Aurora - Goddess of the Dawn Pt. 02

This is a work of fiction. All characters depicted are over the age of 18

Part 2... Beck and Watson meet the Braggs and lend a hand, none of them knowing where this act of kindness would eventually lead...

*

The boat was riding lazily at anchor in the lee of a small, palm-fringed cay, two hundred meters from the beach at the edge of the coral. A black-hulled, cutter-rigged sixty-footer, new or nearly so, with a fully-furling main and dual helm. Beck scampered around Aurora's deck, reeling-in the headsail and lowering the main into its blue canvas cradle. Standing at the port helm, Watson pressed the rubber-capped starter and the diesel whinnied into life down below. A figure appeared on the deck of the sixty-footer, then was joined briefly by another, as Watson clunked the saildrive into gear and motored sedately towards a rendezvous.

The figure on the deck- a shapely young woman- waved as Watson brought his boat around and dropped the gearbox into neutral. She stood there, hands on hips, watching the forty five-footer wallow in the languid swell twenty meters to starboard. "Hi there!" she hailed with a big, beaming smile.

"Nice day for it." Watson nodded.

"I guess it would be." she said. "As long as you weren't broken down."

The second figure reappeared- a tall, dour-looking male, clutching a coffee mug. He dipped his head. "G'day."

"Had a spot of bother?" Watson asked as Beck padded barefoot to his side and stood, hand to her brow shielding her eyes.

"It's our motor." the woman explained.

"What happened?"

"Don't know. The silly thing just stopped working."

It was a million dollar boat. Seemed unusual that the silly motor would just stop working. "That's bad luck." Watson replied. "What's the problem?"

"No idea." the man shook his head. "There's plenty of fuel, we've already checked. But it just... you know... sort of stopped working, just like my wife said."

"That's odd..." Watson frowned. "What sort of motor is it?"

The man and the woman exchanged a puzzled glance. The man shrugged. "A boat motor?"

Watson nodded. Sure enough, clueless.

"Do you happen to know anything about boat motors?" the woman asked.

"Oh, don't go bothering them." the male chided, in no mood for hobnobbing with the peasantry.

"No, no, that's okay." Watson said. "I've done a bit of work on mine so I've got a bit of an idea. What do you reckon? Should we take a look?"

"Well," the male hedged, looking reflexively at his big gold watch, "if it's not too much trouble."

"None at all." Watson shook his head. It would be a chance, if nothing else, to check out the beautiful boat, not to mention its gorgeous female occupant.

"Err..." the man frowned, "How should we..."

"Standby with a couple of lines fore and aft and I'll come alongside." Watson replied. "Beck, throw out the fenders and get up to the bow. Let's get ready to make fast."

Beck rummaged around in a cockpit locker and extracted four stiff, inflated, white plastic bumpers. Slinging them over the side one by one and tying them off, she perched on the bow while Watson brought them around. As the two boats came together, squashing the fenders, the woman lobbed a rope into Beck's waiting hands. With the rope secure, Beck worked her way aft, to the cockpit, where Watson was busy with a second mooring line.

The old man could sense the couple giving him a surreptitious once over. Dressed in faded blue Billabong board shorts and sagging green T-shirt, with close-cropped grey hair and four day's growth on his jaw, he was a degree on the shabby side of ruggedly handsome. An academic by the looks, or retired professional, on the wrong side of fifty but still tanned and fit. Moving from point to point, he checked their handiwork, then looked up, brushing his hands. "Well, that should do the trick."

The dead boat's owner leant over the side. "You're not going to scratch my paintwork, are you? This thing is brand-new."

"That's what the fenders are for." Beck announced dryly and the neighbours both looked at her. Knee-high to a shrimp, somewhere in her teens, she was clad in salt-starched pink- and grey-board shorts and a threadbare pink singlet. Her breasts were hardly more than two little bumps, but her nipples were standing proudly erect, punctuating the fabric stretched over her chest. Bleached platinum by saltwater and sun, her bountiful blonde hair was trussed up in a ponytail, and her perpetually sun-kissed skin was the colour of honey. She stood, undaunted by the neighbours' frank scrutiny, her sky-blue eyes holding their gaze with calm equanimity.

"Fenders." the male rumbled, "Of course."

"We're kinda new at this." the woman admitted.

"That's okay." Beck shrugged. "Everyone's gotta learn."

"Amen to that." the woman nodded.

"I'm Rebekah." Beck announced for want of something to say.

"Hello Rebecca, nice to meet you."

"No. Rebe-kah. With a 'k' and an 'a' and an 'h'."

The woman smiled. "Well, it's nice to meet you Rebekah, with a 'k' and an 'a' and an 'h'. My name's Tanya, with an 'n and a 'y' and an 'a'."

Thirty-something, with short dark hair and straight white teeth, Tanya with an 'n and a 'y' and an 'a' was barely clad in a tiny one-piece swimsuit, with high-cut sides and plunging neckline. Her body bespoke countless hours in an expensive gym, pounding the treadmill under the watchful eye of a personal trainer. From her full round breasts to her hard, flat belly, her tiny waist and broad, canted hips, her figure was centrefold perfect and she knew it.

Her male companion had obviously been taking care of himself in much the same manner. Forty or so, he had ample brown hair, greying at the temples but otherwise perfectly groomed. He stood behind the woman looking slightly embarrassed, wearing the smile of a career know-it-all suddenly out of his depth. "Boats." he said ruefully with a shake of the head.

"You'd have to be nuts!" Watson affirmed.

"Been here long?" Beck asked.

"Since last night," the woman grinned, "when we got shipwrecked."

Her husband curled his lip. "Hah, hah."

"Oh, lighten up." The woman gave him a playful nudge. "He's been like a bear with a sore head since he broke his new toy."

The bear with a sore head looked Watson up and down. "The name's Bragg," he announced loftily, "Roger Bragg, Senior Counsel. And you would be?"

Watson quickly considered several wry comebacks, but the woman was so drop-dead gorgeous he feigned deference. "The name's Watson." he replied, "Damon Watson, moth-eaten layabout."

"And what about your day job?" the male asked, as Beck snorted with laughter and quickly covered her mouth.

"Script writer." Watson replied, "So same thing really."

"Rebekah and Damon." Tanya smiled. "There you go, just like old friends."

"Just the two of you, is it?" Bragg asked, craning his neck in search of the other parent.

"I'm actually solo." Watson replied. "I just keep her around in case I run out of food." It was their private joke. Because he was always eating her. "Umm..." he gestured vaguely at the side of their black-hulled boat. "Should we?"

The upmarket castaways stepped aside. "Of course." Tanya said, "Please. Welcome aboard." Looking at Watson, she wrinkled her nose. "You know I've always wanted to say that."

They boarded, and Bragg led them down the broad teak companionway into a saloon the size of an airplane hangar. Watson took in the panorama of cream leather upholstery and wide-screen plasma TV, a nav-station as big as his entire saloon, and a galley big enough to service a restaurant. "Where's the donk?" he asked.

Bragg shook his head, plainly mystified. "The what now?"

"The powerplant." Watson said patiently. "Your engine."

Bragg frowned. "The engine? You know I'm not entirely sure."

Watson dipped his head to hide his growing dismay, and poked around under an island bench in the galley. "So," he said, busy searching for the engine, "had her long?"

Bragg squinted at him. "Had who long?"

"The boat."

"Oh, the boat?" Bragg replied and glanced at his wife. "Ha ha... for a minute there I thought, when you said 'her'..."

"It's a tradition." Beck explained a tad wearily, "A vessel is always a 'she'."

"She. Of course." The man waved airily at the million-odd dollars of floating opulence. "We only just picked the damned thing up, to be honest. The agent had us out on a couple of trips but I have to admit it's all a bit new."

Watson squinted at him in borderline disbelief. "But you have sailed before?"

"What? Oh, no. Never had time." Reading Watson's expression he put on his game face. "Look here. I'm not a complete idiot, you know. We did have an instructor organised, just to be on the safe side, but she was over ten minutes late and we're on a very tight timeline. Hired help. You just can't depend on them."

"Right..." Watson nodded, quietly dismayed by such brazen stupidity. "But you know your way around your engine, don't you? They did show you, when you bought the thing? How your cooling works? All your belts and filters?"

"Why bother?" the tall, handsome male replied, waving the suggestion away. "It's all brand-new. You don't buy a car and go poking around under the hood, do you?"

"Until it breaks down."

"Well that's hardly my fault is it?" the man sniffed.

Turning his back on the blithering fool, Watson opened a side panel. "Ah!" he exclaimed, "Under the companionway. That's pretty standard. Though for a boat this size..." Clearing the deck of spectators, he commenced unlocking access panels, swinging the companionway aside, raising the soundproofed side panels, and after a few moments had laid bare the engine that had just stopped working.

"We motored out yesterday." the owner was explaining, "It was all working perfectly."

"Motored?" Watson blinked. "You didn't sail?"

"Sail?" Bragg replied indignantly. "How could we? The wind was blowing the wrong way."

Watson was tempted to look around for the hidden camera. It had to be a setup, surely. "Where were you headed?"

"Halcyon Reef." Bragg said, sounding offhand. "To meet up with friends."

"Halcyon?" Watson blinked. "Where did you start?"

"Arcadia Bay."

"But... Arcadia south of here. And Halcyon's south of there. You're going the wrong way."

Bragg looked at his woman, turning slightly red.

"I told you so." Tanya rolled her eyes. "I did try to tell him. I said, 'why don't we use the GPS?'"

"We didn't need the GPS," Bragg countered peevishly, "we had it on autopilot. And it's a moot point anyway, because he we are."

Tanya nodded. "Broken down."

Bragg opened his mouth and Watson cut in. "And how did you break down, exactly?"

"Well..." Bragg hedged, "at around six last night we decided to pull up for the night, because we'd only just noticed the boat doesn't have headlights-"

"No headlights." Tanya shook her head, "Can you believe it? On a million dollar boat."

"-and rather than sail through the night with no lights we thought we might as well stay here. We were just settling in for the night and thinking about having some dinner, when all of a sudden the bloody engine just stopped."

"It was terrible." the woman lamented. "No aircon, no fridge, no TV. Even the toilet stopped working."

The old man's incredulity was starting to show. Tanya looked at Beck standing beside him and gave her a wink. "Boys and their toys." she tutted.

"Something you females will never understand!" Watson confirmed, kneeling to inspect the engine by the light of a proffered torch. He fingered a blister of green paint. "Looks like she might have overheated."

"Overheated?" Bragg demanded. "But it's nearly brand new."

Watson looked at him. "Was there an alarm by any chance?"

Tanya squinted at her husband. "Come to think of it, there was that beeping noise, remember?"

"Ah, yes." her husband replied, "Bloody annoying it was too. I thought it was the radar picking up the island. The radar's got an alarm, you know." Bragg's brow furrowed at the mystery of it all. "Though the radar wasn't on at the time, which I thought was a bit odd."

"That was your engine alarm." Watson said grimly.

"I told you so!" Tanya rolled her eyes once more then looked at Watson and shrugged. "I said to Rodge, I said, 'I bet that's got something to do with it.', but there was a cancel button, so I pushed it 'cos it was so bloody annoying. Do you have any idea what it might have been?"

"Was there a light?"

Bragg thought about it then snapped his fingers. "There was now you mention it. On that panel over there."

"Show me."

Bragg tapped a dead red lamp on the circuit breaker panel. A label below it read 'Coolant'. Watson's heart sank. "This light? It was on?"

"Bright red. Why? It's not a problem is it?"

"It's your coolant light."

"What's a coolant light?"

"It means your engine had no coolant running through it."

Bragg rubbed his chin. "Really? I thought it was some sort of brand-name. Coolant. Don't they make freezers and things?"

Watson returned to the engine that had just stopped working feeling slightly bewildered. The man's stupidity begged the question of how he'd even survived until adulthood, yet here he was, not only a grown-up but a rich one at that, with a million dollar boat and a red-hot trophy wife. It just did not compute. "There was no coolant running through your engine." Watson said, looking up. "You cooked it. She's seized."

"But..." Bragg protested, "...it's a brand new engine."

Watson stood, brushing his hands. "Even a brand new engine needs coolant."

"Can it be fixed?"

Watson shrugged. "Impossible to know. Have you checked out your inlet?"

The couple glanced at each other, patently stumped.

"Your cooling water inlet?"

Bragg turned on the spot, searching for the fabled inlet. "And where would that be?"

"Outside." Watson replied, being very careful not to roll his own eyes, "On the hull. Underwater."

"Underwater? How can I check it if the damned thing's underwater?"

"It's the first place you have to look." Watson shrugged. "Something might have clogged-up the inlet."

"But... We... I..." the man blustered, "I'm not going in the water."

"I'll go!" Beck announced, ripping the Velcro fly of her board shorts open.

"Go?" Bragg asked. "Go where?"

Beck jerked her head in the direction of the cockpit. "Over the side."

"Isn't that dangerous?" Bragg asked, "I mean, what about the sharks and the stingrays and things?"

"A hundred and forty million sharks are killed every year by humans!" Beck bridled, "You're much more likely to be-"

"Thanks, Sir David." Watson said, shutting her down. He turned on the hapless strangers. "Look, she spends so much time in the water it's a wonder she hasn't grown gills. It's no problem. Over you go, Beck, make sure you check all the through-ports. Roger, I'm gonna need some tools. What have you got?"

"Tools?"

"Tools. Spanners, sockets, screwdrivers..."

"But... It's a brand new boat. I shouldn't need any t-"

Watson raised a hand. "Yep, yep, got it. No problem, I've got some."

Beck was already down to her skimpy bikini bottoms. Bragg stood staring at her, blinking, and for a moment he seemed lost for words.

"Now those have seen some lovin'." his wife smiled, nodding at the scrap of threadbare fabric slung low across the blonde's broad hips.

"Just worn in." Beck replied with a cheeky grin.

"We won't be liable, right?" Bragg asked, snapping out of his thrall. "If anything happens?"

"Happens?" Watson frowned.

"To the girl."

His wife groaned and Watson shot him a sidelong glance as a number of pieces, slowly descending, fell into place. The old man drew an exasperated breath. "Beck! Hang on."

Halfway up the companionway, Beck propped. "Look," Watson said tersely, "we're happy to help out and all, but we can just leave you to it if you'd prefer. It's no skin off our nose."

"Sorry, folks," Tanya apologised, shepherding Watson out of insult's way, "Roger's head's still at work."

"What's happening?" Beck asked, "Do you want me to go or not?"

"Thank you, Sweetheart," Tanya replied, and elbowed her husband in the ribs, "that would be awesome."

"Yes. Th... thank you." the lawyer stammered, looking slightly shamefaced. "That would be very kind of you."

"Dommy?"

Watson shrugged. "Up to you."

"Okay," Beck said, "I'll just duck next door and grab my snorkelling gear."

Tanya began up the companionway behind her. "Come on, you guys." she beckoned. "Why don't we go up and watch?"

Watson had just placed one foot on the bottom step when he felt a hand on his shoulder. "I really do apologise, Mister Watson." Bragg said. "Tanya's right, my head is still at work."

Watson looked at the big, well manicured hand as the term 'benefit of the doubt' crossed his mind. "No sweat, Roger, it's what we yachties do. And please, just call me Damon."

By the time they emerged into the sixty footer's cockpit, Beck was sitting on the swim platform of her boat, clad in her blue-striped bikini, pulling on her fins and slipping on her mask. Taking a big deep breath, she looked to the old man for a nod of approval, then pushed forward and dropped vertically into the blue.

Watson hopped across to his boat and gathered up some tools. Hesitating, he briefly considered leavening the drudgery with a quick puff of weed, but then reminded himself the guy was a lawyer. A barrister. A Special Counsel no less, so he had taken pains to point out.

When Watson returned to the stricken vessel, Tanya and her husband were standing on the superstructure peering anxiously into the water. It had been a good three minutes since the girl had gone down and she still hadn't surfaced. The couple exchanged a nervous glance. "Umm..." Tanya said uneasily, "should we be getting worried? She's been down there an awfully long time."

"What?" Watson looked at her. "No, that's okay. It's only been a couple of minutes. If she's not back by dinner then we start worrying."

The Bragg's eyed each other. Either the man was barking mad or he was going to hit them for damages. If the brat didn't come back...

"There she is!" Tanya pointed, as a pale, shapeless shimmer swelled up out of the depths, heading for the stern of the broken down boat.

A soggy white plastic bag appeared, then a skinny brown arm. Beck's head broke the surface next and she looked up, holding her prize proudly aloft. Hauling-out onto the yacht's wood-panelled step, she tore off her mask and raked back her hair. "Found it!" she announced, swiping her nose.

Watson took it from her and turned it over. Beck stepped up into the cockpit streaming water, her worn and faded bikini bottoms clinging to her intimate contours, the oversized top revealing most of her suntanned breasts.

"Where did you find it?" the old man asked.

Beck leant over the side then pinched her nose and blew out some sea-snot. "Coolant intake." she replied, flicking the slime off her fingertips. "Just like you said." She stood, shoulders back, her nipples stiffly erect, sunlight reflecting brightly off her water slick skin. "Just the end was sticking out." Beck said, tugging at a handle loop. "This bit here."

Watson turned to Bragg with the exhibit. The taller man was standing, head slightly bowed, staring mutely in the direction of the dripping young girl. Eyes invisible behind an expensive pair of shades, he had his hands thrust deep into his pockets and for a moment seemed transfixed. Watson nudged him and he shook awake, turning his head to study the ragged plastic.

Beck shivered as goosebumps sprang up in the wake of a passing breeze. Wet, her platinum hair reached all the way to the Venus-dimpled small of her back. Gathering it into a thick, silken rope, she squeezed out some water, then stirred a finger in her little pink ear. Tanya touched her arm. "You're an amazing diver, Beck."