The exhausted crew of Lymp’s charter yacht cleaned up as best they could after dinner and gratefully disappeared to their bunks, leaving their boss and her guest deep in conversation on the deck. Lymp had shown Khan some of the video’s she had bookmarked on her iPhone.
“If you had the money, Khan…” Lymp was saying, “would you invest in developing the Fusion Torch?” It was quite a dark moonless night so she could not scrutinise Khan’s facial expressions too well as he pondered the question.
“It would take billions, I reckon.” he eventually offered and a snippet of a video flashed through Lymp’s memory. She reached for her iPhone and searched for it.
“Have you heard of the World Economic Forum?” she asked and Khan groaned with a nod. “What about the United Nations’ COP conferences?” and again he nodded, unimpressed.
“Listen to this. I present to you, King Charles the third, our new monarch!”
When the video finished Lymp suggested, “Could it be that the trillions Charles wants the world to ‘militarily marshal’ is actually intended to privately develop fusion energy and, ultimately, the Fusion Torch? What if he knows that resources are not as finite as he is saying there?” she posited and, after a moment of thought, “Could it be that the income from these bogus carbon credit schemes is ALREADY being funnelled into fusion energy development, such as those in France and at Oxford University or even, as I said earlier, Antarctica - out of sight and under the radar?”
Khan was watching his hostess intently and could not help but admire her tenacity over this subject. She was literally glittering with animation, like he had lit a spark somewhere within this apparently cold and previously shallow creature. She looked completely different, as if she had miraculously metamorphosed into something exquisitely beautiful.
He stretched as he stood up.
“Are you going to take me to your bed? Or do I have to swim home?” he asked.
Olympia Duhdashian, taken completely off guard, blushed slightly and laughed. Not knowing what to say was a very rare moment for her, but there it was. She put her wine glass down and led the way to her cabin.
She was woken, early the next morning, by Girlfriend and her pod chattering, clicking and whistling loudly all around the yacht. She wrapped a towel around herself and went to investigate the commotion. Khan was swimming with them, playing a strange head-butting game, interspersed with the dolphins leaping and tail splashing. Lymp wasn’t sure what the rules were, but it looked as if Khan was their football at one point! When he climbed back onto the deck he was breathless. “Can’t do that for long!” he gasped, “They get too rough!”
Lymp was unashamedly admiring Khan’s physique. “How old are you, Khan?” she asked as she poured some coffee for them both.
“Fifty this year.” he stated. “You?” Lymp usually told people that she was twenty-nine but artifice didn’t seem appropriate between them, somehow.
”I am thirty-five” she replied. “Were you born in the Caribbean?” Lymp had detected a slight American accent, but she wasn’t sure.
”Nah, my parents were American, they were lab technicians on the Manhattan Project at the Hanford Site in Washington State.” replied Khan, “But they bought a trailer and went ‘AWOL’ on the road when, let’s say, ‘things got too hot to handle’. I was born, three years later, in a parking lot somewhere in Texas!” He grinned, “Born to run, to quote Springsteen!” he paused to gulp some coffee, “I was raised in Cancún, Mexico - but it wasn’t much more than a fishing village to begin with. My dad worked in construction there, so did I when I left school. Have you been there?” Lymp said that she had never been to Mexico. “Man, you should see it now!” he said and whistled.
Image from the 50th Anniversary of Cancún (2020) website showing before & after aerial photographs
Lymp found some photos online. “Wow!” she gasped.
”You should go!” urged Khan, “Wha-dya-want? Sex, drugs, rock ‘n’ roll, gambling, gun crime?” and Lymp raised a hand to stop him. “I’ll pass!” she said, laughing, “I can get all those in London, plus miserable weather and wall-2-wall camera surveillance! Ooh, you should see it!”
They both sat back on their loungers and gazed at the gorgeous greenery and gleaming sands of Khan’s Island with a sigh of fondness. Who would want to leave this paradise? Why?
“What are your plans, Madam?” asked the yacht’s captain when Lymp passed him on her way to dress. “Chef would like to know if there will be any special requirements.” Lymp looked at him blankly. “I honestly couldn’t say!” she replied, a little embarrassed. “Let me think about it!”
She did not have to think about it for long. Khan was already on it and brimming with ideas. “How long do you plan to cruise the Caribbean?” he asked her when she returned to the deck looking like a 50s movie star, in a red swimsuit and wide brimmed hat.
“S’funny, but the captain needs to know that too!” she said and shrugged perplexed at herself. She always had everything planned. This aimlessness was most uncharacteristic of her.
Khan made his pitch, “I would like to show you around, introduce you to some friends. What do you think?” and Ms Olympia Duhdashian was, for the first time in her entire life, excited to be open to suggestion.
Chapter 1 - https://francesleader.substack.com/p/the-daily-grind-of-lymp-duhdashyan
Chapter 2 - https://francesleader.substack.com/p/lymp-duhdashyan-at-the-spa
Chapter 3 - https://francesleader.substack.com/p/lymp-duhdashian-kerching
Chapter 4 - https://francesleader.substack.com/p/lymp-duhdashian-disappears
Chapter 5 - https://francesleader.substack.com/p/lymp-duhdashians-reality-shock
Chapter 6 - https://francesleader.substack.com/p/the-olympians
Chapter 7 - https://francesleader.substack.com/p/lymp-duhdashians-education
Chapter 8 - https://francesleader.substack.com/p/lymp-goes-down-the-rabbit-hole
Chapter 9 - https://francesleader.substack.com/p/all-the-world-is-a-mine
Chapter 10 - https://francesleader.substack.com/p/the-olympian-population-reduction
and here are Chapters 12 & 13 -
Chapter 12 - https://francesleader.substack.com/p/frying-big-fish-in-the-caribbean
Chapter 13 - https://francesleader.substack.com/p/why-look-at-grey-when-you-can-choose?sd=pf
Oh you clever lady, I know, I said it before but am getting more and more impressed. ❤️