The Flight

1 Deniz*

We believe we are leading destiny; but it is always leading us.

Denis Diderot. Romanesque works.

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Sanem

As far as the eye can see the water, the immensity shines under the sun that gradually plunges into the ocean and is tinged with luminescent reflections. The sound of the lapping of the waves on the hull of the boat, so soothing. I am not used to such fullness, such tranquility. Usually, always someone or something to come and disturb our tranquillity. But in a few hours so much has changed...

I look, tenderly, at the ring that adorns my left ring finger...and I shake my hand once again on my chest where the moonstone ring is hidden, the one that Can made himself and offered me when he proposed to me the first two times.

We have been through so many hardships since then...arguments, jealousy, separations, amnesia but in the end our love will have been stronger than anything else.

The price of all these hardships, of all our suffering.

The bottom of my wedding dress twirls in the sea spray and I smile as Can sets about setting everything up for our first destination, which he keeps as a surprise.

I just know that we are going to sea for several weeks with a few stopovers and that I needed enough clothes to cope with all the climates.

Two days ago, with Leïla's help, I packed my suitcases. We were both enthusiastic, excited and a bit anxious, I admit. As far as I can remember we have never been separated and here I am, ready to leave for weeks on end, cut off from the family ties that have governed my life for so long....

It was between two questions and many nervous laughs about marriage and life as a couple, that she confessed to me that she was already looking forward to coming home to share with me the greatest adventure of her life...becoming a mother.

We fell into each other's arms, crying, hopping, dancing like crazy. I am the first to know after Emre. Six weeks already and a first black and white photo of this little bean that will soon make me the most happiest of aunts.

I am afraid to miss all these insignificant things that made our relationship so exceptional...

Even when I left to live on the farm, I knew that I was not far away, that at any moment I could see Leïla, my parents. There, only the satellite phone could eventually save me from isolation.

I have the impression that it was already weeks ago... so many events have taken place since then...

Does it really matter in the end? Isn't it time for me to look ahead? To think only of ourselves and of this life we dream of building together, this life we promised ourselves, the one we have been dreaming of for so long!

I take advantage of the fact that Can is concentrated, busy organising the navigation to detail his every move. His lifelong athletic physique, his restlessness, his travels, his propensity to help his fellow man have shaped him into a body in the image of a Greek god. I capsize myself to see his protruding muscles, the stretching of his tendons, the veins that run through his arms to his hands and dance under his skin as he manipulates masts and hatches?

He has taken off his jacket and unbuttoned several buttons on his shirt, revealing the fine fleece of his torso and the perfect line of his pectorals. He doesn't really look like a sailor but he is so sexy as a casual groom...it looks like he is posing for a perfume ad and a wave more naughty than the others will splash him leaving droplets streaming down his chest, inviting you to tear off this shirt that hides too much or not enough...