On A Trip I Never Planned For Never Expected

Following college I decided to take a gap year before looking for a full time job. I got a job as a bartender on a cruise ship mainly doing weeklong cruises in the Gulf of Mexico. On one trip, I was off and eating alone in the self serve dining room, a man with a tray asked if he could sit at my table. He asked question after question, I felt trapped, I couldn't leave. During that half hour he learned where and when I worked, where I went to college, what motivated me to take a gap year, my love life or lack of it. Like a skilled interrogator he teased information out of me.

He pushed his cabin key over to me before he left. That night he showed up at the bar where I worked, he spoke to me, he expected me to keep his bed warm that night. I answered that I would not be there. He answered that he expected me, don't disappoint him. He also let me know why he was on board, it was his daughter's engagement. I walked by his cabin, back and forth, before going down to my cabin.

The next day he spotted me and I went the other way. The night before we docked in the morning he put a note on the counter at the bar, 'name, number, where did I live'. I left my name, a made up number, and an apartment complex I lived in in college. He stared at me, until I scratched out the lies and left him my number and where I lived. Immediately I knew I had made a huge mistake, but it was too late. I knew immediately that I was going to end up with him.

He asked me to give up the cruise business, keep his bed warm, and show him genuine affection. I did what he asked, I quit the cruise line, kept his bed warm, and showered him with affection. His daughter got married, two years older than I was. When she told me her husband had hit dead center I cringed, I was also pregnant.

I found a job, babysitting his granddaughter while I babysat my daughter. I agreed to get married for the sake of my daughter. With babies in the house I went maternal, and my affections went with it. I'm the daughter's best friend, her babysitter, she talks about the sister she never had, but I'm her stepmother. We have a cruise planned for when the 'girls' turn five. Even if there are other siblings.

Comments

Anonymous

by Anonymous on May 26, 2024 at 2:13 AM

Another irresponsible millennial birthing a child into the world.

I suggest you print out the story you have written here, save it and read it in 10, maybe 15 years and you will understand how ridiculous you are.

Nice piece of work!

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