Why else was it so easy to shrug his shoulders and say ‘fine’ when Darlene turned up her nose at a fancy restaurant? The fact that their date kicked off in some dive of a bowling alley did not matter when you had a luxury yacht or two just a short walk away to make up for it. Of-course Kurt had made sure that a vessel was available for his use and that one just happened to be Arial.
‘Why wait for some day?’ Kurt replied to Darlene’s speculation. ‘If it’s something that you’d like then we can make it happen now.’
‘If it’s something you would like’, he had said, as if it could possibly fail in sweeping a girl off her feet. In this, he would have to admit, he had Mr Clive Furse to thank. Though Darlene would have been on numerous ocean voyages when her parents had taken advantage of the fleet themselves and taken her on holiday, the reality was that they had always been family affairs. She had never been out on the ocean with friends, or with a date for that matter – and so the idea was still exotic to her.
‘What do you mean?’ she asked, showing genuine surprise at the idea. ‘You can’t be taking out the company’s yachts.’
‘What do you mean, Darlene?’ he replied. ‘Of course I can.’
‘You… you can’t do that?’
‘I can.’
‘How?’
‘Darlene, if there’s one person who’s able to take the yachts out whenever he likes it’s the guy whose job it is to maintain them. Unless you think there’s someone else around here who would do a better job?’
‘But what about fuel and stuff?’
‘Where are you expecting me to take you? Hawaii?’ he said, laughing as he deliberately misunderstood.
‘No, it’s just… isn’t everything audited?’
In your dad’s world, he nearly found himself replying.
‘Sure, but there’s always a bit of leeway,’ he explained. ‘Part of maintaining the fleet means taking them out for test runs every now and then. If you think you’ll enjoy it why don’t we head on out there now?’
Darlene remained in protest for a bit longer, pulling a face that suggested they would be doing something naughty. That only encouraged him more; there are few things that turn a guy on more than being able to demonstrate to a lady how free his lifestyle is.
‘Come on,’ he said, after she had been wavering for a while and just needed a bit of a push. ‘If we get out there in the next 40 minutes we’ll be able to watch the sunset. Always beautiful to see.’
Sporting a furrowed brow, undoubtedly the whole idea of being out on the ocean remained surreal to Darlene. She allowed her to lead him nevertheless; that was all that mattered.
After getting hold of some takeaway fries and a milkshake, they were soon trotting
off down the harbor, chatting away about some of the memories they had of being at sea. Kurt found that Darlene had become steadily easier to speak to all evening and sensed that she was relaxing in his company. That was probably a significant step considering she had very little experience of coercing with the opposite sex, and the idea that his invitation was helping her to come out of her shell somewhat was a pleasing one. Even though it came via an ulterior motive, it felt good – for some reason.
As usual the harbor was fairly busy. Lots of people licking ice creams and eating donuts while, for a most part, the yachts were largely coming in rather than setting out. Experienced as he was, however, Kurt knew where the best spots were to avoid any incoming traffic. While also knowing that, as long as conditions were favourable, and there were no clusters of islands to look out for, manning a vessel is actually easier at night so long as everyone remembers to turn their lights on. That was only because he knew what he was doing – and he was looking forward to impressing Darlene by showing her how capable he was.
‘Here’s the one for us,’ he announced, much to his date’s surprise as they came upon Arial.
‘This one? You’re joking, aren’t you?’ she asked, genuinely astounded. He could tell what she was thinking; this yacht is far too big and impressive for just the two of us.
Exactly!
‘Or we can go find a bigger one, if you like,’ he feigned, pretending to misunderstand again.
‘What? That’s not what I meant. Surely you’re not going to take this out on your own?’
‘Not on my own – with you,’ he replied, resisting looking up at her to see the look of shock on her face and adding, ‘Come on then, hop on.’
‘With me? I’m of no use, believe me,’ she warned, though accepting his hand and stepping on board.
The next half an hour progressed just as Kurt had envisioned. Him appearing deliberately far too laid back about taking the yacht out to sea, in order to keep Darlene permanently poised between being impressed and alarmed. Watching her shoulder some of the responsibility was also fun, as he casually requested she take over the controls for a couple of minutes on their way out. Of-course he was not giving her any real command, only the illusion of it, but it was enough to make her feel high with having the control of a luxury yacht at her fingertips. At the same time, taking the controls back off her just as the panic was about to become unbearable made him feel heroic.
Soon they had negotiated their way passed all the other vessels, then subsequently the navigational buoy that indicated they were out on the open ocean. Kurt didn’t happen to mention that aiming for the buoy allowed him to be confident that none of the incoming vessels were going to hit them, only saying ‘Trust me, it’s all going textbook’, every time Darlene tried to call for caution in case one of the other yachts suddenly swerved their way.
‘I do this all the time,’ he assured, wondering whether having her put so much trust in him would lead to her letting him man another kind of ship before the night was out.