“You feel that in the air?” Morgan asked Sirius a little before dinner. Amanda was off helping with the food preparations.

  He nodded. There was that uncanny stillness about. “Sirens. They don’t usually frequent these waters?”

  Morgan shrugged. “You have ear plugs I presume?”

  Sirius nodded. “And Amanda does too.”

  Morgan frowned and looked out at the relatively calm sea. Small waves today, ones without any whitecaps. “She shouldn’t need them though?”

  “She can hear them,” Sirius replied. This part of the ocean was deceptive. Despite there not being much in the way of obvious land, other than the occasional small rocky outcrops which blended in far too well with the dark water in the early evening light, Sirius knew that much of the ocean floor out there was extremely shallow in some parts. He trusted Morgan’s navigator though. They were about as far as they could get from land out here. It was not a great place to sink a ship. Despite that, many had gone down here. It was basically a graveyard, and a scavenger’s wet dream. Most of the ships that had gone down here had come here for the purpose of relieving one of the previous victims of her cargo. In the end, many of them had become victims themselves. There was perhaps a lesson in that Sirius thought. He sighed. Everybody thinks they’re going to be the exception.

  Morgan gave him a curious look. “She can?”

  He simply gave a nod in reply but didn’t expand on that. He could feel her eyes on him though, studying him.

  “You sure she’s not attracted to woman?”

  “What?”

  Morgan’s words took him off guard and he turned to look at her with a confused expression.

  “I once sailed with a woman who had a theory that only people who were attracted to woman could hear the sirens. That and the way she was looking at me when I was fighting naked on the other ship today.”

  Sirius frowned. “You were naked, anyone would have been looking at you.”

  “You weren’t.”

  Sirius didn’t answer. He was too busy thinking about what Morgan had said about Amanda and trying to decide if it was true or not. She was definitely interested in him, that much he was pretty sure about, right?

  Morgan crossed her arms.”You hardly ever look at anyone like that. What makes this one so different?”

  “I don’t know,” Sirius said after some thought, but he did know, it was just that he couldn’t really pin it down to one thing or explain it. There was the way she interacted with others, so interested, so attentive, so entertaining. Yes she was strong-headed and a little reckless, maybe even heroic, but she wasn’t that in an arrogant way. Not like Morgan was arrogant. She was confident but gentle too, just a little self-conscious but she didn’t let that get in her way. She was open and coy and somehow the perfect balance of everything in a way that he didn’t think he could describe without it sounding completely stupid. Maybe he was the one who was mad?

  Morgan studied him for awhile longer and then she gave a resigned sort of, “Hmm,” followed by a shrug, and then she left him be with only his thoughts and ocean. There he stayed, lost in his head, staring out at sea until the first dinner bell rang.

  Amanda already had a drink when he joined them in the galley. He raised an eyebrow at her. At this point he was pretty convinced he was going to win the bet but given she at least seemed to be keeping the quantity sensible he didn’t mind too much. All things in moderation he supposed. Maybe it was wrong of him to push so much. After all, the crew drank probably just as much and as often. It was what she’d said about her father that had gotten him worried though, well not so much what she had said but how she had said it.

  She shrugged. “It’s Pinto’s birthday.”

  "I wouldn't get too excited," remarked Riki from nearby, "It's Pinto's birthday every Thursday."

  "It's a Thursday," Amanda replied, surprised to know the day.

  "What do you mean it's his birthday every Thursday?" Sirius asked as he took a seat beside Amanda.

  "Well, Pinto doesn't know what day he was born other than it was a Thursday. So a few years back one bright bloke got in the habit of saying happy birthday to him every Thursday and it just kinda became a tradition."

  Sirius gave Amanda a sideways look.

  “It’s also Stinger’s brew.” She offered him a taste from her cup.

  Sirius accepted and he had to admit it was pretty good. “Maybe we should forget about the bet,” he said quietly to her when everyone else nearby seemed distracted by their own conversation.

  Her head snapped around to looked at him sharply. “No way.” And with a jut of her chin and a fierce smile she declared softly, “I’ll start tomorrow. 1 week, no backing out, no matter what.”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Big words,” he replied with a smile as he handed her back her mug. Well, he didn’t see how she could talk her way into any extra days now. Win or lose, the bet was on from tomorrow and he genuinely did wish her luck.

  “You have your earplugs right?” Sirius asked Amanda as they returned to their cabin after dinner. She’d stuck to half a mug of beer tonight, almost as if she was getting herself used to what the next week would be like.

  “Yeah, why?” She gave him a surprised look.

  “Morgan thinks there might be sirens nearby.” At the look of worry that flashed across her face he quickly added, “Don’t worry. I’m a light sleeper. I’ll wake you if they start singing.”

  She looked only a little reassured as she took a seat on the bed.

  “If you sleep on the wall side you’ll have to climb over me if you want to get out.”

  “Or I’d just go off the end.”

  “Not likely. People don’t usually take the long path to get to the sirens,” Sirius replied truthfully.

  She still looked worried. After last time he could understand why.

  “You can just sleep with the earplugs in too you know.”

  “What if they fall out.” She did look a little less concerned now though.

  Sirius had one more trick. “And I can put the chair in front of the door.” He grabbed the single wooden chair in the room and did as he had said.

  When he next looked at her she was smiling at him. He wanted to go over and kiss her but first he had a question. He frowned and paced slightly. He wasn’t sure how to word it, wasn’t even sure it was important, but he couldn’t help wondering about it so he figured it was better he asked. He paused in his pacing and turned to look at her.

  She cocked a questioning eyebrow at him. She read him too easily.

  “I was just… Morgan mentioned something… a theory.” He scratched his neck.

  Amanda didn’t interrupt. She just waited patiently, looking a little worried again.

  He felt bad about that. He didn’t want to make her worry but he didn’t want to ask this the wrong way either.

  "Do you like girls?" he finally blurted out.

  Amanda laughed then at the serious look on his face she stopped herself and bit her lip. But a smile still squeezed its way out. "Well I mean I've dated both. I... I dunno. I like you specifically, obviously. But I never really paid much attention to what sex a person was. I don't think I have a preference." She shrugged.

  Sirius considered it. He knew it was possible to like more than one sex but he’d always assumed most people still had a preference one way or the other. He sat down on the bed beside her. “No preference huh?”

  She shook her head. She was still smiling.

  “Do you… like Morgan?” he ventured.

  Amanda snorted. She leaned in close to him with a mischievous look on her face. “Why? Are you jealous?” She slipped her hand onto his leg and gently drummed her fingers slowly and seductively against his thigh.

  All of the blood in his head rushed downward.

  With a sly grin she removed her hand but she kept watching him. More seriously, but still with a smile on her face, she replied, “Well, she is obviously very fit but no I don’t like her like that. I think she’s mean and she obviously takes pleasure in causing people discomfit.”

  Sirius still had enough of his senses not to notice the irony in that statement. He narrowed his eyes at her and was about to open his mouth to reply when she caught sight of his expression.

  She gave another laugh, spontaneous, and a little sheepish, as if she hadn’t realised that she had been doing something quite similar in a way. “This is different,” she protested as she raised a finger.

  Her laughter was contagious and Sirius couldn’t help but smile back at her. “Is it?” he asked, adding a little teasing to his tone.

  “Yes,” she replied as she slipped her hand back on his thigh and leaned in a little closer. Her lips were but mere inches from his.

  Distracted by so many things, Sirius suddenly found his mouth running away with his mind as he blurted out something else he’d been wondering ever since she’d mentioned she had no preference. “So, what sort of porn do you look at?”

  Her eyebrows shot up and then she laughed again.

  He loved that sound. He needed to figure out how to get her to do that more often.

  “That’s a personal question,” she replied in mock offense. Her smile never left her face.

  He simply cocked an eyebrow. He felt bold. He wanted to know more about her, perhaps even more than he wanted to get her physically naked. This was a different kind of naked, something much more intimate.

  She shook her head. “Anyway, I don’t really look at porn.”

  He didn’t believe her. “Everybody looks at porn.”

  She snorted and raised an eyebrow. With a devious grin she countered, “So you’re admitting that you look at porn?”

  “Everybody…” he hesitated and narrowed his eyes, “You really don't? Not even images or... something? You don't find certain physical images attractive?"

  She laughed. "No I do, it's just…” She blushed then considered it. “Okay, so I guess I like comics."

  "Comics?"

  "Well some comics. They way characters are drawn but it's not just the pictures. There has to be a story. It can't just be sex you know, but I mean there is that... in some of them..."

  "Hmm." He considered it, her reading smutty comics. The imagery didn’t help with the blood not being in his head.

  "That said I did used to have a shirtless poster of a very attractive drummer pinned to my bedroom ceiling."

  "Hmm. A male one?"

  She laughed. "Yeah. Why what porn do you look at? What's your go to?"

  He shook his head and suddenly felt very self conscious. "You'll think it's silly"

  “I won’t.”

  “You will.” He couldn’t look her in the eyes.

  She reached for his hands and leaned forward and around so he could see her face out of the corner of his vision. In a very sincere voice she repeated. “I won’t.”

  He looked at her directly then. There was no more teasing in her expression, nothing but raw honesty. It wasn’t fair he supposed that she had told him for him to not share as well, but it felt so much more intimate now that he was a little scared. He’d never told anyone this.

  “Well, there’s these books in the ship library. Old ones that talk about human history, from before the splice.”

  She frowned a little but her fingers gently caressed his hand. Her touch was nice, soft.

  He continued before he lost the nerve. “There’s some pictures in some of them of old paintings of feasts and naked woman. I just, like the way they painted them.” He reached out a hand and gently traced the curve of one of her breasts. “The way they captured so much detail. All the soft curves.” He ran his finger all the way up to her lips which also curved upward.

  Then he leaned over and kissed her.

  She melted into him. Her hands tugged at his shirt, fumbled for his belt.

  He stood up and tossed his coat to the floor. Then he lifted her further up onto the bed, ran a hand up her thigh, then back down all the way until he grabbed her by the ankle and tickled her foot.

  She squealed and laughed and pulled away, only to return a moment later and tug him down after her. Her fingers attacked his ribs. In a tangle of limbs and flesh they fell about laughing. They tumbled until their laughs turned to gasps and moans of pleasure. Until all other worlds were forgotten. Until finally, encased in each other's arms, they slipped into sleep with a sigh.