The Three Spirits

Cold, Part One: The Three Spirits

A story in two parts by Henry Jekyll

A version of this story was first posted at a discussion site leading to substantial rewriting and editing. I'm grateful to the editors for their help, but it frankly goes best in Literotica's "Loving Wives" category. I will warn the reader that it is neither a "RAAC" nor a "BTB" story.

I appreciate comments and stand by my policy of accepting all of them, even those insulting ones usually posted anonymously. If you post a comment from a Literotica account, I will try to reply directly.

Copyright, 2024, by H. Jekyll. I reserve all rights. Contact me through my profile.

NOTE: The MV Lyubov Orlova was an ice-toughened cruise ship, built during the Soviet era and named after a Soviet film star. It provided Antarctic cruises into the 2000s, sailing from Ushuaia, Argentina. The author took one of those cruises, though he didn't have the adventures of the story's MC. After a series of complicated events, the Orlova became a "ghost" ship in the North Atlantic in 2013 and is thought to have sunk in the Irish Sea. She has her own Wikipedia page.

*****

Cold, Part 1: The Three Spirits

_______________

Antarctica is as cold and severe and unforgiving as my beloved's heart, its glaciers filled with fissures that will trap you and kill you as surely as she will freeze your soul. The snow and ice are brilliant stuff, much whiter than the bleached bones of slaughtered whales, so bright they will steal your sight and lead you into crevasses.

_______________

"'My beloved'! No. What should it be? My Helena? No. My betrayer? No. Leave it. Let her know how I felt before she destroyed me."

_______________

It abounds with life, though: the penguins and petrels, and the skuas that steal their young. Oh, you could be the grand mistress of the skuas, my dear, so skilled are you at hovering over your prey and waiting, waiting to attack, coming ever lower, knowing you'll take what you want and be gone! But there's no life to you. Antarctica also has two miles of ice. That's almost as deep and dead as your cunt is to me. You'd freeze my poor penis, shrink it and break it off if I tried to warm you with it.

_______________

"Too damned poetic."

_______________

We sailed from Ushuaia,'Fin del Mundo,' they call it. The end of the world. That's how far I've traveled to get away from you. The Drake Passage is wild, but when the boat would roll and nothing could quell the nausea, it reminded me how sick you make me. I've stood at the bow and let the wind cut me like a razor. It's almost as cold as you were when you left. Just today, we saw seals all over, resting on floating ice. Were they too escaping bitchwives? Their only threats are orcas, so I guess they're ahead in the game.

Just in case you've noticed that I'm not there, and maybe wondered, in a detached, sophisticated sort of way, where I've gone: I'm not in your world anymore. I'm in a more tropical place. The only thing that would make it better would be if it didn't remind me so much of you. I won't bother you again. I thought maybe, just maybe, you deserved a 'good-bye.' Well, this is it.

Charlie

_______________

*****

Charles Taylor sent the email the fifth day of the eleven-day cruise. Days one and two he had spent mostly alone in his cabin, emerging to eat, then to trace the railings with a hand while he watched the waves, the sky, and the trailing petrels dipping wingtips into the water. And to order drink after drink from the bar, conversing almost not at all with the other passengers. He really did stand at the bow and let the wind have at him. On the third morning he woke from a dream of Helena. She was looking for him, calling his name, searching in closets and under the bed. "Charlie! I know you're in there!" He decided to send the email, but first he had to have a few drinks, and they were going to take the zodiacs to Deception Island's interior beaches, so the email had to wait.

You couldn't just send emails. You had to hand-carry them to the Communication Center and pay a fee. The MV Lyubov Orlova didn't have the latest equipment. What it had going for itself was size. It was small enough to fit through the crack in Deception Island's caldera to the inner bay, where the passengers could take in the thermal pools along the beaches, or even swim out into the all-but-freezing water and get certificates of accomplishment. Charles decided to go with the cold water, but he regretted his decision soon enough. Physical and emotional cold aren't nearly the same thing, and there was still Helena. Or rather, there wasn't.

*****

The bar and library were full again.

"What's your reason for doing Antarctica?" Lynn Godfrey was one the Canadian women. Antarctica was her seventh continent, and she was far from the only competitive traveler. Charles wouldn't have gone up to them, because he'd decided that women weren't interested in men like him, but Lynn came to him.

"Love. And hate."

"I don't understand."

Does she really want to know?

"Well, it's a woman. An affair of the heart. I'm running away and this seemed as good a place as any to run to."

"To a cruise?"

"Why not? There's no French Foreign Legion anymore."

Within half an hour three of Lynn's friends were circling Charles, pumping him for information about his broken heart. In a different world, a different time, maybe a different him, something might have happened. A shipboard romance? It would take a very different world.

It turned out there is still a French Foreign Legion, but he was just making conversation.

*****

The next day an email was stuck into the mail slot on Charles's door.

_______________

My Darling!

Please forgive me! Please come back! I don't know why I did it, why I treated you that way. I was out of my mind! I've been so worried for you, wondering where you were, and if you had hurt yourself. Even reading how terribly I hurt you and having to see myself in your eyes, I was so happy to find you are well that I read and re-read your letter. Believe me that I love you and miss you and I want to make it up to you if you will only give me another chance.

There isn't anyone else, my darling. It's just you!

I do love you. Please, Charlie! Please come back.

Your,

Helena

*****

The staircase curved up to bridge level and Charles walked close to the wall, holding the handrail to keep from slipping, because the water was fierce today. He went into the radio officer's room and watched spray fly over the bow as he talked with the clerk. The man's English was passable.

"Please don't accept any more emails for me. I don't authorize them, and I won't pay for them."

The clerk looked puzzled.

*****

Charles could have a romance if he wanted it. He only needed to be a little brave. But want it? He wanted Helena, and he didn't want her ever again. And brave? Not anymore.

Everyone knew he was alone and that his heart had been shattered, which made him interesting. The Canadian women invited him to play Scrabble and to share drinks, and they flirted. He thought they were kind. One of the ship's wait staff began acting sweet toward him, too. Her nametag read 'Irina.' She spoke almost no English but showed her interest by hovering just a little, just enough to make her motives clear, and smiling at him a tad too much. Touching a hand to his wrist when she refilled his water glass. Other people noticed it, and the Canadian women whispered and giggled about it almost like schoolgirls.

After dinner, someone knocked on his cabin door. Irina.

"You lige dreenk?"

"Um. I'm not sure what you mean."

Irina stepped up to him and repeated it: "You lige dreenk?" He poured her a whiskey. She took a sip, then touched a hand to his chest. "You lige Ireena?" Yes, he nodded and smiled, figuring he knew what was coming but not how to get out of it. Irina made it explicit. She touched her mouth, "Hundrade doallarze." Her vulva, "Two hundrade." Then she made a circle in the air, the international symbol for 'Around the world.' "Three hundrade."

I'm a target of opportunity. There can't be much traffic on a small cruise ship. Can there?

"I'm sorry. No. Thank you."

Irina frowned and touched her mouth again. "Feefty doallarze?"

"I'm sorry. No." He opened the door to make himself clear, and Irina grew angry. She threw the last of her whiskey at him and flew out like a skua. He watched her hurry down the corridor. Maybe there were other prospects for her. Don't waste time on a loser.

I didn't mean to insult her.

While he changed his shirt he wondered how mean Irina would be the rest of the cruise, but she was perfectly courteous.

*****

There was another knock. Charles almost didn't answer because it might be Irina, but it was Lynn.

"We missed you at Scrabble."

"Come on in."

He offered her a drink, and she accepted, and maybe it was becoming a very different world because Lynn sat right up against him on the bunk while he poured.

"You shouldn't be alone right now."

"Say what? I probably shouldn't be with anyone at all right now. I'll pull you down to my level."

"Some of us wouldn't mind that at all." With that, Lynn leaned to Charles and kissed him and he stopped breathing. What had he said? How had he said it? He could understand Irina, but Lynn? Her words. Her nearness. Just her coming to his room. In what world do two women come to your cabin in one night? He wasn't going to push it.

Don't fuck with the ladies!

But here was Lynn, plump and middle-aged, with a soft mouth and sweet breath, and Charles found himself bringing one hand to the back of her head, and the other one to a breast, and twisting so that she was on her back, and he was above her.

He caressed her cheek, then began another kiss. Both her hands were on his head, and she made some kind of quiet sound against his mouth. Charles' hand was busy, at her breast, then along her belly to her mound. He pushed his palm against it, massaged her there while he kissed her, and it was only here that he completely realized what he was doing.

"I'm sorry, Lynn. I didn't mean that. I don't want to hurt you."

She smiled. "Unless you're planning on leaving bruises, I don't think you could."

"I'm serious."

"So am I. I'm not some teenager, you know. And I'm not looking for anything." She laughed. "Well, anything beyond this." She kissed him again, deeper this time, with lips and tongue, and she won him.

He kissed her back and began the unbuttoning, and it was here that

she

interrupted.

"Wait."

"What?"

"Maybe just with the light from the porthole. And we could play under the coverlet."

"Oh." Charlie blinked. "You think I won't like you?"

"I think you'll like me better that way."

After they were done, Charles kept caressing Lynn everywhere.

She came to me.

He didn't quite believe it. He caressed her breasts of course, her nipples again and again, but also her big thighs, to show her how much he liked the soft things, and her stomach, especially where the skin is so soft from her hips down to her fur, and everything else.

He woke to find Lynn staring into his face with as sweet an expression as he could remember ever seeing. He didn't remember falling asleep, and what he knew of his awakening was that it came with an erection. Her hand was caressing him up and down. Once she knew Charles was awake, she asked, "You don't mind if I do this, do you?" and she disappeared under the coverlet and no, he didn't mind at all. He got lost in Lynn's tongue and her lips. It was only when he started to come over that he wondered what it would be like if Helena did it. Like she had doubtless done to

him

. The wondering didn't ruin the experience, but it was there the whole time.

*****

Lynn nestled against him, moving a hand over his chest, circling his nipples.

He wanted to know, "Didn't you worry that

you

might not like

me

?"

"You dope." She kissed him "I never for an instant worried about that. And your scars. Wow! You've lived a hard life."

"More a clumsy one." Then, "Maybe I'll see you again?"

"Maybe. But it's Christmastime. You'll be visited by three spirits. The first... well, she's here right now, but there are two more."

"Three spirits?" Was she serious? Of course not. She was playing. She wasn't serious at all. Not a bit. Was she? No. More women? No!

"Like 'A Christmas Carol'?"

Or is it like the three weird sisters?

"Does it change my life?"

"Isn't it already changing?"

"Okay."

Is it?

"And, ah, is my cruise all planned out?"

"There have been contingency discussions among the spirits." Lynn laughed while he wondered about that.

"You know, there has been a Russian temptress."

"Oh,

everyone

knows

that

!" She laughed again.

"I never knew.'

"What?"

"That there would be... such availability. And, well, I like the first spirit."

She took his face in her hands and gave him a slow, sensual kiss that went on for some time.

*****

Charles was alone at the stern, looking at the water, all teal and foam, alone with the cape petrels, the Wilson's storm petrels, the albatrosses, and Helena's email. Maybe not so alone. There were patches of sun on the waves, and snow swirled around.

Three spirits? Three women, not counting the pro.

Take that Helena! They're lining up for me. Everyone is but you.

He tore pieces off the sheet and let them blow over the railing, where they blended with the snow. One little bit, then another. "They say not to add anything to Antarctica or take anything away." Talking to an albatross. "Well, I'm adding some of the Snow Queen! Don't tell anyone!" The email was soon lost to the ocean.

*****

The second spirit's human name was Sara McIlhenny, as Irish as a Canadian could be, to the red hair and freckles and brogue. She was thin, almost fragile, sexier than Lynn, but, oh, so nervous. She appeared at his door right after dinner, with a bottle of Jameson's as an offering, and they sat and had a drink, his neat, hers over ice, and talked a nervous, hesitant, little talk. Sara wouldn't make a move to start anything. Charles thought he was supposed to start something, but the tiniest thing and she'd stiffen. Some spirit! Finally, he said:

"I know you guys have a sort of, um, arrangement, but I can tell you're not completely on board." She tried to interject, but he raised a hand. "So, how about we just have a drink and a nice chat." He hoped he didn't sound dismissive, and he must not have because she took his hand.

"What would I tell them?"

"Make up anything you want. Or tell them I swore you to secrecy. I won't ever say." Sara was good with that, and Charles grew proud at how relaxed she became. He poured two more drinks. They touched glasses and each took a sip.

"Now then. Our chat. Tell me the full story of you and your lady fair."

Oh, that! Of course. "Well, her name's Helena."

"A beautiful name."

"A beautiful woman."

"But?"

"She betrayed me."

"I know that."

"So, I left her." He almost stopped. Telling meant bringing it up and bringing it up would bring him down, but he'd only talked about it with the sea birds, so sharing it with a ginger-haired spirit might help. "I don't want this to be TMI."

"Oh, TMI would be perfect." So, he began.

Helena was his, or had been, and he was certainly hers. His Brit. Her Sooner. They'd met as students in London, and he'd charmed her by being from Oklahoma. She'd never before met anyone from the Wild West, and Tulsa seemed très exotic. So, they'd dated and fallen in love and married. She'd joke about him being 'sooner' when they made love, but it wasn't true. He held himself back to let her get her full pleasure first, much better than her previous lovers had managed. He didn't intend to tell Sara about the sex, but he did mention marriage. "I guess we're still married. I'll have to do something about that." He got a work visa, and they rented a little flat they couldn't afford, not far from the Victoria and Albert Museum and an easy commute to the American Embassy, where he got a job as a gofer. Helena worked in an exclusive art studio in Westminster. "I'm kind of on leave. Still with me?"

"So, I'm getting the short, short version."

"All happy families are alike. Anna Karenina." They were among them, the happy families. They had friends and careers. They did happy-family things: planned kids, entertained, fixed up their flat, explored restaurants. Fucked often. They went to some great museums and a lot of bad plays. "Do you need more details?"

"What about the sex? Was it like in other happy families?" She looked like the Cheshire cat.

"Oh. You want to know how I'd spank her and lick her to ten orgasms a night, right?"

Sara laughed. "Okay. Okay. Go, back to the serious stuff."

The serious stuff took over, but it included real sex, which he wouldn't talk about, though it wouldn't leave him.

I wasn't enough for you, was I Helena?

There weren't ten O's, but he'd given her three one night. He loved how she smelled, and tasted, and he would twirl his tongue right around her bud, faster, then slower, then faster. They were both satisfied, until it happened.

Her studio hosted an exhibition of an important painter, a very good painter, a very successful one. "Hah! A middle-aged, French painter on a first-name basis. Jules. Who made a very continental play for her. She told me about it."

"Middle-aged?"

"Established. Not some up-and-coming kid but not a doddering, century-old Picasso. Maybe fifty? A fit fifty? Young enough."

And you ...?"

"Don't be a yokel in front of the sophisticated Europeans. Anyway, that's what I thought. Don't be juvenile. Maybe that's part of being juvenile. So, I laughed at how obvious it was and didn't tell him to back off." They'd laughed together. They had a couple of dinners with him and another woman, a different woman each time, and even Charles was impressed. "He could talk about anything and sound authoritative. Very French. And his clothes. He wore a starched white shirt with the top button unbuttoned every time I saw him."

Charles surprised himself with those details. Sara leaned back with lips parted as he remembered: Jules' tan and his grey chest hair and his gold chain. "It was all a stereotype, but he looked fabulous. He was always... obvious when he looked at Helena. It was kind of funny, until it wasn't."

"Tell me about her."

She was a stereotype too--tall, pale, blonde, basically Nordic. Natural blonde. "Yes, natural." Her hair was long and sometimes she braided it. In her heels she was almost as tall as Charles. Glacier-blue eyes. Maybe Nordic, but as English as Shakespeare. "The whole package." He wondered if he should mention the beauty mark next to her lip. How detailed did he need to be? "She's not voluptuous. More willowy. She sometimes complains..." He stopped and laughed. "She'd say she wished she had more up front."

She had plenty,

he thought.

She has plenty.

He stopped talking again but he wasn't laughing anymore. He looked out the porthole, not at the sea but beyond it, at a thin blue line below the clouds, and after a few seconds he whispered, "Oh, God," to himself. Sara asked him what it was.

"It made me remember." He stopped again. "I'm sorry. Helena has a blouse, a diaphanous one, the type where your nipples are just noticeable if you don't wear something underneath." He stared out the porthole yet again. It wasn't anything, not then, not to Charles. Sara let him think. "She wore it to both dinners, without a bra or camisole. I just now realized it was for him."