riding on a wooden train.
Not a great ride all things considered but the view up there was something unexpected…and quite amazing.
“Oh I love this part,” I said excitedly as we stalled for a minute, at least one hundred feet in the air. “Forces you to look down right before the big swoop. Stalling always makes me giddy!”
Connor laughed quietly. But something was different in the way he was staring at me. It was more than curious. It was emotive…it felt like something raw and powerful.
“Dana…did I really say that about marrying someone from the ocean?”
“You really did,” I said back with a smirk.
“What do you do for work again?”
“Cruise line director,” I said, not even catching the implication. I was Ariel. I was the metaphoric woman from the ocean! Just as it dawned on me what I was saying, Connor was already moving in closer for a kiss.
Caught off guard and hardly anywhere to move between the both of us, pinned down to the train, I could only stare in wide-eyed shock.
“I want to kiss you,” he said, staring into my eyes. “But I don’t want you to think you have to just because we’re a hundred feet in the air and there’s nowhere to go.”
I couldn’t get rid of the scandalized look on my face, but I did think of the perfect comeback. “No problem…if I don’t like you kissing me, I’ll just shove you off and you’ll go falling a hundred feet below.”
“I better make it good then.”
Connor reached over and kissed me. I was so shocked my mouth was still gaping open and he had to close my silly lips together so I could feel the best kiss of my life. He took my face into his hands and pressed his moist lips to mine. He kissed me softly at first then firmly, then fiery…maybe even reckless. Impulsive. Like for once, he was just taking what he wanted and not asking anyone’s goddamn thoughts first.
It wasn’t just that he was a good kisser—he was amazing! The way he tasted, the softness of his lips, the hard angles of his face. His hands, which caressed my every fold and angle from my cheeks to my chin, then down to rest so ticklishly on my neck.
It was also the idea that it came from the most unexpected places at the most unexpected time…somewhere on top of the world, somewhere between keeping a naughty secret…somewhere in between friendship and romance…somewhere in between happiness and tragedy. Somewhere in between “I want this so bad” and “What the hell am I doing?”
I looked at his smiling face in confusion…in reluctant bliss. Wanting to finish what we started. Wanting to kiss him again. Hell, wanting to fuck him right then and there on that roller coaster!
And then…swoop. The hardest and LONGEST shuttle down I could ever recall. I almost didn’t want the ride to end. Because what the hell would we say to each other after it was over?
We got off together…and boy was my ass sore. Oh wow, that sounds totally perverted, doesn’t it? What I meant to say was, my ass was sore from the harsh wooden vibrations of the roller coaster pounding against me. Although I’d be lying if I said I hadn’t thought of Connor spanking me a few times…
I could barely look at him in the face. And for once, I was the one stammering and nervous. Connor, to his credit, seemed happy about it. For once happy and decisive about what he wanted. Of course, it had to be at the absolute worst time!
I was his sister’s best friend!
How the hell were we going to explain this?
“Connor…I can’t…” I said as we finally walked away from the foot traffic.
“It’s okay,” he said. “You don’t have to say anything else. It never happened.”
But it did. And I liked it…and that’s the part that was worrying me sick.
***
Chapter 3:Connor
The rest of the weekend had me in shivers. It was that special kind of feeling, what I can only call sexual chills. When you think about someone so deeply, so obsessively, that you literally start shivering with anticipation. The kiss I enjoyed with Dana, my sister’s best friend—just came out of nowhere. I don’t exactly know why I reached out and kissed her.
I know I told her that we could forget about it. I told her that for her benefit, or it could have been that I naively believed it. But once you kiss a person so honestly, so uninhibitedly, it awakens buried passions. Not just passions for a woman, but passions for life. You breathe deeper. Your blood boils. And she is the image burnt into your mind, constantly reappearing to torment you.
I determined that I had to speak to Dana again. If nothing else speak to her. I could lie and say that I needed to see her to apologize and call it off, but my emotions were out of control and I knew damn well what I wanted. I wanted her…in whatever way I could have her.
The next time I saw her was at Cammie’s house. She had been trying to avoid me but this time Cammie inadvertently made sure we had to deal with each other—no matter our reservations or out of control passions.
It didn’t help that Dana was wearing a very smoking hot black business wrap dress that ended so elegantly at her thighs and silhouetted her figure beautifully. I was almost out of breath looking at what she had on; and she wasn’t even dressed for me…she was just naturally gorgeous.
“Hey, Conn, can you take Dana downtown for a meeting? I’m swamped.”
I looked at Dana and she looked back at me in speechless thought. We were both a bit scandalized. I was happy of course, since I wanted nothing more than to talk to Dana and find out what happened between us. She seemed reluctant to talk to me at first, but since I was giving her a ride, she finally broke down and chatted in a true moment of honesty.
