RANSVESTIA

I had my hand about her waist. "Did you really mind what I wrote about you?" I asked.

Her lovely face, partly shaded, turned to me. "It was very accurate," she said softly.

"I asked if you minded," I said insistently.

She shook her head and sighed. "I can't, can I?" she asked. The piped music from the bridge had ended and the well-lit deck had darkened noticeably as the power was reduced to the lamps. Romy shivered. The night was chilly but I wasn't sleepy. Nor, did it appear, was "she."

"You need a wrap," I said, heading back to the table, now secured at the top of the walk leading to the lower deck. The soft woollen shawl was on the chair where she'd sat for dinner. Romy was staring moodily at the dark horizon, where the occasionally yellow or red light gleamed brightly and at what seemed a great distance. I put the shawl about her shoulders, and she turned to me so that I could pull it about her completely.

As I placed the shawl, she raised her eyes to me, a strange, appre- hensive look in them. I gently pulled her towards me, and she didn't fight back. In fact, she sighed and seemed rather glad when I kissed her. It was light at first, but she was willing, her eyes closed, and so I slipped my hands from her arms and put them round her back and waist. Her arms came about me, and we began what was at first a gentle embrace, but her lips were so warm, and the sensation so nerve-tingling to her, so it seemed as well to me, that the gentleness soon became stronger. My hands seemed to want to touch everything about her, her soft shoulders, her hair, her waist and her hips. She, too, pulled me closer, kissing my face, neck and then my lips again, hungrily, as if she had never kissed anyone like me before.

We might have gone on for a long time, how long we were actually at the rail I don't know, but the convenient whistling of a steward arriving to clear and put the deck in order, caused Romy to stiffen against me suddenly. And then she was gone. One moment she was in in my arms, soft and compliant, and in the next, she was gone, abrupt- ly thrusting herself away. Wth the long skirt held up by one hand, she was off, fleeing down the gangwalk to wherever her cabin was.

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