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reacquire his sea legs, but he’d managed. He’d always managed.
    He wiped off the last dabs of shaving cream and tossed on a pair of shorts and a light shirt before heading up to the deck. Since it was just he and Gwen, clothing wasn’t really a requirement. But there was enough of what Gwen referred to as “old school” thinking in him that he couldn’t bring himself to just trot around buck naked all the time, or have Gwen similarly unattired. “What fun would it be when the intent is to have fun?” he had asked Gwen when she had broached the subject. She had simply laughed, called him quaint, and never mentioned it again.
    The salt air of the placid Pacific Ocean hit his nostrils as soon as he got topside. He stood in the prow, his hands upon his hips like a latter day Peter Pan, and breathed it in. The ocean spread around him like a sheet of blue-green glass, with no one around for as far as he could see.
    He clambered up and over and began to unfurl the sail. Having checked the compass to ascertain their whereabouts, he sent the ship cruising east. There was a small, underpopulated island where the natives were always happy to see them. Arthur and Gwen stopped by every now and then when they felt like talking to someone other than themselves. The natives’ English wasn’t especially good, and they had never seen either a television or newspaper, so they didn’t especially care about the fact that the former president and first lady swung by once in a while. Still, it was a nice time to interact, not to mention stock up on freshwater.
    And it was pleasant.
    Pleasant.
    “That’s my life now. Pleasant,” said Arthur to no one. He rolled the word around on his tongue, said it very slowly. “Pleeeeeasaaant.” It rhymed with “peasant,” which he wasn’t especially happy about.
    He stood next to the harpoon gun for a long moment, fingering it longingly, his eyes seeking something that he might be able to use it on. A passing shark, perhaps. That would be nice. A big one, something that could give him a bloody challenge. Hell, if he saw one, then, just to make it interesting, he could run back down, fetch Excalibur, leap into the water, and take the creature on in its own environment. That seemed more sporting somehow, rather than standing safely upon a deck and letting fly with a spear from a distance. Granted, it would give Gwen fits, since she’d be petrified at the thought of Arthur’s being devoured by sharks, leaving her to fend for herself single-handedly on a yacht in the middle of nowhere. But even so…
    It was moot, in any event. He saw nothing. Nothing challenging, at any rate, or available to him. A school of dolphins was passing in the near distance, but he ignored them. He’d learned that lesson the hard way, nailing a passing porpoise early in their cruise and hauling it in, only to have Gwen fairly screaming at him, “You killed Flipper ?” That put an end to that.
    Stepping away from the harpoon, he unspooled a fishing line and tossed it into the wake of the ship. Then he flopped down onto his fishing chair and waited to see if something would come along and grab the bait. They had fruit and various breadstuffs for breakfast, but the sportsman in him fancied the notion of catching something for whatever meals he could.
    He lost track of how long he sat there. All he knew was that time passed, and some more time, then the footfall from behind him told him that Gwen was approaching him. He glanced over his shoulder and smiled at her as she approached, drawing her white robe tightly around herself. The weather was balmy, but the breeze was stiff, and could be cutting this early in the morning.
    Gwen brushed her hair out of her eyes and came up behind Arthur as he turned his attention back to the fishing line. “Morning, love,” she said, draping her arms around him.
    “Morning.”
    She kissed him on the cheek. Her lips remained there for a brief time, longer than an ordinary kiss would