Chapter 08: Unwashed is Better
I'm a crewman on a cruise liner. That is an easier description to understand than the exact title the company gives me which is in Greek and virtually untranslatable.
I'm on a year out after finishing my degree. In September I will go back to university on a sponsored Master's but I wanted a break after years of school and university. Working on a cruise liner seemed an ideal way to see some of the world and get paid for it. I am the younger son of a younger son. Grandfather has lands and title. My father and I have to work for our living even if we live in a small corner of a stately home.
The job hasn't turned out to be as wonderful as I thought it would. Whenever we are in port I have work to do and can only manage a couple of hours ashore. That doesn't get me much further than outside the port gates for a few drinks before I'm back on duty. Bars near ports seem the same anywhere in the world, smoky, noisy, dirty and depressing.
What makes it worse is that my mind is elsewhere. Just before I started this job I met a fantastic woman, Gemma. We had just started to develop our relationship when I flew out to join the ship at Naples. She drove me to the airport. That was more than I expected because the flight left at five in the morning. She waited until I had to board. I waited nearly too long to ask.
Ask what? I took my courage in both hands and as we were standing in the airport concourse with only a couple of minutes left I said:
"Gemma, I'm going to be away for a couple of months. I'd like something really personal that is yours to focus my thoughts of you."
"What sort of personal do you mean, Dan?"
"Something that has your scent on it. A scarf, a handkerchief, something like that."
She looked at me with the sort of look women have when they see right through you.
"I don't have a scarf with me. I have one handkerchief and that is clean. It won't smell of anything. I think you want something of mine that you can jack off holding, don't you?"
I blushed. Sometimes I think I still behave like a teenager.
"I would like to dream about you, Gemma." I replied nervously.
"Dreaming? Is that what you call it? Dan, sometimes you are impossible. Why didn't you ask me last night? I could have brought something that would help you dream. Now I have to improvise."
She caught hold of my arm, kicked her shoes off, and before I knew what she intended to do, she reached under her skirt, pulled her panties down and off and shoved them into my trouser pocket.
She had done that for me in the middle of the concourse, surrounded by dozens of people and watched by security cameras. I blushed even brighter. She put her feet back in her shoes, kissed me on the cheek and whispered in my ear.
"Those might help you dream of me, Dan. The scent won't last long because I put them on clean this morning. If you are good and write as you say you will I might, only might, send you more to help you dream."
Then my departure was called. We had a last lingering kiss and I had to leave her. I pushed her panties as far down in the pocket as they would go. I didn't want to risk losing them. They were precious to me.
Once on board I found to my amazement that I had a cabin to myself because of my duties. As an English speaker I had to be on call during the night to deal with emergencies with the passenger cabins. If I had been sharing a cabin the others would have been disturbed every time I was called out by a buzzer above my bunk.
The cabin was tiny. Once the bunk was folded down I had enough room to climb on to it but no more. The advantage was that I could "dream" of Gemma. Her panties across my nose gave me her scent and my imagination did the rest. Many nights I spent with my nose in Gemma's pussy – in dreams of course.
However her scent faded by the end of the first week and my imagination had to work harder without the perfume. Her panties were a tangible reminder of her. I could see her casually slipping out of them in that airport concourse. I loved Gemma for that.
I wrote to her every night and posted the letters every time we were in port. The postage was expensive because I wrote so much. I told her how much I was dreaming about her and I was much more explicit than I want to be in this account.
At the end of the second month we had a free day in Marseilles. I went shopping to buy a present for Gemma. Eventually I found a silver bracelet and arranged for the shop to send it to her.
When I returned to the ship the mail had come. Gemma had sent me a small package that I had to sign for and have scanned by the ship's security X-ray machine. The X-ray showed nothing suspicious so I was allowed to take it to my cabin.
I was impatient to open it. I had just changed from my civvies to my working uniform when the buzzer went and I was off to sort out a blocked washbasin.
The package was still there. I opened it very carefully and inside, in a sealed plastic bag, was another pair of Gemma's panties, which looked identical to the ones I already had. On the plastic was a sticker:
"Do not open until you have read the letter. Gemma."
I reached for the letter and opened the single sheet. It wasn't a letter, not like the ones I had been writing to her, nor like the two I had received from her. It was a short note.
"Darling Dan,
You have been dreaming of me. You tell me so in your letters. I have been "dreaming" of you and your body. I know that the scent has worn off the panties I gave you at the airport so I have "scented" another pair.
The scent is not from a bottle. I wore these panties when I was dreaming about you. I used them and my fingers to try to imagine you inside me. The best I could do was push the panties inside with my fingers. My imagination made the dream "you" cause me to have several orgasms. These panties were soaked with me and I sealed them in the plastic bag as soon as I could.
If you keep the plastic bag sealed when you are not "dreaming", the scent of your Gemma will last longer. Tell me if it works.
I love you.
Gemma."
I daren't open the plastic bag without thinking that Gemma had really declared herself. Who else would have gone so far for a man she won't see for another two months? The silver bracelet, expensive as it was, seemed an inadequate present for so much love.
I was just about to open a corner of the plastic and take a sniff when that bloody buzzer went again. This time it was important. I was summoned to "The Owner's Suite" that is the most expensive accommodation on the ship. The crew had been told to be very careful with the occupiers, Mr. and Mrs. Rubens, who were very important VIPs. We were to leave contact with them to the ship's officers whenever possible and to be on our best behaviour whenever near that suite.
It was a simple but long-winded job. A steward had split some red wine on the carpet. I removed the wine and then the stain. While I was working Mrs. Rubens, the lady occupying the suite, talked to me. Why not? She asked how I liked working on the ship. I answered as I would to anyone else.
"When I first joined I was lonely because most of the crew are Greek and like a close-knit family or a group of friends who have known each other for some time. Although I speak Greek, my Greek is too precise, literate and pedantic. Some of the crew thought I was a company spy."
