I met Helen when she was twenty-two and I a couple of years older. We quickly moved in together and shared a flat for a year before deciding to get married. With both of us at the start of our careers, money was tight so Helen made the suggestion that we delay our honeymoon for five years. "We can't afford much now but in five years we should both be on good salaries," she said. "Also in five years I will want to start a family so my idea is that we spend the next five years working hard and having lots of fun but then we can have the holiday of a lifetime before settling down to family life. I don't mean just a two week holiday, I'm thinking more like a month or six weeks." I couldn't fault the idea so that is what we agreed.
We are complete opposites. Helen is outgoing, positive and a doer where I am more reticent and tentative. I think of myself as more of an observer. The strange thing is that we work perfectly together.
At school she played a lot of hockey and basketball and has been into physical pursuits ever since but Bridge, poker and chess are my idea of sport. Although very attractive she lacks the sylph like form that fashion models require but would have been in much demand as a photographic model had she chosen to go that route.
Physically she is a woman not a girl and I love that fact. I adore her full breasts, narrow waist and round buttocks. I have a more wiry build. It may give an idea if I say that at 5' 11" I am three inches taller but believe that she marginally outweighs me. I do prefer sedentary hobbies but don't consider myself to be unfit, getting great pleasure accompanying my wife on long hikes in national parks and over the moors.
Over the five years I made reasonable progression in my career with a large reinsurance firm while she has made quite a name for herself selling houses. When we had been married three years, good luck contributed to her selling three very large properties within the space of six months and the resulting bonus was the equivalent of a years extra salary. We could have cut the five year plan short then but decided to persevere, spending the extra cash upgrading our cars, buying new clothes and eating out.
The time finally came for us to have our greatly delayed honeymoon but, bearing in mind our differing outlooks, Helen suggested that instead of discussing we should separately write down a description of our ideal holiday. Mine was easy, a six week tour of all the ancient centres of civilisation. My proposal was that we should start with Carthage, move on to Egypt, take in Crete followed by Rhodes, head on to Greece and finish up in Turkey.
Before showing her preference, Helen prepared me with a bit of background. "When I was young my dad was always taking me camping and I loved it. The best of the lot though was when we spent two weeks in crofter's cottage way up in the wilds of Scotland. It was very primitive with oil lamps and water from a pump but it was fantastic. We were lucky with weather but it was the most marvellous two weeks of my life and I've wanted to do it again ever since. Well for our honeymoon I'd like to go one better and have a full month in the Canadian wilderness, actually within the Arctic Circle."
We decided using a supposedly foolproof variation of tossing a coin that Helen devised and which she of course won. I was not too upset. Since first meeting we had enjoyed a healthy and adventurous sex life, trying most things but without making a fetish out of anything and the prospect of a full month with nothing to do but fuck was not something to get depressed about. It promised to be a memorable month and on that basis we decided that Helen should leave her BC pills behind when we went.
Our month fell in the middle of the Arctic summer but we planned to take nearly a week getting there and the same on the return journey, intending to do some sightseeing on the way. We flew first to Montreal but I won't bother to detail the rest of our travels. Early in the morning of the appointed day we booked out of our hotel and headed towards the small port where a boat was waiting to take us on the six hour voyage water to our honeymoon retreat.
We walked hand in hand along the pier to where fork-lifts had just deposited our stuff, two large crates filled with supplies for the month, together with a travel trunk and holdall containing our personal effects. As we approached the captain stepped off the boat to greet us. He was a cheery older man with ruddy complexion and a full white beard that gave him the perfect Captain Ahab appearance. After a few minutes of chatting we saw another squat looking figure heading towards us with an almost waddling gait.
As he drew closer, I was surprised to see that this new male was actually slightly taller than myself and that it was his great breadth of body that gave the foreshortened impression. His face was decidedly ugly, carrying many scars together with a nose looked to have been broken multiple times and this unappealing visage was finished off with small piggy eyes. "This is my crew Pierre," the captain said loudly as way of introduction, "He doesn't say much but he's a one man workforce. He can hump almost anything I ask him to."
I smiled and said 'Hello', half extending my hand but all I got in return was a surly nod as the crewman moved past. The man could certainly work. Helen and I stood and watched admiringly as he efficiently used a pulley to single-handedly hoist the cargo on board. During the trip, with the captain on the bridge and Helen below deck there was little to do and nobody to talk to. The enigmatic crewman refused to chat so I sat and studied him instead. He was wearing leather boots, long baggy shorts that reached down to mid calf, with the ensemble completed by a sleeveless Indian style tunic. Although he could undoubtedly look after himself in a dockside tavern, the man seemed seriously devoid of personality.
Tying up alongside the small jetty at our destination, I foresaw a problem with our luggage for there was no helpful pulley to assist. However, Pierre took the unloading in his stride. Crouching with his back against a packing case he reached back to grab the straps, then leaned forward and stood with the two and a half hundredweight crate balanced on his broad back. He then slowly carried it the hundred yards or more up to the cabin. This was repeated twice more with the second packing case and the trunk, making a very impressive display of pure strength.
We said our goodbyes to the captain and walked behind Pierre on his last trip with me managing the holdall. I expected him go straight back to the ship but instead he sat down in front of a radio standing on a shelf sticking out of the wall. Taking a screwdriver from a pocket he removed the outer case and then twisted the dials until receiving a signal, upon which he reported in that we had been safely delivered. Having memorised the sequence, leaving him to reassemble the radio, I wandered to retrieve a beer from the packing case as a small reward for his efforts. He took it and drank it without remark then stood and headed for the door, totally ignoring me but throwing a funny kind of smile at my wife.
We watched the boat until it disappeared in the distance and then did some sorting out but while still only half unpacked I crept up behind my darling wife, pressed my groin against her rounded buttocks and, grabbing a ripe breast in each hand, rubbed my face amorously into her neck. Alice responded to me but warned, "Don't get your hopes up lover, my period just started. I had hoped it would be a day or so earlier."
"Shit," I swore stepping back, "A fine bloody start to a honeymoon I don't think."
Alice laughed. "Don't be such a male chauvinist pig. We can still mess about. Anyway, it's only three days and then I'm all yours for a whole month. It's going to be a honeymoon to remember because you have no idea what a sexy lascivious trollop you married."
The cabin was basic but built of solid log construction. The main room contained a large heavy table with a bench down each side, a big armchair and a couch which had seen better days. Near the centre there was a large iron pot bellied stove (obviously used for cooking) and under the window a stone sink but of course no running water. The bedroom contained a massive bed and a wardrobe of equal size and there was a narrow horizontal window high in one wall. There was also a very narrow extra windowless room originally intended for storage but two bunks had been installed along the outer wall. Outside there was a pump for water and some yards behind the cabin the latrine stood in front of a clump of bushes and trees.
For the first three days Helen was not feeling energetic so we contented ourselves with simple strolls exploring the immediate location. The cabin stood some hundred yards from the rudimentary jetty and the waters edge. To the left a trail headed into woodland but to the right a huge outcrop reached to near the beach and beyond that we found that a one time twin spit had largely collapsed into a massive pile of huge boulders.
First thing on the second day I decided to operate the radio transmitter to report that we were settled in. I could see no reason for removing the outer case so tried just turning buttons but without success. So I partially dismantled the equipment the way Pierre, the guy from the boat, had done but even though repeating his sequence of actions exactly, the damn thing still would not work. I did not envisage a need to use the thing so I was not unduly concerned.
On the late afternoon of the fourth day while my wife was in the cabin preparing our meal I was standing on the beach, skimming pebbles at the surf when a small speck far out on the water caught my eye. Curious, I started to watch it, wishing my binoculars were to hand. As it drew closer I could see that it was a kayak and it was moving purposefully in my direction. However it was not until the last few paddle strokes that I recognised the kayak occupant as the boat captain's uncommunicative assistant, the guy who was the last to work the radio.
The visitor ran his craft up on the shingle and climbed out, to pull it clear of the water. He beckoned me to assist and together we lifted the kayak but as soon as it was off the ground he flipped it up and strode up the beach with it balanced on his broad shoulders. Well clear of the water he carefully put it down in the lee of a sand ridge at which point I said, "I'm glad you're here, the radio doesn't work."
