Water Lily Girl Ch 01

A "Love in Lovett County" Story

Revision 2.0 - September 2009

Copyright© 2007 by Stultus

Synopsis: An unhappy weekend fisherman is mired in a loveless marriage and meets a lovely lady who is mired up to her neck in mud of a different sort. He becomes very fond of her company, but becomes torn emotionally. Should he even attempt to save his own badly failing marriage or should he now cast his nets instead for the Marsh King's daughter?

Genre: Romantic

Codes: MF, Cheating Wife, Romantic

Originally Published on SOL: 06-03-2007

*****

Thanks to my original Editor for this story Gandalf4217, and also to Dragonsweb and Sue for their later assistance.

At first I thought that this early Lovett story was in fairly decent editing shape, and that it only needed a few lingering typos to be fixed. Once I started to work on this story it received significant additional additions and rewrites (40% more new material) to hopefully much improve the story flow. I also fixed a small but important bit of Lovett character background information which was originally completely inaccurate.

********

Down by the water, the Marsh King's daughter, did you know?

Clothed in tatters always will be. Tom, where did you go?

Grateful Dead -- Mountains of the Moon (Hunter, Lesh, Garcia)

******

My company recently switched to a revised work schedule where we received every other Monday or Friday off, in return for adding an extra hour to each normal workday. Most of the employees, well just about everyone other than management, loved this idea, especially since we were all working mostly ten to twelve hours a day anyway. This was a decree from our CEO, from his ivory tower far above us, in response to an edict from the Mayor who wanted to lower the city's traffic and pollution issues. The cynical side of me said that this token agreement with the Mayor was actually part of a quid-pro-quo; we'd reduce our carbon footprint in return for the city's legal office dropping its objection to the new monstrous eyesore of a parking garage our company had wanted to construct, on a parcel of land previous zoned as residential use only.

Cynicism or not, I was feeling quite overworked enough that the idea of enjoying an extra day off every two weeks suited me just fine. In fact, I knew exactly how I wanted to spend this bonus freedom time... fishing!

Before I got married a few years ago, I used to spend an inordinate amount of time and money fishing; all very well spent in my opinion. I didn't actually catch a whole lot, but I got a little exercise, too much sun, and just the right amount of relaxation and 'play' to keep my nerves wonderfully distressed. I never should have quit.

Wanda, my rather grouchy wife, hates anything sport related with a passion, and considers even ten minutes of holding a fishing rod and reel to be valuable time forever wasted. She never quite comes out and says it, but I could tell she thinks all fisherman are wastrels, prone to sloth and laziness. This reaction is probably due to her father, who also loved to fish. Just on principle and to be contrary, Wanda hates anything her father loved. He's long dead now, but the loathing continues.

It's very hard sometimes living with my wife... she's definitely has a few issues that need to be worked out.

My wife Wanda and I both work for a huge insurance mega corporation that in turn owns and controls a gazillion other insurance companies and other marginally related subsidiaries. We each technically work for 'different companies' and our offices are in completely separate buildings at opposite ends of the big corporate campus so we hardly ever saw each other at work. Once in a very great while I'll see her at our main cafeteria, but most of the time she eats at her desk. We even drive in to work separately in our own cars, as we both had very fluid schedules.

I work as a regional Sales Manager for one of the smaller minnow companies our corporate overlords owned and controlled, and I work a fairly weird schedule, where I would often suddenly have to go out on the road for a week or two straight, but then I could be 'home' for the next month or so. My direct boss supervised a group of nearly a dozen other sales managers with territories just as profitable as or even better than mine. At least half of my peers were highly aggressive and ultra-competitive go-getters that gave at least 110% effort and battled for every dollar they could add to their regions bottom line. I took my work seriously, but adding another $100k of revenue into my region didn't add a single penny onto my paycheck. Accordingly my effort stopped at about exactly 100%.

My chances for promotion could be measured on two fingers - slim and none, but I didn't particularly much care. The salary was ok, my boss wasn't too insane and had a fairly liberal comp-time policy, and now with the new corporate 'eco-friendly' work program, I could now enjoy an additional two Friday's a month to start fishing once again. Life ought to have been pretty good for me, but somehow it wasn't.

Wanda supervised a Claims Department for a slightly more profitable division with lots of top executive micro-management, and unlike me she was on the 'fast-track' for promotion. She worked 12 hour days even before the big work schedule change, and most weekends also. Often now she would work on Sunday's as well, which used to be 'our day' together to do fun things. The thoughts of more money and higher promotion were driving her, and she failed to see why I could not enjoy similar success in my own department, the facts of reality notwithstanding.

The very cynical side of me was also rather perturbed that she seemed to be unusually close to her boss and I sometimes strongly suspected that if she was not already having an affair it would just be a matter of time.

Frankly, it was no surprise at all to find that Wanda had elected to take the Monday's off option. I don't know if she did it on purpose just to be contrary, of if she thought that the prospect of an occasional three-day weekend at home with her husband was just too terrible to be contemplated. Her official reasoning was that Friday was just too much of a busy workday for her, filled with constant meetings where her presence was critical. I didn't quite buy that story, but had the good sense to let the matter quickly drop. It went without saying that she was going to continue to work her normal full work schedule, regardless of any scheduled days off.

It was about this point that my cynical side managed to convince the more rational and easy-going part of my nature that something was very seriously wrong with our marriage.

*********

For my first free Friday of fishing freedom, I went down to Galveston to discover that the big fishing pier I used to fish at was now closed. It had been damaged as the result of a tropical storm last year and had not been repaired or rebuilt. Undaunted, I started to drive down the coast towards San Luis Pass, a place I often used to fish when I was younger. This pier had closed as well. Shore erosion and a change of current had turned this section of beach into a shallow tidal flat of pretty much barren sand, and no new pier had taken its place.

In the end, I spent the late afternoon trying my luck at the small public pier in Port Lavaca. I had never caught anything here before and today's luck was no exception. Dejected and without any fish, I returned home.

Two weeks later I started all over again, this time starting my search from Port Lavaca and heading further south. Other than surf fishing locations, I really didn't find any suitable piers, jetties or even old boat landing suitable for an afternoon's fishing. By the time I reached the end of the coastal road, where it intersected a small county road leading to a small town called Lovett, I was about out of ideas and ambition. Fortunately, the view was spectacular enough that I stopped the car for awhile to appreciate what I was seeing. Apparently, this stretch of coastline was a designated nude beach, and there were a few rather attractive young women out enjoying the sun, sans clothing. Nice scenery, but I eventually had to remind myself that I was in fact a married man, albeit a not terribly happy one at the moment.

The first young college aged couple that I asked directions from were also visitors here as well, but they suggested that I take the rather poor county coastal road that paralleled the beach for about a mile or so until I came to an open grass covered tiki bar drink shack under construction in the dunes on the left. The guy there should be able to help me, they thought. And he in fact could.

The guy building the drink shack, Phil, was a fairly surly sort of gent in his mid-thirties who oozed annoyance and misery out of nearly every pore of his body. My first thought was that Phil had decided to save time and have his mid-life crisis a little early and be done with it. He was relatively new to the area as well, but suggested that I keep going straight down this road for another few miles until it curved to the right at the edge of Lovett Bay and then down for another mile or so until I reached the Marsh-King's shack. I couldn't miss it, he said.

Well I did. Somehow I ended up on another tiny dirt lane somewhere out in the middle of the coastal marshlands. In one of the shallow road dips, my car got somewhat stuck into a muddy sinkhole, but nothing that a few good solid rocks or a stiff wooden board under the tire wouldn't fix, to allow me to drive out of it.

I got out of the car, gave the stuck tire a kick and looked around a bit but didn't see or hear anything or anyone nearby. No immediate help here I thought. I gave the tire another kick and proceeded to walk back down the road towards the bay. It wasn't all that far away, I thought, and would be the best place to find rocks, driftwood, or even the elusive Marsh-King.

Just a few hundred yards down the road, I came to a fairly large clearing in the marsh, where the coastal grass and other tall swamp plants didn't block the view from the road as much, and my brooding thoughts gave way to other more immediate concerns.

*********

I thought I was well and truly mired in my own problems when I saw a young lady trapped in far worse trouble. She seemed to be stuck in an especially deep salt marsh pool up to near her neck, and the tide was starting to come in from the bay! I hollered over to her to ask her if she did indeed need help.

"Certainly not!" She retorted. "I often come here to get myself stuck into the mud up to my tits for over two hours. It's the 'in thing' this season at all of the ritziest spas and salons, and lucky me I have all the mud I could ever need for as far as the eye can see."

She continued.

"A proper gentleman would also have already come into the water to assist me, but if you're here as I think you are to net your own bait mud minnows then I don't want your help anyway, as you're stealing food from off of our family's table."

She then gave me as good of a sulk as a woman stuck up to her chin immobile could manage. Her face was very expressive and I had to give the lower lip pout extra bonus points as well. She actually didn't seem particularly annoyed, and her attitude was really probably more 'playful' than anything else.

I decided to play right back. My father was very jovial man who knew over a thousand silly songs and ballads from the dim hoary past, and I inherited his humor and a joy of senseless silliness. I decided it was time to brighten her day a little bit.

"Alas, I have only been here for but a few moments, but as I can tell right away, you appear to be a most truthful lass and unlike a certain other lady that I will not deign to mention here, you would certainly never prevaricate, fib, utter an untruth or even wildly exaggerate the facts."

"Concerning your tits, I must apologize that I cannot see them at all from this angle to properly appreciate and expound on their undoubted exceptional beauty. I will correct that oversight at once after your release from the mire has been secured, and undoubtedly I shall give them a more than high appraisal, assuming that you don't prefer instead to remain where you are and shortly start to gurgle salt water. I do hear that brine is a sovereign remedy for a sore throat!"

Her look of bemused annoyance was priceless and I couldn't resist verbally prodding my captive audience some more.

"Lastly, I am but indeed a stranger to these parts and if, as you so sweetly suggest, that your family enterprises include a bait shop then I would indeed be overjoyed to make their acquaintance and offer them my paying custom. Besides, the mud looks extremely sticky today and I'd much rather that someone else other than me gets stuck in it."

With that she stuck her tongue out at me, but she didn't otherwise look too crossly at me, and when indeed the rising tidal water began to splash at her mouth, she decided my assistance wouldn't be quite so bad after all, but by then I was already splashing my way over to her.

She indeed was sunk into the mud right up to her chest with nearly a foot of salt water flowing above that. I could also tell at a glance that those tits were also bare of any covering. I grabbed a hold of her arm and despite giving it a good solid pull I couldn't pull her lose. I was going to have to move quickly, as now I was starting to sink into the mud as well.

"Since that didn't work m'lady, I'm afraid I'm going to have to take overly familiar advantage of you and be very forward indeed."

Moving behind her, I found a relatively firm patch of ground and I crouched down on my knees and wrapped both of my hands around the undersides of her breasts, which felt firm and nice and quite good sized, and began pulling her straight up out of the mud. When I had freed her butt from out of the mud I then moved my left arm under her ass (which also appeared to be delightfully fabric free) and lifted her completely free from the mud and water. I then started to carry her toward the safety of the road, cradling her quite firmly in my arms.

She squawked and kicked a little bit, but I didn't let her down until she was on firm ground, next to some bags and a backpack I assumed was hers. She let out a final huff of mock annoyance at the affront to her dignity, and she sat down next to the water and began to wash the mud off of herself.

The view was very much now improved, and I told her so. She was indeed a very good looking woman, seemingly about approximately 30 or so and with no discernable tan lines and extremely nice full breasts that seemingly utterly defied gravity and showed the promise of continuing to do so for a good many more years to come. She wasn't quite technically fully nude but she might as well have been so. Her sole attire was a bright red micro-thong that just barely covered her vaginal lips, and when wet the thin mesh cloth exposed every secret feature of her sex. If I wasn't married already, I would have been offering all of those promised praises of her figure... and more. Damn!

I asked her if she had any further service that she required of me, otherwise I was off to start my quest to find the mentioned bait shop, and with a mock bow I turned to leave her.

"I don't kiss, let alone fuck married men." She said out of the blue after I had taken just a few steps away from her. I guess she had noticed my wedding band; I certainly hadn't tried to hide it.

"Now there's a coincidence - neither do I!" I replied, and tipped my fishing hat to her and left her to smolder dark thoughts at my back.

I never got the last word, ever, at home. This once I was able to enjoy it, and I walked off loudly singing an silly 18th century ballad that I felt was sure would offer the maximum possible annoyance value, especially the "Heigh ho! Sing tol de rol, de riddle row with a ling dong dilly dol kiro me" refrain part.

After another twenty yards down the road, I found a nice large piece of an old sign board and I returned to my car (after offering another mock bow to my fair rescued maiden) and soon had my car out of the mud hole. I just kept going onwards, back towards town where I stopped the first rancher I could find to get some better directions to the Marsh-King's place.

These new directions were much clearer and easier. Taking the county road that lead from the beach towards Lovett, I was directed to take the Rockport road and make a left after three or four miles to the edge of the county line where I would find right before the wooden bridge over the Lovett River a small dirt road that would lead directly to the Marsh-King house and boat dock. Sure enough, these directions were spot on accurate, complete with road signs at each of the appropriate road turn-offs.

Taking this last meandering dirt road down the side of the small bay, the road ended suddenly in a 'T', with an old weathered sign that said "Marsh-King Bait and Boat Dock" to the right, and I followed it. Nearly immediately I could see a small house on raised beams above a large salt marsh island close to the sandy shore. At the beach there was a boat dock with a bait shop at the base of a long wooden walkway. This must be the aforementioned family enterprise, and it was.

This long wooden walkway bridge connected the house with the shore, and further on past the house the bridge became a lighted pier that extended about another fifty yards into the deeper parts of the bay.

"The Marsh King" himself, an older gentleman by the name of Jack Marsh, bid me welcome and offered a full assortment of bait at a more than reasonable price. I decided that I was after flounder today, since we had just had a big cold front pass yesterday that might have triggered the start of the fall migration of the flounder out from the shallow bays and marshes and out into the Gulf, and his stock of mud minnows were exactly what I needed.

I mentioned that I thought I had met his daughter earlier out mucking about in the marshes, and I asked him what she did out there. His reply was actually rather surprising, she was not after mud minnows but was there collecting water lilies to sell to big city landscapers and garden shops that built fish ponds and water gardens. There was supposedly a special type she wanted, right now that had a lovely late fall bloom, that she could sell for a bit more than usual right now. This sounded like fun actually! My 'Water Lily Girl' seemed quite the model of practical industry!

I fished for the remainder of the afternoon all along the pier and I did catch a nice pair of plump flounders, and when evening came I switched to live shrimp for bait to see if I could also catch a few trout or even a redfish or two under the pier lights. After awhile, Jack came out to join me on the pier with his own fishing pole, and while we didn't have any further luck that early evening (the current was a bit strong today making the water too sandy for good visibility) we did share a few beers and chatted very pleasantly for several hours.

He and his wife, Electra King (she kept her maiden name), were a couple of characters that were strange enough to be straight out of Hollywood central casting. His family was originally a part of wealthy shipping company in New England, but his father had moved to Lovett just after getting out of the Navy in World War 2. Besides, as he whispered to me in mock secrecy, his father wanted to put as many miles between himself and the 'bad Marsh's of New England" as he could get.

Jack had been born in Lovett but served in the Navy himself for two tours in Vietnam, as the sun faded tattoos on his arms indicated. Apparently he had been a Navy SEAL, but he wouldn't talk at all about his wartime service.