I thenused a large black plastic hair claw to clip my long blonde hair up,and tucked the stray strands behind my ears.Looking in the mirror, the refle...tion staring back was that of amiddle aged woman. My 16 year old male brain was still struggling toprocess the image. I put some bangles on my left arm, and a watch onmy right, before putting in some gold hoop earrings, struggling alittle with my nails, but eventually getting them in. The mascara mademy already heavy eyelashes feel even heavier,. He was not a creature of mists and dreams, but a being of substance and life. The mattress shifted when he moved, and his weight crushed me into it. His breath warmed me as he held me against his chest afterward.When I awoke a seemingly short time later, it was light, and he was gone. I sat up and looked around, feeling bereft. The t-shirt and panties I had worn to bed were laying on the floor. Again, the delicious ache of lust, of being used and fucked and loved, assaulted my body. I rose and. ‘Do you hear that?’ he said. ‘There’s a vehicle in the woods over there, not far from here. I bet you at that last fork in the road we should have turned right instead of left.’ They got back into the rental and drove back about a kilometer. The bottoms of the clouds above them were darkening, threatening an early evening downpour. Shadows stretched long about them, the autumn light already fading as the sun dropped below the surrounding hills. Soon their little rental was bouncing along in an. We spent a few hours learning about each other, all of us, my new crew TAGHTA and I. By the time we returned to the marina, I was confident about the capabilities of both crew and yacht. Over dinner that evening, we scheduled the shakedown cruise south to Plymouth to commence the following weekend. We also planned the route and agreed not to push it too hard to begin with. We would not sail at night until we got to know TAGHTA better. A provisional route across the English Channel to Guernsey.