*****
That night, I heard them again.
Women singing, the most angelic sound I’ve ever known. Like a puppet on a string, I rose and walked into the night.
“Hello!” I screamed. Was it a radio? A signal? Others on the island?
The heavenly sounds continued, but not from the island. The song was coming from the crashing ocean waves themselves.
“I’m going crazy,” I said aloud.
“No, Hope, you are finally sane.”
Fisher stood behind me, his naked body glorious in the silvery moonlight.
“How long have you been on this island?” I wanted answers.
“I think about fifty years.”
I fell into the sand. Either I was crazy or he was.
“You never age?” Why was I arguing with a madman?
“We did at first, and then it just kind of, um, stopped.”
“There were others with you? Survivors?”
Fisher sat in the dense sand behind me, his legs hugging mine. I took a breath as his arms wrapped around my waist and he laid his cheek against my back.
“There were three of us that washed ashore alive, as well as one of the captors. Jake slayed that vile monster immediately.”
My heart pounded. “Captor?”
“We were taken in New York City long ago. Kidnapped, stolen, whatever you want to call it. Well, Jake was anyway.”
“Captured for what?”
“To be sold to men.”
I leaned back into him as I tried to absorb his words.
“Like slaves?”
“I think so. The ship was full of young men and even teenagers. All beautiful, all perfect physically.”
“You said Jake was abducted. You weren’t?”
“My father sold me to them.”
“Oh my God. Why?”
“He hated me. My mother died giving birth.”
My hands wrapped around his and pulled him even closer.
The bond I’d felt with Fisher had been immediate, but now, it grew stronger.
“What happened to the other castaway? Did he age, die?”
“Within the first month, he went mad. One night he attacked me with a knife. Jake saved my life, but the other kid was mortally wounded in the process. As I lay dying in the sand, the sirens sang.”
“Did Jake take you to the stream? The one that healed me?”
Fisher nuzzled into the back of my neck. “Yes, the sirens sang of it. They wanted me to live. Jake carried me there in his arms.”
“Why doesn’t he believe in its power, then?”
“It doesn’t always work, so he thinks it’s a coincidence. But I know better—it works when the island wants it to work.”
“The island?”
“This place is magic. It’s not just the sirens, there’s more.”
“Tell me,” I begged as the singing faded into the wind.
“I’m tired, not tonight.” His lips grazed the back of my neck.
I wiggled back into him, unable to quell my desire any longer. I needed him more than I needed air. “I hoped for you, and they brought you to me,” he whispered into my ear.
“You have Jake,” I said, pushing back against his erection.
“Yes, we love each other, but we were incomplete. Before the island, we were only with women. We only wanted women.”
I reached back, caressing his hardness. His lips moved to my earlobe, nibbling.
“God, Fisher, do you really want me?”
“Desperately,” he groaned.
“Because I’m the only woman you’ve seen in forever?” My confidence flew away like the song of the sirens.
“No, you don’t understand. You are the one that I wanted. I didn’t hope for a female, I hoped for you.”
I turned to face him, my body on top of his. Our lips fell together in a kiss so perfect I knew I’d never be the same.
“I can’t wait anymore.” He pulled at my clothes, stripping me naked. “I need you.”
“Fisher,” I said into the night as he entered me, filling me as his tongue stroked mine. We made love as the waves washed around us and when we were finished, he carried me back to the shelter, to our home, in his arms.
Almost too softly to be heard, the sirens began to sing again as we drifted off to sleep next to Jake.
***
Daniel left me for dead that day. I knew how easy it would be for him to return to the resort, distraught that he couldn’t save his poor drowning wife. They’d search, of course, and never find my floating carcass in the vast Pacific. Eventually they’d give up and the cause of death would be as Daniel said: I’d simply ventured too far out and drowned.
Daniel would be free, after a respectful mourning period, to re-marry and have the perfect wife and beautiful heir he’d always wanted. Yes, his plan was savage, but I had to give him credit—it was a good one.
Except he never made it back to the resort.
That night, lying between Jake and Fisher in their bed, I had a dream.
In my dream I saw him. Daniel was smiling as he navigated back to shore, probably congratulating himself on getting rid of the baggage he’d carried for years. And then it happened—in my dream I heard them sing.
Daniel heard them, too. His smugness turned to fear as the song got louder, angrier. It wasn’t the sublime sound that I heard, but a horrific din. His hands flew to his ears, desperate to make it stop when the waves rose high, higher than his boat.
My murderer was consumed by the ocean; swallowed by it. The song of the sirens told of a couple drowned in the sea: one reborn to a new life, and one forever condemned to wallow in his own evilness.
I woke the next morning as the sunshine streamed in. The three of us lay naked, our bodies entwined as if we were perfectly joined puzzle pieces.
“My husband is dead.”
Fisher leaned in and kissed my forehead before wrapping me in his arms.
Jake simply rolled over and said, “Good.”
***
After a breakfast of salted fish and bird eggs, Jake informed that I was going hunting with him.
“Oh, me? No, I could never kill anything.”
Fisher looked at him, his eyebrows raised.
“What?” he said to Fisher. “If she’s going to stay, she needs to be useful.”
“I’ll teach her to fish today,” Fisher said with a nod toward me.
“Fishing I’ll try,” I chimed in.
Jake stood up and looked us. “I said,” he snapped, “she’s going hunting with me today.” He walked off, leaving it clear who was in charge on their little island.
Fisher took me in his arms after Jake was out of earshot.
“I don’t know anything about hunting,” I whined. Despite my attraction to Jake, his intensity frightened me.
“That’s why you need to learn.”
“But I don’t want to hunt. I couldn’t even dissect the frog in biology class.”
“Here, we fish and we hunt. That’s how we eat, Hope.”
“What if I grow things? Vegetables?”
“So you’ll stay with us?”
I never wanted to leave Fisher’s arms. I was falling in love with him. “I mean, until they rescue us, I guess I meant.”
“We’ve already been rescued, Hope. The three of us are to be together. The island wants us to make more.”
“Whoa,” I said, pulling away from him. “Make more?”
Fisher smiled. “We will have a family. The island told me.”
I felt thrilled and horrified at the same time. “So that’s why you wanted a female? To breed me?”
He cringed. “Oh God, no. We wanted you to love, and to love us.”
“Good,” I said sadly. “Because, Fisher, I can’t have children. Daniel and I tried everything. And it was my body that wouldn’t cooperate—the fertility clinic confirmed that.”
Fisher reached for me and I let him envelop me in his arms. I listened to his heart beat as he said, “I have hope, my love.”
***
“You’ll need shoes,” Jake said, holding up a pair of canvas sneakers.
Fisher was off doing what earned him his nickname, fishing. I was left alone with Jake, and despite my protests and vegetable garden idea, I was still going hunting. As much as I hated the idea, I did feel a flutter of excitement at being alone with him again.
I put the slightly big sneakers on, not wanting to think of the feet they’d once probably belonged to.
“Come, and be quiet,” he said.
Jake and Fisher had been naked all morning, which no longer shocked me. Now, however, he was fully dressed in ripped jeans and worn leather boots. I followed behind him, doing my best to stay quiet.
But my resolve to not speak only lasted ten minutes. “What are we hunting for?”
“Boar,” he barked. “Wild boar that your chatter just alerted to our presence.”
“Sorry,” I said to his back.
We walked for what seemed like forever, and I forgot my vow of silence once again. “How do we kill these boar?”
He stopped and spun around, his face inches from mine. “Shut the fuck up!”
The old Margaret, back home, would have cowered. But this was the new me, this was Hope, and I felt bolder. Maybe Fisher was right; maybe I was re-born.
“How dare you talk to me like that? Fuck you.”
I turned to leave, but his strong hands grabbed my shoulders and held me still.
I yelled at him. “Don’t you fucking dare! If you hurt me, you’ll regret it.” I was shaking, not in fear, but in anger.
His hands left my shoulders as I spun around to face him. Jake threw his hands in the air. “Okay, okay. No one’s going to hurt you. You’re going to flush out the boar, and I’ll finish him off with my knife.”
“I don’t have to kill it?” I felt relief; both that Jake was being kinder since I stood up to him, and that I didn’t have to slay an animal.
“No, but you do eat meat, right? Pork?”
“Oh yeah, I love bacon.”
“Someone kills a pig so you can eat. Today, that will be me. But next time, Hope, that will be you.”
We walked in silence for another half hour before Jake stopped and pointed into the brush. He gestured for me to come close. My stomach fluttered at our closeness when he whispered in my ear.
“Go around to the other side and scare him out of the bush. Just run at him, but don’t grab him. They are meaner than I am.”
“That’s pretty mean,” I whispered back with a wink.
I was terrified, but I did it. If only my spa girlfriends could see me now, I thought as I walked around through the shrubs.
Jake gave me the thumbs up, and I ran toward the thick brush. I screamed and made as much noise as I could as I charged. I felt wild, savage even. Until, of course, I actually saw the thing.
And it didn’t run toward Jake; instead the creature turned and ran at me. It was bigger than I expected, and faster. The noise it made, more of a grunt than a squeal, was sickening. The long nose, the beady black eyes, that wiry hair—all of it freaked me out.
Be brave, a voice inside me said.
Margaret would have run, but Hope was determined to have this pig for dinner. I flung myself toward it, screaming for Jake. I made contact with the monster, touching it, feeling its hot breath on me. We slid in the mud together, rolling as its claws pierced my skin. Jake was screaming, but I couldn’t hear him. My one goal was to hold that boar until he stabbed it.
“Let her go,” I finally heard him say from beside me.
“Kill it!” I howled.
“This is a pregnant female,” he said calmly. “Let her go.”
The boar turned to bite me when he stomped at it. To my relief, it ran.
I lay there in the mud, scratched and dirty, and most of all, angry.
“I fought that beast for nothing!”
He laughed, which made me even madder. “It was sexy as hell,” he said with smile.
“You’re an asshole!” I tried to stand up but slid in the mud. “Help me up.”
He folded his arms. “I like you in that mud, baby.”
“Fuck you,” I spat, fighting to stand up.
“I’m game for that.”
He reached his hand to help me, but his heavy boots gave way in the thick mud and he landed on top of me. “Me too,” I said.
“You too, what?”
I took a deep breath and looked into his eyes. “I’m game for the fucking.”
My hips ground into him as his lips found mine. Jake’s kiss was hard, unyielding—the opposite of Fisher’s softness. There was no tongue stroking with Jake; it was pure tongue-fucking.
He clawed at my thin clothes, his hands reaching under my shirt to caress my painfully hard nipples. I moaned as he spread my legs with his, pushing me even deeper into the thick mud.
I pulled his fly open and begged him to take me. I was starving and he was my feast. When Jake plunged into my tightness, hard and rough, the ecstasy ripped through me. My nails scraped down his back and he thrust into me again and again, our howls echoing through the jungle.
***
“You are such a dirty girl,” he said as he lifted me from the mud.
“You’re fairly filthy yourself.”
“Let’s get cleaned up.”
“No pork tonight? We’re done?” I asked.
He shook his head. “Oh, we’re far from done. But no, no more hunting today.” He pointed off into the distance. “There’s a pond over that way, it’ll do for bath time.”
We walked hand in hand toward a clearing. Beyond some trees was the clearest water I’ve ever seen.
“How fortunate we all landed on an island with plenty of fresh water,” I said as we waded into the warm pond.
“I don’t believe in all the stuff that Fisher does, but I do know that fortune had nothing to do with it. We were supposed to be here, and this is no ordinary island.”
“So I’m here for eternity?” The words sounded foreign, dreamlike as they came out.
“I don’t know about eternity. We’re not invincible or anything. Fisher got sick last year and almost died. He’d tell you the magic waters healed him, but I think it was me. I held him, I begged him not to leave me, and I filled his belly with warm boar soup. He’s here, he recovered, but I do know that he might have died, that he was capable of leaving me.”
“Have you tried to be rescued?”
“Hope, he rescued me. Fisher did.”
“He’s special.” The mention of Fisher sent flutters through my stomach.
“You will love him, too, and he you.”
“Jake, I’m not sure how that works, three of us in a relationship? If that’s what you mean.” Could they both love me? Could I love them both?
“The sirens sang of a love like no other the island has seen—a love shared by three. Fisher would say they sent us you.”
“And what would you say?”
He sighed and reached for me, holding me close to his chest. “I don’t know about all of that stuff. I do know that I enjoyed being inside a woman again and if you make him happy, it’ll work out.”
“It’s just because I’m the only one—the only woman. Back home, guys like you and Fisher would never look twice at someone like me. Not now, anyway. I was beautiful once, I just didn’t know it then.”
Jake leaned into me, forehead to forehead, and looked into my eyes. “They did want you, you just didn’t know it. You didn’t want you. Beautiful once? God, Hope, you are extraordinary now. All of the things that you see as flaws, changes the years have brought, have perfected you, not marred you.”
Our lips met and he kissed me. Tears rolled down my cheeks; it had been so very long since I’d felt adored. Here, on this island, I felt like a woman again.
After the mud was washed away, we walked back toward camp as the sun set.
“Have you tried to get off the island? At first you must have wanted to be found.”
“Yeah, at first we did. And then, as we fell in love, we decided this was our home. The two of us could never be together back in New York like we are here. We both love women, but what we have here is forever.”
I thought about the society they’d come from, and it made me sad.
“Things have changed over the years, Jake. You would be surprised.”
“Have they really changed enough? Is it truly a better world than the one we left?”
I shook my head. “No.”
“You’re not a prisoner here, Hope. There are chances to go and you’ll get to decide.”
“When?” I wasn’t sure I ever wanted to leave, but the idea of never going home was daunting.
“When you’re not broken anymore.”
***
That night the three of us melded together as one. I’d never experienced anything that sensual, that erotic, in my life. My husband, Daniel, had no idea, nor the desire, to pleasure a woman the way these two men did that night on the island.
It was as if by their touch, my body awakened and remembered the pleasure it was capable of feeling and giving. When Jake’s tongue stroked mine as Fisher was deep inside me, the ecstasy was nearly unbearable.
The sirens sang in the wind when our three bodies fully joined, Fisher behind me and Jake in front, all of our tongues finding each other’s kiss. As they filled me completely, I came again and again like I never thought I could. It was more than the physical pleasure; it was a joining of three so intense, so divine, that I knew we’d never be apart again.
I fell asleep that night in their arms, the three of us tangled like vines, and as we would every morning after.
Over the course of the next while, I can’t tell you how long because there was no sense of time on the island, we went from being simply lovers to three people in love. The sirens were right—the force of our love multiplied was majestic, it was supernatural. I truly was no longer broken.
One day, however, our love was tested. I was returning from weeding the garden I’d planted in the sandy soil when I heard them arguing. Harsh words alone weren’t that unique; we were three strong-willed individuals and we certainly weren’t always blissful ever after. Jake, in particular, could have a scalding temper. But that afternoon it wasn’t Jake who was angry; it was my sweet Fisher.
“You better fucking not tell her!” I froze; they were arguing over me.
“She has to know.” Jake’s voice was calm, but determined. He would get his way.
“I can’t, we can’t, after waiting all this time. We’ve only had her a few months. Please, Jake, I’m begging you.” Fisher’s anger had turned to panic.
“If she goes, we can’t give the island life,” Fisher said.
“Hope isn’t a prisoner, she’s not a captive, and she’s healed enough to decide.”
“I know,” Fisher said, the fear and sadness in his voice breaking my heart.
I walked forward through the trees. “What am I to decide?” I asked.
They both looked at me and were silent for a long while, wrestling with a decision.
“Tell me, Jake.”
But it was Fisher who spoke. “There’s a ship, I saw it yesterday. Soon it will be close enough to signal for rescue.”
The island spun around me; the moment had come. “Will the sirens let me go?”
Tears brimmed in Fisher’s green eyes as he nodded. “Yes, if we can see the ship, if it made it this near to us, then they are giving you the choice.”
“Please don’t go,” Jake blurted out. He took my hands in his. “I love you,” he said to me for the first time. “We love you.”
I was dizzy, and I leaned into Jake for support. Fisher’s arms joined us, holding tightly to me on as if I might evaporate.
“I love you both. You’ve become my world, my everything. This is all I want, this is all I will ever need. The three of us, sharing eternal love in our home, is more than I could have ever hoped for. I will never leave you.”
I kept that promise, even though other ships passed by. Our love was a miracle to me, although I suspect that real love is always a miracle. On that island, our home, three broken souls became one, and through that love we were healed.
I still bear some of the scars of the past, however. Memories of that day with Daniel cause me to wake up screaming from nightmares. The sea still frightens me, and I remember the cruel taste of the saltwater as I was drowning that afternoon. My flesh is still imperfect, and no amount of healing water has removed the flaws that I once worried so much over.
There has been one marvelous change to my body, however. As I sit here today in the clear blue pond where I came with Jake that day, there is a new life on the horizon. My hand skims over my pregnant belly as I wash and I feel our baby kick. The sirens’ song is carried in the wind as the two men that I love place their hands on me to feel our child move. A new life is coming, a new hope, sprung from our endless love on this island which I once thought so savage.
The End