Monday, June 29, 2009

FFF #9

Waiting

The wind wrapped the silk around her body, trailing behind with her windblown hair. She stood on the deck with the warm body of his cat curled in her arm, listening to the waves breaking below, the gentle hiss as water slid back over sand to the sea. The starlight lit the waves and she could almost see his boat. It was like this when a storm was coming in. He’d explained why the wind was in her face, later at her back. Something about weather – one of the myriad things he needed to know.

They’d been out – not far, she could still see land – he sat in the corner of the cockpit giving her a turn at the wheel. She’d tried to keep the course, but going back and forth, never quite on it. He didn’t seem to be paying attention. He’d pulled out his knife and cut off a length of a jib sheet – it was never a rope – it was a sheet, a line or a hundred other names sailors had for rope. He’d pulled out a marlinspike and worked one end into a ball – a turk’s head he called it. He reached over and swatted her on the seat of her shorts.

“Ow – that hurt”

She rubbed herself self consciously. He stood behind her, spun her gently around. She looked into his confident blue eyes, smiling as he bent down to kiss her.

“Next time steer where I tell you”

Oh God, please come back.

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Sorry ths is late - on weekends where I have back-to-back races it is really hard to make 6 PM Saturday - if I dont get it done very early Friday (~0100) it just wont get done until late Sunday at best.

Originally this was going to have a very different tone, but it was just too long. I wonder about the rest of you guys - do you wind up making several passes at this or is it just me?

Anyway - my thanks to my compadres for keeping this up.

3 comments:

impy said...

I passed this week too much on over the weekend and unlike you guys I am a day ahead lol. I enjoyed this one, very relaxed.

Anonymous said...

I for the most part think about the theme that I am going to write about for the week during the week. Then when I get the words - I get to work. As I write, I check the word count and modify a portion, or all, as necessary. I have not had to completely restart. Of course, I may be at a slight advantage since I am just picking up from last weeks story and know that if I have more to say, I can put it into next weeks.

Casey Morgan said...

This struck me as very poignant, but maybe I misinterpreted the last line? (Been thinking that myself too much - too much.) Also, reminded me of all those summers spent on my father's sailboat - sigh.

I tend to write pretty quickly & off the cuff. Once the wildcards come in, I let them gel into a setting or character, then I do a draft & edit it down. I write using Q10 (http://www.baara.com/q10/) by the way, to suppress distractions.