What would you do if you won the lottery?
Cruise the French Riviera on a yacht filled with nubile and eager models? Check.
Throw lavish parties and revel in the attention showered upon you? Check.
Perhaps even give lavishly to charities like you always? Check.
What if it wasn't enough?
Inconceivable is the steamy tale of a man who overnight is granted the ability to buy anything, except for the one thing he desires, and his exciting and dangerous adventures on his quest for the thing which all men seek, but few ever find.
Author's Note: This is a full novel which I've split into four easily consumable sections. All characters are over eighteen. Enjoy!
***
Chapter One
"What line of work are you in, friend?"
It was an innocent enough question, but all I really wanted to do was enjoy the calm of the ocean while I watched the sun slowly drop into the waves. Perhaps I would even glimpse the green flash mariners whispered about. I knew it was unlikely I would deter my congenial companion, but perhaps I could bend the truth a bit and ward him off using boredom.
"Insurance.," I said nonchalantly.
"No shit? How's that treatin' you?"
He seemed to be a pleasant enough fellow. Likely recently retired and beginning what I suspected would be a few decades of traveling before he got too old for the pain-in-the-ass of traveling to be worth it anymore. He had a sunburn which spoke of a recent arrival in the tropics. It usually only took one day in the sun to realize that you were not in the States anymore, and that fifteen unprotected minutes could lead to a week of misery. He was also the only other person on the trip who was not part of a couple. I knew I had, at most, one chance to prevent him from spending the rest of the trip attached to my hip.
"I can't complain," I shook my nearly empty can of beer and said, "I'm out. You want another one?"
He shook his head. I made my way to the galley to collect another of the surprisingly good local beers. I stopped off at the head on my way. Hoping that enough time would pass to allow my interrogator to find another victim.
As I made my way back to the bow, I noticed that my gambit had been successful. He had found a new victim in a younger man whose partner appeared to be sleeping. I resumed my position in the bow, watching the water and enjoying the serenity the ocean provided.
It had been a good day, even a great day. I had been looking forward to this dive for years and today I had finally seen the
Bianca C
with my own eyes. It had been a challenging dive, especially considering her depth of over fifty meters, but she had lived up to the billing of the Caribbean's best wreck dive. I once again caught myself wishing Janice had come along, but that was just muscle memory.
We had booked this trip over a year ago. In a way I think we both hoped this trip would prove to be another honeymoon and re-kindle the spark in our marriage. Unfortunately, she had sat me down for the talk five weeks before we were scheduled to depart. Our marriage was not rocky, or difficult, or fiery. It was not any of the adjectives people apply to failing marriages. It was just...nothing.
We had been close friends in college who became friends with benefits our senior year. We moved in together after we graduated. She had found a great job with an engineering firm in Asheville. We bought a house there and I found a job with a small insurance company as a software developer. After we had been there for a year, I decided to propose to her. We got married a year later and were nearing out five-year anniversary.
In hindsight, I should have known it could never work before the wedding even arrived. We never fought but we also never found the level of passion you see in romance novels, or even some action movies. When we made love on our wedding night, it was the first time we had been intimate in nearly three months. By the time our marriage hit its first birthday the sexy time had dried up again. I tried setting up romantic date nights, or even getaways, but these things have a momentum of their own. Once you have gone a few months without being intimate with your partner it starts to get weird. And that makes the next time even less likely to happen. By the time she told me she wanted a divorce, we had gone exactly fifteen hundred days without having sex. I feel quite certain she was unaware of the round number significance of that particular day. I only knew because as our sex life first started to fade away, I had started keeping track. Initially I did it to prove to myself that I was wrong about how things were going. Then it turned into this constant voice in the back of my head telling me how long it had been.
When she finally told me she wanted a divorce, it had been a relief. We had both been thinking about splitting up for years but neither of us wanted to say anything because we were still good friends. We still enjoyed doing stuff together. The problem was that we were roommates, not a couple. As we started to decide how we would split everything up, the topic of the trip had come up. We had not purchased trip insurance, and it was too late to cancel without losing all the money. In the end, we decided to make the trip anyway. She was spending her days at the beach or shopping in St. George's. I was spending my days scuba diving. Today was the last day of the trip. Tomorrow would be the return to reality and the spiritual end of our marriage.
***
When I got back to our hotel room, Janice greeted me with a smile and said, "So? Was it everything you hoped it would be?"
"Yeah," I said. "It was awesome. Great weather and perfect visibility. Another item checked off the bucket list."
"That's great, Tim. You got any plans for dinner?"
"Not really. I guess I was just going to hit up the hotel bar and grab something."
She said, "Why don't we have dinner together? I know this whole trip has been really awkward, but I think we can do at least one thing together. After all, we're still friends and I hope we could still have fun together."
I smiled at her and said, "Sure, Janice. That'd be great. Lemme grab a quick shower and then we can head out."
I grabbed some clean clothes and headed into the bathroom, our relationship long ago having dropped below the level of seeing each other naked. Twenty minutes later I opened the door to the bathroom and Janice was still getting dressed, standing in front of the mirror in a black bra and a pair of white shorts. She still looked great, even on this side of thirty. She had gained less than ten kilograms since college, which was better than I could say, and her body still looked great. She had amazing C-cup breasts and short auburn hair which she wore in a style she called a bob. She also had a wonderfully rounded ass which the shorts she'd chosen tonight highlighted to perfection. I cleared my throat nervously, aware of the breach in protocol.
She turned to look at me and started to cover herself before saying, "You know what? Fuck it. It's not like you haven't seen them before."
