Chapter One

A crisp wind chilled her cheek and blew her matted hair across her eyes so that she couldn’t see the shoreline clearly. On this gray, foggy afternoon, the Gull Island ferry loped through November’s choppy waters, pushing its way unhurriedly against the current. Some weathercasters predicted snow by nightfall. Mariel considered the thought romantic, to be trapped on a windswept, snow-covered island, harbored inside a warm lodge—air steeped in the smells of cinnamon and fresh baked bread while a blizzard blew outside.

Albert would be there. A little, ticklish tease skirted about the inside of her panties at the thought of her fiancé. Tall, straight, handsome, eager—his smile could win a hundred hearts and had broken several in his last semester at college. He wore his tenderness and vulnerability on starched shirtsleeves, was visited by demons—self-doubt and predictability—and lived for Mariel Fitzgerald’s approval.

Her eyes searched the evaporating clouds for Albert, hoping to see him standing vigil in anticipation of her arrival. Two weeks was much too long between visits for their recently cemented relationship. He loved the idea of her, while she loved her need for him—a need as sexual as it was emotional and romantic. He’d spent hours talking of his family’s island retreat… how they’d scour the attic for artifacts of his family history, make love in the cellar… hold hands walking on the beach, and roast marshmallows in his secret boyhood hideaway—a secluded cave on the quiet side of this serene island. At the moment, however, all the romance of this visit seemed extraneous to her greater need. Every nerve in her was frayed for lack of satiated lust. For days, her dreams and nightmares had been filled with thoughts of body parts colliding. Cock. Cunt. Humping. Albert’s stiff erection banging her crotch to ruthless completion. What he loved about her, but had not the courage to discuss was the unbridled force of her unleashed sexual desire. He remained in awe of it—and so did she.

Their last night together two weeks before, they’d met in Darby’s pub, just outside the university, drank beer, played darts with Sid and Hannah, then screwed in the alley, in an alcove lined with brick and collegiate ivy. Before they landed in that alley hot and horny, they’d been playing touchy/feely games under the table. Albert had pressed his hand to her thigh, and she squirmed with the first recognition of sexual juices flowing. Sid dared the girls to take off their panties right in the booth where they’d been eating fish and chips and pepperoni pizza. With skirts on, there were no excuses, so the two hiked them high and squirmed their way out of their bikini briefs, laying them on the table, while sporting great grins of inebriated triumph. Albert’s hand kept Muriel's skirt pushed back enough to dig in and find her pussy seeping love juice. Mariel blushed seeing Sid’s randy eyes focused on the covert activity—there really was a prudish side to her character that shunned overt exhibition. But being drunk took all the filters for appropriate behavior and pushed them off like used campaign