Taken (Dark Desires 1)

Although the day was only for maintenance, Kurt enjoyed spending time on Arial anyway and thought he would have time to test its performance out on the water at the end of the day, so long as the weather remained calm. He had always felt grateful for the company’s market position; in that they were neither at the high nor the low end of the market. Their clients were rich enough so that they did not have to scrape around in order to stay afloat, while they did not have to worry about maintaining the giant vessels that the super-rich billionaires craved either. That would have meant supervising a massive team of people and having little time for the solitude he enjoyed. As it was, however, the company only needed to employ half a dozen maintenance engineers, whom he was able to personally train and build up strong and trusted relationships with, as well as a dozen cleaning staff. The crews that clients required to take them out on the water were employed on a per-job basis – though he occasionally did that himself also.

All in all, the job and the demands upon him were just how he liked them. Kurt knew he was very lucky and had no complaints. Although there was a certain doubt that something was missing. It would have been self-indulgent to complain or linger over what that might be, but he would occasionally find himself looking around as if he was not one of the luckiest guys in Oregon.

Whenever he got that feeling it had become a habit to go looking for girls to obscure whatev

er the problem was. Being in great shape – and with a selection of luxury yachts to choose from – Kurt did not find drawing female attention very difficult. Deep down he knew that the money, the ocean and the cocktails made that a lot easier than it otherwise would be, though it was also safe to say that he was pretty confident with the ladies anyway. Sexual conquest was as much a part of the landscape as the sea and the sky. The only complication being, because everyone knew where to find him, that of avoiding several bitter ex-girlfriends who had thought to accompany him and his lifestyle a bit more permanently.

Darlene represented something different, however. That much was clear from the start.

It was not that he had not gone for girls who could be considered ‘hard to get’ before, but they had usually come with the surroundings. Darlene might have had a direct connection with him as a Furse, but she clearly came from a part of society unlike his own. Her family lived its life very differently to what he was familiar with and, if it was not for business, the two of them would probably never have met.

Why was he singling her out for the extra effort, therefore? It was not an easy question to answer, despite how attractive she was. Even without the complication of risking upset to inter-family unity, the flirtation might have seemed unfeasible. For some reason, he couldn’t get her out of his head all that day, however, and thinking on how to get near to her was clearly clouding his vision as to why she was worth the effort when there were more convenient hot bodies to go chasing.

As predicted, getting in touch with her was not as easy as contact is with most people these days. Without the chance to ask for her phone number, he was reliant on social media. However, he was right to predict, before even checking, that the Furses had not developed much enthusiasm for that side of things either. Though in that sense they were very much alike (Kurt thought of Facebook as a waste of time unless all you cared about was being nosey). But he did have an account nevertheless and Darlene having one would have made matters simpler there and then. All he found was an empty icon next to the name Darlene Furse, which suggested that she might have had an account at some time and deleted it (or else someone of the same name), but that was all and of no use. Twitter and Instagram then seemed like long shots and proved to be so, with Kurt even thinking he would have to resort to some Romeo and Juliet-style calling up at her bedroom window instead. That was before he thought of LinkedIn, however, and there she was.

Like all the other social media sites, Kurt’s presence on there was an unenthusiastic one. He had done nothing with the account, to keep him in touch with ex-colleagues and fellow professionals or otherwise, but he did have one. A curious mugshot of Darlene also answered to his search and so there was his means of contact.

After punching the air, he spent a few moments wondering why she had chosen such a furtive looking pic. She looked more like the Darlene who had jetted off to the East Coast three years back; plain and not even showing off her best feature in that she was not smiling. It looked very much like she was reticent about the picture being taken at all… but no matter. He would be able to say he had made a use of LinkedIn at last, as he clicked on the friend’s request feature and typed in the message box: ‘Good to see you again Darlene! You still up for that date? Kurt.’

He had to wait an hour for a response, during which time he did wonder whether Darlene still had an email connected to the site. The truth is that there are so many disconnected and half-hearted accounts littering the online world that is supposed to be running our lives, but he was to get lucky. His fascination was not completely unreachable after all and so her response came back:

‘I am if you are. What do you have in mind?’

‘There are some nice restaurants with sea views here,’ he replied. ‘I could pick you up one evening and choose one of them. I was just wondering how to prize you away from your parents without them knowing.’

‘There are some old friends I can claim to be meeting up with,’ she replied. ‘If you can pick me up from town instead?’

Awesome, he thought, not only had she not changed her mind, she’s already been thinking of the logistics. It all boded well for what kind of date they would have. Plus, going behind their parents’ backs was proving more of a turn-on than he had realized it would.

‘How about this Friday?’ he then asked.

‘Thursday would be better. Less obvious,’ she replied. ‘Also, is there something more casual than a restaurant? I’ve met a few more of dad’s clients since I got back and some of them might be hanging around near the harbor.’

Well, this is a first, thought Kurt, a girl asking me to think less extravagantly when I’m trying to get her into bed. Everything about the scenario was suggesting that dating Darlene was going to be very different to anyone he had dated before – and he was all for embracing the draw of mysterious waters.

‘How about the bowling alley? As long as you don’t expect me to be any good at it,’ he then suggested.

‘That sounds like a better option. Though I’d be nervous of doing it.’

Nervous of doing what? he thought. Had she seriously been so held back from youthful pursuits that she had never been in a bowling alley?

This girl was reserved; seriously so. And yet she was still saying ‘Yes’ and allowing him to lead with the suggestions, giving him the impression that he had come along at exactly the right time for what he most desired: a quest of mutual discovery.

‘As I say, it’s not something I’m great at,’ he replied. ‘Will just be nice to have your company without the parents. I didn’t really feel I could ask you about college with them there.’

He realized that response eluded to wild times she was supposed to have had that she possibly hadn’t, but it would still serve as a convenient conversation topic. The fascination as to whether Darlene was a dark horse with a more expansive lifestyle or else someone who had hardly known a man’s touch had not lessened since the dinner.

The correspondence drew to a close then. Having agreed a date, Darlene asked for his mobile number and only told him to head to the centre of Portland at 6pm on Thursday. It was clear that she was intending on giving someone the slip before seeking him out and probably because her parents would insist on dropping her off in town. All of which only made Kurt more excited.

They were playing with fire in a way, even though it was not obvious how fierce the flames were. Was Mr Furse an overprotective parent whose amiable outer shell would crack if he heard of a bad boy carting his little girl off, or would he suck it all up and carry on as normal? It was hard to read because it was hard to imagine him in a state of fury but, either way, he was not one for conducting relationships in a ‘proper’ fashion. Kurt was not about to trot up to the man’s door and ask for permission to take his daughter out to dinner. Rather he’d have as much fun as he could before be deciding whether or not it was in his interests to involve parents at all (and almost certainly not). So, sneaking around was going to be in order – if, that is, she did not turn out to be one of those girls who demanded his hand in marriage before hands were allowed below the neck and above the knee.

Anything was possible, but that was exactly how Kurt preferred life to be. Like an ocean voyage, it was all about embracing mystery and allowing fate and destiny to seek you out if it so chose.

Thursday evening came and Kurt sat parked up in the Pearl District of Portland, thrumming his fingers on his steering wheel and wondering whether to go and get a coffee somewhere.

It was 5:15 and he was early – mostly through not wanting to be late, but the traffic had been kind. There was only 45 minutes to wait, by which time Darlene should have called him and let him know where she could be picked up from. The older he got, however, the more Kurt found that he became bored very easily and so he sat in his car feeling tetchy and uncertain.

Why that might be was something of a puzzle, being the laid-back type. But it was almost as if some outside force was telling him that time was precious and not to sit idle.