Of Roses & Sailors A man of breathtaking mystery to me, I was perpetually surprised by his gifts and how he bestowed them. On board the ship, sailing into the South Pacific, the seas were glassy, shimmering when we gazed out in the morning. How lured we were by the slow motion erotic pulse the ocean generated beneath our feet. I wore the thin cotton shift he threw over my body as I awoke at daybreak, when he compelled me to join him on deck. Pulling myself from sleep and dreams and the half awake stupor of sensuous remembering, I found myself tiptoeing barefoot passed the other cabins to the ladder we climbed in our ancient reborn vessel, to the top deck. He wanted me to see the luster of the morning light at sunrise over the sea: to see how the water looks like jewels; how its spa