There was a mist that draped seductively across Hong Kong, lying low in the green valleys and clinging to craggy hilltops, while buildings that dared to soar as some of the tallest in the world at this moment were obscured above the level of their mundane counterparts. As if its aim was to meld with the slate coloured harbour as it roiled in a languorous manner, the murky sky blended into the horizon, while teasing a hopeful city with occasional apertures in its surface as a rather inequitable reminder of the flawlessly sunny day that lurked just behind its canopy. It had been another sultry dawn, encouraging a listless approach to one’s business or pleasures as the day wore on, with people unconsciously changing their pace to one of a more sedate approach. It was the time of year for the drudgery this weather inflicted and no one expected anything different. Relief rarely came from the oppressive conditions, when it did it generally arrived in the form of a sudden downpour, only a temporary solution that sent down sheets of water to chase away the suppressive weather.

He had received a phone call. The conversation was short and echoed similar ones from the past.

She greeted him with, “Hi, what are you doing right now?”

He told her, “I’m reading a profit and loss statement that I paid experts dearly for only to sit here and find erroneous blunders that our four year old would have caught. Why?”

She disclosed, “I know something that’ll cheer you up.”

And so it began there.

The afternoon wind was hushed and warm and its tentacles laced amongst city’s populace in an invisible embrace as they went about their day. Gusts swirled in bursts, scattering yellowed leaves from the potted kumquat trees of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club across the water, bouncing from one sampan to another. Dusty billows were blown from the shore, playing cat and mouse between the luxury yachts packed closely together in their moorings. As a companion, there was a tinkling through the air. Wind chimes hung from the arching roofs of the sampans, every size and style, waiting only for the wind or the rocking of the sea, so they might produce impulsive melodies. Their buoyant peals washed over those who could hear it like a tonic, soothing tunes with no structure that abruptly stopped and started at the whim of nature. As they performed in great numbers, they were a simple delight to the fishermen and their families up and down the watery community of the sampans in the Typhoon Shelter.

He was seated in a walla walla, being ferried out to their mooring from Kettle Island, the home of the Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club. His tie had been discarded and the top two buttons of his shirt were undone. William’s workday was over. She was perched close to him, with her hand resting on his leg. When he looked at her, she responded with nothing more than a cool upturn of the side of her mouth before looking back to watch their approach.

There was only one reason they would come here, that alone delivered an ever-increasing build up of physical desire whose intensity heightened in direct correlation to the proximity of their boat.

Ownership of the sampan was born from a casual conversation in the car as they had driven by the bay.

She had begun with, “We haven’t been out on a pleasure cruise since that day we all went on the junk!”

He continued with, “You’re absolutely right.”

She asked, “Why is that?”

He answered the obvious, “The mostly likely reason is that we don’t own a boat.”

That led into a spur of the moment declaration of her love of all watercraft, with a particular fondness for sampans.

He had been sceptical.

She had been excited.

He tried to divert her attention to purchasing a couple of jet skis that they could use around the south side of the island, by Sham Shui Wan.

She would have none of that.

As was generally the case in their relationship, her persistence and determination, if not her common sense, triumphed. He was unduly charmed and gave her carte blanche to do whatever she wanted.

It was an unvarying sequence of events that he had come to look forward to with his wife.

And so it went from there.

The sampan had been fitted out in a boatyard in Kowloon, and brought across the harbour to the RHKYC to be moored inside the Causeway Bay Typhoon Shelter. To facilitate all of this, it had necessitated obtaining a family membership in the yacht club, and as was the case with a couple in their position, to dutifully join committees, purchase tickets for functions, duly attend said functions, and generally greet other members in a friendly and outgoing manner. Of course, this was second nature for her, the woman whose naturally gregarious personality seemed to attract more friends than the couple knew what to do with. For him, it was a protracted business, one that was at times a test of painful endurance.

Regardless, he played the game willingly enough, for the advantages outweighed the discomforts and were far too great to jeopardize.

While the sampan was being overhauled, updates on the progress of the fit-out were frequent, but he wasn’t allowed to see the finished product until it was ready to launch. Nevertheless, as she revealed what she was doing, all traces of doubt vanished, for he grasped the potential it had. This wasn’t to be some old Chinese boat, restored for putting around the harbour on the weekend with the children. Nor was it a social vessel in which to lounge about and drink wine on sunset cruises with Jane and Charles.

He reassessed his position as one to be envied, for this was quite possibly the substratum that every man’s fertile fantasy was built upon. The sampan was to be a floating boudoir, a nookie nest of the deep, a marine environment in which to roll and tumble in a challenge to the tidal currents.

His wife had, single-handedly and against his initial judgement, presented him with the ultimate clandestine retreat for husband and wife to get away and forget about everything else but each other.

William could not have been more proud of her had she announced her acceptance into the Harvard MBA program.

He stepped onto the narrow deck first and acknowledged his increasing impatience to be alone with his wife while she paid for their ride, requested a time for the walla walla to return to pick them up and generally remarked upon the melancholy weather before offering a friendly thank you, all in Mandarin. She had been fluent after her first two years in Hong Kong while he, after living here the whole of his life, most certainly was not.

The exterior of the old fishing barge had all the appearances of a typical restored vessel; it had been refinished and made watertight by the professional craftsmen at the boatyard. But it was lacking in any outward extravagances. It attracted no special attention from passers-by on the water, strategically moored as it was on the periphery of the main body of yachts nor did the community of boat dwellers pay it any mind, for it blended in with the hundreds of others in the typhoon shelter. For all intents and purposes it was just another old fishing barge brought back from neglect amongst a sea of similar craft.

In the time it had been moored, the sampan had escaped typhoons, monsoons, and his wife’s penchant for redecorating.

Offering his hand, he first took her bags before handing his wife up to the deck. She gave her husband a key on a simple brass ring and the door to the hardwood cabin was unlocked.

And so it progressed from there.

The interior had been fitted out in the style they were used to, with a heavy emphasis on a plush and comfortable décor. It was sparsely, but well appointed, for the interior was in fact compact, allowing for little more than the oversized bed, which stretched across the back wall to dominate both the mood and the space in cabin; the built-in cabinets; and the shower and head in the corner by the door.

One of the first things they did was open the windows, swinging up the storm covers on the outside and adjusting the interior shutters to allow passage of the breeze inside. It wasn’t enough to ease the sticky air, and the old-fashioned brass fans mounted high in the corners were turned on to create a cross-breeze that would glide across the bed and soothe them from the heat.

In fact, neither was too terribly worried about getting hot and sweaty, for that was exactly the point in making the trip to the sampan.

Unspoken rules existed for their time aboard the boat. They had been established with their maiden interlude and it was always the same. Once they opened the windows and stowed what they had brought in the cabinets and fridge, he would plop on the bed and do absolutely nothing. Nothing, that is, except keep an eye on her.

And that was the proverbial icing on a cake that was both provocative and arousing. Such was his reward for being Elizabeth’s husband.

From the time they closed the door to the cabin, she was always naked, or about to be. Today, he folded his arms behind his head while he watched her shed her clothing. Time had taught them patience, and their anticipation proved to be an aphrodisiac that couldn’t be bought in the alleys of Hong Kong, like the common ginseng, or Yin Yang Huo, better known as Horny Goat Weed.

She stood close to one of the windows and the muted music that the chimes carried across the water began a strange duet with her movements. Her fingers worked in musical precision and with the last button undone, her blouse was shrugged off of her shoulders and dropped to the floorboards. The high-pitched harmonies interlaced with the ends of her hair as they both fluttered in the wafting air and haphazardly stuck to her damp skin before being lifted free again. She was wearing one of his favourite bras, a satiny mauve one that fitted her perfectly, for the low-cut style pushed her ample endowments skyward and had her breasts poised to pour out of the cups. When it was unhooked, she spilled out without delay and he experienced the familiar hormonal rush coarse through him at the sight of his beautiful wife, naked from the waist up and washed in the shadows the shutters made.

Her ritual was temporarily halted while she went over to a drawer and took out a box of extra-long wooden matches. Wearing only her hip-hugging pants and whatever she had hidden underneath, she bestowed him with a sanguine smile as she approached the bed. Leaning on the edge, she struck a match and raised her arm up to the shelf on the wall. As she began reaching inside the glass covers protecting the Chinese temple candles above him, William glimpsed the underside of her breasts, rising and falling provocatively with the motion of her arm as each one was lit. He never tired of studying their fullness, amazed at how they could be heavy, supple and vernal all at once. As he continued his perusal, he considered the rosy pink tips and how, already, they displayed her arousal in the overheated environment of the sampan’s cabin when he had done nothing more than drink them in with his eyes.

Finally, as he sighed in response to the perfection he had always known them to be, she indicated all the candles were lit. She held up an antique brass incense burner, a stout three-legged pot with dragonhead handles, and lit the coil inside. A thin trail of smoke disappeared in the breeze and the smell of sandalwood spread in the cabin as she blew out the match.

And so it evolved from there.

Sometimes they would stay away from the boat for six months; once, they came twice in one week. That was when they had conceived their youngest child. Which afternoon resulted in the creation was unclear, but both interludes had been fiery encounters, rocking the sampan with a mutinous force more powerful than the wakes of the boats passing by. He could recall each culmination, the strength with which he had responded to her and the way he had infused her with what his body could offer to produce a new life. More than anything, he remembered the look that shone over her when they rested afterwards. She had an assurance that their couplings had produced a child. So confidant was she, in her own womanly way, that William wondered about intuition and superstition for many days afterwards. When she showed him the results of her home pregnancy test before he left for the hotel one morning, he left in a euphoric haze where images of disposable nappies competed against Elizabeth writhing beneath him and the unique fragrance of a newborn baby mingling with the briny spray of Victoria Harbour.

Now she knelt over him as if he were dinner and she was famished, a leg on each side, as she pulled down the zipper along her side of her pants. She placed his hands upon her sides and let him slip down, depositing them at her thighs and returning to her hips and exposed bottom, to let his hands knead her bare skin. Always eager to fully experience the pleasures of Elizabeth’s body, he drifted towards her until she was within his reach and his mouth began to place love bites underneath her breasts before he switched to sucking around the sides and across to the middle, alternating his attentions back and forth from one to the other as his mouth was filled with the salty taste that lingered on her flesh. Feeling her natural responses taking over as she grew firm against his tongue he found that he was arousing himself as much as his wife. He changed to nibbling on her and intensified his attentions with her growing reactions. She called out his name and he robustly squeezed both sides of her ass.

He was always undressed by her, a tradition not without its pleasures for them both, as each piece of clothing was carefully removed from his body. Now she realised he lay there fully clothed, and, feeling some resistance on his part, she extracted her breast from his mouth so she could act out a favourite ritual.

The candlelight was actually a luminous aid in the darkness of the late afternoon, and as she diligently began her task, they highlighted the film of perspiration that had begun to form on her skin. Elizabeth succumbed to the lure of the cumbersome weather to move slow and easy. After his shirt was open, she started massaging his chest, broadening her strokes farther up and down his torso, until she spent some time relaxing his neck with the gentle touch of her fingers.

Keeping in the mood of the day, she unhurriedly replaced her fingers with her lips, mixing the moisture of her mouth with the increasing dampness of his skin. It was her silken licks that circled from one earlobe to the other in a lazy path around his jaw that caused her husband to acknowledge a niggling voracity inside of him that longed to be satisfied. But her leisurely kisses drawn across the base of his neck were no more than a tease, causing his rasping breath to cut thick through the air.

As she raised her head up, the faraway sound of thunder combined with the graceful ringing of the chimes, the dominating humidity and weighty aroma of the sandalwood stimulated them with an intoxicating allure that urged them on. The ambiance of the afternoon, both inside and out, was about to transform into a torrid affair.

And so it escalated from there.

Before she knew what had happened, he had flipped her over on her back. Hastily removing his shirt, he could match her now with his own bare chest as he pressed heated skin together and felt the give in the softer flesh of his wife.

Cradling her face, he kissed her tenderly more than once before he unleashed a torrential display of his affection. It was a thorough perusal that simmered and seethed, strangely mimicking the uneven clangour of the wind chimes. His wife answered with a passion of her own, biting eagerly on his lower lip and when one was more enthusiastic than he expected, William pulled back.

There was an amused smile beaming up at him, for his wife could read his mind. Regardless of the lethargic feel of the day, she knew things were moving a little too slow to please him.

His eyes clouded over, and when he took her again there was no attempt at decorum. Raking his hands through her hair, he held on to two handfuls as he wiped her mirth away when his mouth brusquely took hers. While their kisses seethed in slow-motion, the heat between them rapidly ignited and he skilfully manipulated her pants down her legs so she could kick them away. But, her hands pushed against his chest and she rolled him back over, breaking their embrace.

The shadow of disappointment on his face was fleeting when he sensed her moving down his chest. She was dawdling along, teasing them both as she drug her damp chest towards his waist. She had to finish undressing her increasingly impatient husband. His belt was unfastened in the conventional way, but she swung her leg around and, using her toes that boasted an edgy purple-pink shade, she tugged and pulled on his belt until it was free from the loops in this pants. As long as she was at it she gave the same approach a try with his zipper, finding it worked best to slide her big toe down the middle and push it apart as she moved downward, she also knew the progress of her toe was doing more than opening his pants. She felt how hard he had grown as he strained against her foot and Elizabeth knew the man wouldn’t put up with much more foreplay.

But feeling a real sense of accomplishment with her dexterity, she was about try removing his pants the same way when two strong hands grabbed her feet and yanked her backwards. Elizabeth was staring at the ceiling, rich wood that gleamed in the flickering light. Voicing its approval, more thunder boomed as William tasted purple polish. His penchant lay a little higher, but on his way there, he swept up the curve of her foot, causing Elizabeth to lightly shriek and try to wriggle her foot from his grasp.

As he attended to the needs of her ankle, he studied her sprawled across the bed, drifting in suspended pleasure, her eyes half open and fixed upon him as she glimpsed up through her legs that were spread wide apart. The only thing she was still wearing was a satin thong to match her discarded bra. It was a slender strip of fabric; its purpose could not have been to cover the spot where it rested. It wasn’t nearly big enough.

In fact, William knew that the crafty, nameless person who designed the miniature garment must have planned on the exact effect it would have on him, for whenever Elizabeth slipped it on all he wanted to do was get it off of her.

As another clap of thunder broke quite close to the sampan, a fine rain began to fall. He bit the high-rise of her arch, “Come here.”

She propped up on her elbows and asked throatily, “Why?”

He sucked her heel, “I want to show you something.”

She trained her eyes on the spot where his pants were unzipped, “I’ve already seen it.”

His tongue slithered over the scar on her ankle, “Impressed?”

She was still staring at his crotch, “It’s been a while, I don’t recall.”

He began to forge a wet trail up her calf, “You can’t fool me. I know it’s unforgettable.”

She saw him do a couple of little gyrations, “Modest, aren’t we?”

He repositioned himself between her legs and when the velvety warmth of his tongue made contact behind her knee, she sighed. Then he bit her there, too. “Truthful peaches, like a boy scout or the Pope.”

She bit back, “Did you realize both of your examples, little boys and the head of the Catholic Church, are celibate? I wonder what that says about your subconscious?”

He just ambled right along and had made it half way up her thigh before he answered into her firm leg, “It says that I haven’t been getting enough sex and I’m starting to relate to the wrong kind of males. Now if you have to speak please, just make it compliments about my performance.” And with that, the thin straps of her thong were snapped and the filmy strip of fabric discarded on the floor, only to be replaced by deliberate strokes created by her husband, wetness of one kind mingling with another, drawing her through a torturous series of slowly building swells that never quite crested, as he manipulated her responses and, when he felt the currents of electricity begin shooting through her body from where he touched her so intimately, let her break into a fiery orgasm that crashed down over her.

And so it skyrocketed from there.

Despite the rain, which could be heard in a steady beat upon the roof, the couple was sweltering. When they had come together, their lovemaking had begun in a lazy fashion. There was no reason to hurry and they preferred to stretch out their enjoyment. But, the momentum eventually had to pick up and as she began to move and sway with more vigour, her perspiration had formed beads on her body. One rolled down her side, taking an irregular course as it crested each of her ribs. The drops that ran down between her breasts dripped onto William.

The curls around his face and behind his neck were soaked. His skin was wet and slick. When it was vital that he thrust with more intensity his hands, resting on her hips, couldn’t find a grip. He eased her against him and, momentarily stopping their rhythm, rolled over. Their bodies slipped against each other; they were drenched at this point and the sweat that clung to them was a mixture produced from them both.

With the sounds of the chimes and the gusts of the wind washed away by the afternoon rain, Elizabeth slid her legs around William’s hips and locked her ankles together while he found some non-slippery support from the bed. Then they began again, each stroke by him met with by an upward thrust of her hips, increasing in intensity and pace with the escalation towards an imminently fulfilling ending.

They were panting loudly, saturated by sweat that was produced from their exertion and the suffocating air, hoarsely exclaiming their pleasure as they grinded against each other.

With a raucous growl that matched a final roll of thunder moving off in the distance, he held her tightly against him as he found his release. Much like the uncontrollable weather today, it was a heated and physically gruelling experience. Sensing his wife’s desire to continue, his trembling hands reached underneath her and held her tightly against him. He rocked with her as she churned and pulsated until she too reached an immense culmination that he heard and felt somewhere deep inside her.

Still dripping with sweat, still breathing heavily, still very overheated, they at last relaxed.

And so it ended.

The shower purified salt water and had a small heating element that was extremely efficient. Its hand-held nozzle was perfect for a speedy wash-off after mind-blowing, loin-shaking, boat-rocking sex. The curtain only reached shoulder height, so as they took turns washing, conversation flowed. So too did the wine, which Elizabeth always found amusing to sip in the shower. She fed him snacks as he lathered up, popping several into his mouth and changed the sheets while he dried off.

The shutters were readjusted so they could recline and look out over the harbour while they talked and ate and drank and waited for their ride. This intimate time was as good as their lovemaking. They were mellow and relaxed and appreciated their private place that was uniquely for each other, in another equally gratifying way.

She wondered when she spotted a cheesy grin on his face, “What are you thinking about?”

He admitted easily, “Thongs.”

She thought she understood his meaning, as she was now dressed sans any underpants at all thanks to her husband’s spontaneity. “Thongs?”

He busted out in a grin that made her pause in appreciation, for his dimples were a sight to behold. He laid his face against the curve of her neck and began to laugh.

She prodded him, “William?”

He explained, “One particular thong, Elizabeth. A black one that was hardly more than a scrap of fabric held together precariously by the thinnest of threads.” As her fingers grazed through his curls, he continued, “Our entire relationship began with that thong.”

She balked at his deduction, “It most certainly did not. It began with me falling overboard.”

He disagreed, “No, it began with a bottle of expensive cognac.”

She settled it all, “It began, my love, with my ankle.”

He deferred to her judgement, “Touché.”

They heard the approach of the walla walla. Gathering together the bags, they quickly locked up and got in for the ride back to the clubhouse. As the boat cut through the stillness of the night, Elizabeth spoke in Mandarin to the old Chinese man about the weather and the upcoming holiday and paid him when they got to the dock. As the walla walla disappeared into the darkness, William draped his arm over Elizabeth’s shoulder, whispering something inconsequential in her ear just so he could hear her laugh and have the melodious sound carry across the typhoon shelter like wind chimes in the breeze.

And so it would continue for William and Elizabeth Darcy.