Icebound

[

Note: this is an entry in an "

exactly 750-words

" writing exercise.

]

"Sell the

Amelia

and fly home from here?" I asked, not being able to hide the distress in my voice in the response to my wife's suggestion. But I could see in her face that it was more than a suggestion—that it was more of a demand.

"I couldn't possibly part with the sailboat," I added. "It would be like parting with you. It's even named for you."

I could immediately see that that was a mistake. The look Amelia gave me showed that she really was talking about splitting with me. We'd married in England while we both were vacationing there. It had been a quick decision, and I should have known it was a bad one. I had been sailing the world in a gap year between undergraduate and graduate studies. Once married, she'd agreed to sail the renamed

Amelia

back to Boston from Southampton with me. Even when she agreed, though, I could tell she didn't like the idea. Having made it to Iceland, I couldn't say I didn't know that she hated the idea—and that she wasn't all that wild about living on a sailboat with me.

All along we'd decided to make the stop in Iceland—in Reykjavik—where one of Amelia's college girlfriends had married a rich Norwegian and settled down. We were having this conversation, sitting across from the other couple, in the bar of the Exeter Hotel, on the Reykjavik harbor. Sitting there, looking at Sven, a strapping, handsome Nordic hunk, across from me, I fully knew what a mistake it had been to marry Amelia.

"Let's sell the boat and fly back to Boston from here," Amelia said. The way she said it, I knew it wasn't just a suggestion.

"I can't do that. I can't sell my sailboat just like that," I said. "And I can't sail it by myself. Not that far."

"I have time off," Sven said, giving me a smile that made me melt. I doubted he knew it did, though. "Amelia could stay here and visit Jenny longer, flying back to the States when she's ready, and I could sail with you to Boston and fly home. I'm happy to have an adventure."

"That sounds good to me," Jenny said.

"And to me as well," Amelia agreed. She agreed so readily that I could tell it was more than a sailboat she was jettisoning here.

It sounded a bit dangerous to me in my sudden full awakening to a lot of things. But Sven was smiling and the woman already were huddled and making plans for things to do and places to go with each other.

"That's a plan then," I said. "Thanks, Sven."

His answering smile was warm. Was there a spark of something there? I was afraid to contemplate that.

* * * *

The direction finder on the

Amelia

had gone on the blink and we'd realized that much too late. Rather than southwest, we drifted northeast—and into an icepack. Three days of heading into the ice rather than toward Boston and we were icebound. The snow was falling heavily. We were in a blizzard. The hull was packed in ice. We'd sent a distress signal for the last two days, but now the battery was dead.

Everything on the boat was dead except for Sven and me—and, although we didn't say it, we feared we didn't have long to live either.

It was numbing cold. We said nothing, but instinct brought us together in a bunk, bundled up, wrapped around each other, and covered in blankets.

We managed to remain heated for now, but it wasn't just body heat. We were in sexual heat, and, despite the layers of clothing, each of us could tell the other was. It wasn't just me who had been aroused by the other in the Exeter Hotel bar. Sven had focused on me as well.

We fondled and kissed, unbuttoned and unzipped. He turned me, buttocks nestled into groin. I whimpered and suffered as he entered me and began to move. But I suffered gladly, released at last. We climaxed and rested. Then Sven fucked me again. There was no holding back. We were dead men anyway.

It was Sven who heard the approach of the icebreaker and went to the hatch, braving the blizzard.

He turned a quizzical eye to me. "No, I don't regret it a bit," I answered.

I would, however, have to change the name of the boat.