The passengers of the Ocean Princess, including Amanda and Jake, as well as the ship's entire crew, had no idea what was waiting for them the next morning.
At 3:30, Jake and Amanda spent a solid hour wandering through the Emporium and some of the specialty shops, then enjoyed another hour of relaxing in the comfortable seats of Cellar Masters trying out the plentiful selection of international wines. Amanda, fresh off of her experience from too many margaritas, was careful in her drinking. Tonight, when she slipped back into the purple outfit that pleased her husband so, she would NOT have to stop in the middle and dash to the bathroom like last night.
Their casual attire was not allowed at Cosmopolitan, so they quickly went back to the stateroom to change before making their way to deck four to enter by Cosmopolitan's lower entrance. Rogo was waiting for them and they greeted him warmly at 6:05. Jake joined Rogo in the selection of a T-bone, but Amanda stuck to her favorite of the steaks, the prime rib. They also prepped another bottle of pinot noir.
"Did Mr. Shaw say the showing of that new Bond movie was tonight?" Amanda was trying to remember.
Jake thought back to check-in day and said, "I'm pretty sure he said the 14th, and that's today."
"You boys wanna?" Amanda grinned.
Rogo laughed. "Oh not for me. All the evening movies on board start at eight and it's well over two hours. These old bones gotta be in bed by 10. You can tell me what it's like though. The guy playing Bond is a blonde guy, and I'm not sure about that. Nobody tops Connery."
Jake readily agreed. Again they took their time with the meal's various courses and again they were too full at the time for dessert. They bid goodbye to Rogo for the night and were actually eager when they joined the line of passengers waiting to see "Casino Royale." Two hospitality crew members were going up and down the line and when Jake said their names, they were rushed through, being VIPs of the ship. Amanda was a little self-conscious at being a line-cutter, but it was the crew's idea, not their own.
Tickets collected, they passed one of the two small concession stands and Amanda said, "I couldn't eat a bite of dessert, but it's just not right to see our first movie in what, a year? More? Without popcorn and a drink."
"You are absolutely right," Jake told her and they eagerly ordered a large tub of popcorn slathered in butter and two large Dr. Peppers on ice and Amanda dug out a solid handful of napkins from the dispenser. One of the hospitality crew led them to the Owner's Suite seating. It was not in the front seats near the screen, instead they were among the elevated seats, fifth-row center, and there was a solid gap between the arms of their seats and the others in the row.
And they were RECLINERS. Amanda settled in and tested it out, and it was motorized to recline. "Oh fuck, Jake. This is Heaven."
"Do you need to empty before the movie starts?"
Amanda shook her head, then realized. "I haven't had to use the bathroom at all...Have you? Other than puking, I've been nowhere near a toilet, not even to piss."
Jake shook his head. "Same thing for me. No urge, nothing. I suppose that means that when we eat, our bodies behave normally, but if we don't, it won't affect us, same as if we were in the realm. And I guess that also means that instead of digestion, whatever we eat just kind of...Disappears?"
Amanda snagged a handful of the buttery popcorn in her lap and chased it with a long pull from her drink. "So no worries about having to get up halfway through and walk over people. I can really get used to that. And we got the big gulp drinks too. I wonder if after the movie is over and we don't get up once if people will notice and praise our bladder control." She giggled.
The seats started filling up around them. Amanda noted that there was plenty of space to recline and still allow people to walk in front of her, so she let her heels fall from her feet, put the footrest up and wiggled her toes. Jake followed suit and rubbed her left foot with his right stockinged foot as she giggled.
The theater darkened and they kept plowing through the popcorn bucket and saw previews for Happy Feet and The Pursuit of Happyness and then Amanda and Jake were immersed in James Bond. After the opening scene she didn't pay attention to the fact that the new actor, Daniel something, was blonde at all. She thought he was perfectly bad ass for the role.
They snuggled together throughout, or held hands, and sometimes Jake remained unable to not brush her foot with his. The occasional footsie turned her on and if they'd been alone she'd have climbed into his recliner and forgotten all about watching the film. The poker scenes were rough. They were exciting, but the hands? Come on now.
The villain exiting the film when he did surprised her, as did the way it happened. Things seemed to be drawing to a close and then there was another surprise and the movie drew to a sad, yet satisfying close. And then the last line was uttered, "The Name's Bond. James Bond." The music swelled and the movie ended and they eased the recliners upright and slipped on their shoes.
"Vesper's sassy attitude...Lordy she reminded me of you a few times." Jake looked at her and Amanda grinned. Yes, they were both quite sassy. And short. It seemed sassy came in small female packages.
Jake snaked an arm around her waist and they joined the throng. Despite the steak dinner, they'd plowed through most of the bucket of popcorn and nearly all of the drinks. Amanda found a handy trash can and got rid of it. They chatted about the film and Amanda's only displeasure came from the unrealistic poker scenes.
"I mean, yeah, you want it to be exciting. But a full house into quads? And then they were harassing him for betting big. It's a full house. It's not like he shoved in with Ace-high. But the last hand...My God. Four players, nut flush, full house, higher full house, and straight flush? No fucking way. Nor would those two extras have realistically been nursing six and five million stacks at the blind level they were obviously at. Notice they never showed Bond's play after the rebuy, it would have been hard for him to rebuild that stack with a five million rebuy."
Jake was just watching her as she rambled, and when she was finished, he laughed. "You definitely know your poker darling." He kissed her.
They took the elevator up to deck eight. After they entered the corridor Amanda said, "But I liked the new Bond actor. I forgot he was even blonde pretty quickly."
Jake nodded. "He handled the stunts well and was believable as a secret agent who kills. I like Roger Moore, but this Daniel Craig guy would have cleaned his clock. It's funny, but sometimes Shaw reminds me of Bond, with his accent and demeanour. Maybe he was Bond once and he retired and now he's incognito on the ship. I bet if the shit ever hit the fan, he'd be right in the thick of it."
Amanda considered, "Shave off the mustache and take off 10 or 15 years, and I could see it. Hey. Next time we see him, we should ask him how M is and gauge his reaction, then we'll know for SURE."
"Is there anything else you'd like for us to do? The Constellation Lounge is open I'm sure, and..."
Amanda pressed him to the wall with her small body. "There is something I want to do. You. I want you to finish what you started with that foostie in the theater."
"Guess we're going to bed then," Jake said with a seductive smile before picking her up off the floor. She giggled in his arms and said, "Guess we are, but we WON'T be sleeping for while."
He carried her to the door. Amanda pulled the key from his pocket and unlocked the door and opened it and he carried her like a princess across the threshold.
He set her on her feet and kissed her and Amanda tossed her heels without looking towards the bedroom. When their lips parted, Amanda said, "Do you still have that bottle of welcome champagne they left in our cabin when we first came here?"
"Yeah, I stuck it in the fridge."
Amanda smiled. "Get naked, get it, and wait for me on the terrace." Jake did not need to be asked twice.
Amanda hopped into the shower and quickly washed her body but left her hair dry. Then she slipped into the romper and robe and slipped her feet into the brand-new slippers they had provided and she hadn't worn. She held the stockings and thong in her hand and joined her husband on the terrace. He'd turned the lights on very low, and as Amanda joined him he popped the cork.
He noticed she was wearing slippers, and as she was always barefoot when they were in for the night, he couldn't help but ask her why.
"I wanted to keep my feet as clean as possible." Jake asked her why. Amanda stood up on the day bed over Jake and kicked them off. She said, "For this."
She held out her hand and Jake handed her the bottle. She raised her left foot off of the day bed and held it towards Jake's face. He let her rest her clean toes in his mouth and she poured a stream of the champagne down the front of her leg, down her ankle, over her foot, and into Jake's mouth. He collected it in his mouth before sucking it from her toes. She gave him another drink, then sat beside him and pulled her breasts from the romper and soaked them and let him lick them clean. Then she held herself up with one elbow and poured a trickle between her pussy lips and he took extra special care to lick her entirely clean and then some.
She was tingling as she pushed Jake on his back and poured it on his chest and licked him all over, sucking on his nipples and licking his tight stomach. She met his eyes and took a mouthful of the champagne and held it in her mouth as she moved her head over his cock. She slid his cock in her mouth carefully, then sucked him. The feeling of his cock in her mouth and the sensation of the champagne on it as she held it in there sent him nearly to the moon.
She released his cock from her mouth and swallowed the champagne. She rolled on one stocking, and then the other, and let her legs fall open as she tossed the thong at Jake's face. He was rock hard and she was wet and inviting. He climbed atop her and met her lips with his as the head of his cock slowly spread her nether lips.
She moaned as he slid fully inside of her. He ran his hands up and down her stockinged thighs as he thrust firmly and deeply in her and his cockhead stroked her G-spot and the shaft stroked her clit and she arched her back and tried to take even more of him inside of her and pressed her feet to the cushion underneath her to raise herself to meet his thrusts and she was in fucking ecstasy.
Minutes passed as they melted into each other. Amanda did not want to move into another position. She wanted to stay on her back and let Jake keep filling her as deeply as he could with his cock from above her. Amanda kept using her body to milk him as he thrust in her over and over and stimulated the most sensitive parts of her body into growing and growing heat.
Inside of her, Jake flipped that switch that he knew so well and with a cry she couldn't contain she exploded and spasmed and writhed all over his cock as he kept his firm strokes into her all the way through her orgasm. His cock seemed to keep throwing accelerant on the flames burning through her and she screamed and came on him again, and her body was sheened in sweat from him. He again took no pauses and seemed in no hurry to finish.
Her third orgasm surged through her and every part of her was tingling. The stroking of her aroused G-spot and clit refused to let the sensations of her orgasms abate completely and she followed up her third with a fourth and pulled his head to her mouth and moaned "I fucking love you I fucking LOVE you oh fuck oh FUCK Jake it's OH FUCKKKK!"
She lost control as he quickened his pace in her and she squeezed him and milked him and moaned, "Cum with me this time Jake come with me I fucking love you I need you please fucking cum with me please."
The skin in their groins slapped together and Jake was as sweaty as she was and she felt him getting stiffer and stiffer as another explosion built and built within her and she screamed, "Now Jake please fucking now please!"
And she exploded a fifth time as he screamed her name and exploded inside her and the feeling of his sperm pumping into her womb only made the orgasm sweeter and she came and came as his balls filled her with jet after jet of his seed and she forced herself to squeeze him inside of her until she'd sucked every last drop of from him.
He knew her well and kept himself inside of her. He held her waist and spun on his back and pulled her so she straddled him. She held herself down on him keeping him in her and tears of happiness streamed from her eyes and he asked her why she was crying.
"Because every time is like the first time and you love pleasing me and you always please me before you please yourself and I can feel your love for me when we make love. You know everything that turns me on and stimulates me and you do it every time and I can't stop wanting to fuck you all the time because it's never just fucking. I feel your soul in me and I know you feel my soul in you. You make me feel incredible and please me from the minute I open my eyes to the minute I close them."
She nestled her head on his chest and despite her efforts he softened enough that she couldn't hold him in her anymore so she settled with pressing herself on him. "I wish this trip could go on forever. I want to stay in the realm forever and that hasn't changed and no matter how wonderful it is I'm selfish and don't want to give up my immortality...But here in the real world...Only our wedding and honeymoon has been more special than this trip has been, and it's the only time I've been happier than I am right now."
"I've never been happier either. When I bought the tickets I knew it was a chance to make you really feel like a princess and I have. I fucking love you, honey."
Amanda rested her chin on his chest and looked into his eyes and smiled. "I fucking love you more, baby."
Jake pulled her him and she nestled in by his side. "I fucking love you most."
They were so comfortably wrapped together that they fell asleep that way. The ship started rocking back and forth in the early morning hours and the sound of the champagne bottle rolling and clinking against the walls woke Jake from sleep. He gently lifted his beautiful wife from the day bed and carried her to the king-sized bed in their room. She opened her eyes briefly and smiled sleepily as he laid her down, and he left the bedroom to turn off the light in the enormous bathroom and joined her in the bed. Immediately she rolled and pressed herself to his naked warmth and after a few moments he heard very gentle snoring. She was as safe and comfortable as she could possibly be, he knew.
He let his arm wrap around her and let his mind wander as sleep slowly started to claim him again. Blu would be nice to have breakfast in, maybe another trip to the pool so Amanda could show of her body to him in her other bikini, hot pink.
One more day on the open ocean and then they'd be approaching South America and their first shore excursion. At the welcome party the first night Shaw had said he'd accompany them at each stop, saying it would be a pleasure to serve as a "tour guide" for the couple, after all, he'd said, it was the least he could do for the VIPs.
Of course he still didn't know that he and Amanda would not see South America. Less than six hours from now, he and Amanda's final thoughts would be that they were never going to see daylight again.
Of course they had their get out of jail free card thanks to the Entity's power and generosity. One second of thought and the Entity's fog would rush from the realm to claim them. it was certainly enough to make one feel very daring, that was for sure. It would help fuel them in the coming hours, though even so...Jake and Amanda had grown so much from the realm that they'd have done everything they did until their final moments anyway. The stories that were told of their actions and bravery through the memory of the survivors and the bit of video footage that documented the sinking would make them tragically heroic figures in the news reports and Wikipedia postings to come.
There was of course, one small problem. One that neither they, nor the Entity had even thought of, and why would they? The fog in the realm was all powerful, and even in the real world it would pull them back to the realm instantaneously.
In the open air.
Fog, not even the Entity's, could travel through steel.
Nor was the fog strong enough to penetrate water. A ship on the ocean was quite possibly the worst place that Jake and Amanda could be, especially a ship that was sinking.
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At around 4 a.m., after Jake joined Amanda in sleep once again, the winds around the Ocean Princess picked up to about 40 knots. The sea also began to swell, making the ship rock back and forth as it made its way between Mexico and Cuba, and approached Honduras. Captain Catalano initially ordered the first officer to steer the Ocean Princess closer to land to try to stave off the effects of the wind. His bedside clock read 5:07 a.m. As he was meant to be back on duty at 7 a.m. he decided not to go back to bed. He briefly showered, put on his uniform and at 5:38 a.m. he entered the bridge.
At 6 a.m., they were 20 miles from the coast of Honduras, nearing Puerto Cortes. A series of freak rogue waves hammered the Ocean Princess on her starboard side, and the shell plating popped and burst in several smaller sections of the hull. One such strike burst the shell plating on the aft bulkhead where the problematic holding tank was located.
Water flooded the bulkhead. This alone would not have been a problem. The bulkhead was sealed and eventually the bridge would have been notified electronically. The Ocean Princess would have sailed on with the one bulkhead completely flooded, but still well-safe from any other major problems. They could have continued their entire voyage unheeded and then made the repairs at the shipyard.
But the four-inch gap between the unfitted ventilation pipe left a small exposed hole in the sewage storage tank, which allowed water from the ruptured watertight bulkhead to eventually fill the tank. The build-up of pressure combined with the stripped and unrepaired non-return storage valve meant that the influx of water would not remain just in the bulkhead and the lone tank. There was nothing to stop the water from pouring through the drainage pipes that were connected to the bathroom drain pipes of bathrooms on every deck of the ship on the starboard side.
As the rough waves kept pouring into the breached bulkhead, and from there, into the sewer tank, the pressure built until the seawater surged out of the tank, through the main drainage pipes, and into the ship itself. Until the pressure balanced itself, water poured out of every shower, sink, and toilet and waste disposal system connected to the unit on the ship's starboard side. For five minutes it surged all the way up through every deck up to nine, and among the plumbing connected to that particular drainage system was the bathroom in the Owner's Suite.
The water varied from geyser, in the lower decks, to a steady stream in the upper decks, but even though the pressure balanced itself and eventually cut off the streams in the ship's top decks, the water pouring through the lower deck drains only reduced to a steady stream. There was no way to stop it, and as it collected and built up and began to make the Ocean Princess list slowly to starboard, it maliciously began to spread and threaten the most vital part of the ship, her engine room.
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Amanda was the first to be pulled from slumber to the sound of running water. She was convinced at first she was dreaming things, but soon she was nudging Jake awake. "Jake...Did you leave the sink or the shower running? I hear water. A lot of it."
Jake struggled from sleep and struggled further to understand Amanda's question. "No way. You were the only one who showered when we got back here did you leave it on?" Sleep called to him, and he really wanted to listen.
It did not call to Amanda and the sound she was hearing made her further and further alert. "I'm telling you I hear water running. Don't you hear it too?"
Jake allowed the call of sleep to silence itself and listened intently. Amanda was not mistaken, he heard the sound of water in the bathroom himself. But even as he listened...He knew it wasn't from a running faucet or showerhead. He climbed out of the bed and went to the bathroom and before he even got halfway to the doorway his feet were wet. He made it to the doorway and turned on the light and stared in shock at the water that was covering the expensive tiles. There was a steady stream of it pouring up and over the basin and the shower drain.
Amanda had finally joined him, standing at his side in her lingerie and soaking her purple stockings. She was staring at the soaked carpet under her feet. "Christ,what the fuck is going on? Why is there so much water? Did someone flush a fucking toilet wrong? Are we standing in shitwater?" She looked at the soaked stockings. "Fuck!"
Jake couldn't keep a rush of panic from surging through him. "That's not wastewater...It's seawater. And we're on deck eight. If there's that much seawater up here...Then there must be even more of it below. Where the Hell is it coming from? If we hit something we would have felt it."
She looked at him. "I'm still not much of an expert about boats, Jake. Not even after two days of wandering all over this thing...And I'm starting to get really fucking scared because I'm pretty sure there's not supposed to be fucking seawater coming in them...Unless they're fucking sinking."
They noticed as they stood there that they were beginning to list to starboard, but with Amanda still learning nautical terms, she had no idea the distinction, all she knew was that the ship was leaning to the right. Amanda's shock dissolved into sudden panic. "Are we fucking sinking, Jake? Oh fuck are we fucking sinking?!"
"We're doing something. I don't know what yet but I'm going to be honest with you, this isn't good at all. Get dressed, we need to get on deck and see if there's anybody who knows what's going on."