Changed Man

“This is good.” I took another big swallow.

“Be careful with that. Bahama Mama will sneak up on you.” There; she actually warned me. That was twice that I’d been warned.

“Hush, child. Let the man drink.”

“That’s right. Let the man drink,” I said and drained the cup to more laughter from Oscar. That was my third and final warning. All of which I ignored.

That being said, I had a great time on the deck of that yacht with Cortisha. We drank, and we smoked, and we laughed at everything and I just enjoyed being out on the water. And we talked about everything. First Cortisha explained to me what a research chemist was and then she told me what she did, and I was fascinated. And even though it probably would have fascinated her, I didn’t tell her what I actually did.

I’m a gambler, a thief and a killer. Oh yeah, and I just recently became a pimp. I laughed to myself.

Instead, I told her about running an after-hours spot and believe me, since I left out the more colorful details, her stories were much more interesting than mine. I have always been a sucker for a good conversation, but talking to Cortisha was different. She wasn’t like most of the women whose company I enjoyed. They were intelligent and street smart, so they could hold a conversation. Cortisha was smart.

I liked that.

I liked talking to her.

Maybe I should have spent more time talking to her and less time fuckin’, I thought, but no. I think we did the right amount of talking and fucking to get us to this point.

“Are you hungry?” Cortisha asked.

“Yeah, I can eat. I haven’t eaten since breakfast,” I said.

Cortisha stood up. “I’m going to go see what there is for us to eat. I’ll be right back.”

“I’ll go with you,” I said and stood up quickly.

And that was the moment I realized that I was fucked up.

“Whoa,” I said and had to grab Cortisha’s arm to keep myself from falling.

“Are you all right?”

“No,” I said and started laughing. “I’m fucked up.”

She laughed. “I did try to warn you.”

“That you did.”

“Can you walk?”

“I think so.” I laughed. “This is not my first time being fucked up.” I took a step and stopped. “But this is my first time being fucked up on a boat in the middle of the ocean, so don’t get too far ahead of me,” I said and we both laughed. I was able to make it below without any assistance from Cortisha. But I wasn’t in the galley long before I knew that sleep was in my future.

I slept for over an hour before Cortisha woke me up to eat. The combination of food and sleep made me feel a lot better. After that, we went back up on deck and spent the rest of the evening talking for I couldn’t tell you how long before we retired to our stateroom and fucked each other to sleep.

As promised, when we woke up, we were docked in Freeport. After we thanked Oscar for his hospitality and for getting us there safely, we got off the boat.

“Well, here we are,” Cortisha said with her arms opened wide. “Freeport.”

I stepped into her arms. “So, what do you want to do?”

“I don’t know. It was the experience of being out on the ocean that I wanted to share with you.” She laughed. “I didn’t have a plan beyond that.”

“Well, let’s find someplace to stay and something to eat and we’ll take it from there.”

“Sounds good.”

We got in the first cab we found, and he took us to the Lucayan Beach Hotel. They didn’t have a room ready for us, so we had brunch in the hotel restaurant and hung out there until our room was ready.