FOUR
Her eyes were pleading, wide and suddenly vulnerable in a way Dylan had never seen before. It gripped at his heart that there should be anything in the world that might make her vulnerable. She was the decisive one, the honest one, the strong one, like Chris. He cursed the poachers in his mind, not just for shooting at him or for injuring Chris, but for wounding Sarah’s bravery such that she looked at him now with a child-like apprehension.
“Never,” he managed to choke, and this time, it was Dylan who leaned in.
Sarah’s head tipped back gratefully as he plunged his mouth against hers, rough and textured, and his eyes shut. She let out a long ponderous moan, mingling pleasure and surprise, and tilted her head back further, as if offering herself to him.
His hand touched her cheek again as his mouth worked against hers, kissing her frantically, until she opened her lips and he licked them inside and out. Another long moan and she shivered, as if overtaken by a freshly kindled desire. Her tongue moved out to meet his, and they grappled in the lamp-light, the wet sounds of their kisses filling the small room. His hand moved lower, over the supple flesh of her neck, along her collar-bone, and gently traced her small breast through the fabric of her tank-top.
She stifled another moan as his thumb circled the small bud of her nipple and it hardened under his touch as she stuck out her chest, craving more of him than he was giving. His whole hand began to knead her breasts, and she placed her own hand over top of it, guiding it in a swift motion. She gasped as his hand dipped lower and moved under her shirt, and almost rocked backward with the sheer pleasure of his skin against hers.
“Harder,” she whispered in his ear, “rub them harder.”
Dylan’s breath was sharp as he kissed at her neck, eliciting more sounds from her, and he pulled her tank-top off over her raised arms in a jerking motion. Sarah’s breasts caught the lights and pooled shadows in their arcs. He moved from her neck, tracing her jugular vein, over top of her breast bone and she looked down dreamily at the top of his head as his mouth took her breasts. She made a sound that was like pain as his tongue circled over her right nipple, causing it to harden and grow dark before her very eyes, and another spasm rocked her body as his hand slid around her waist, trapping her in the wet embrace of his lips.
Gently, he pushed her back, until her head was propped against the end cushion of the couch and she turned her head to one side and let him lick her body in its entirety. Her skin was the color of peaches in the light, and he worked on her noisily, his tongue carving his own name on her in a dozen ways, until at last, he moved over her navel and his lips brushed the fine white hairs above her pelvis.
“I’ve never…” she began.
“Can I try something?” he asked, another whisper, and she nodded, biting her lip and letting out a timid sigh, spreading her mouth in an expression of pleasure.
His fingers plied at the rim of her shorts, inching them further down over her waist until she was only in her thong and his hands went to the black lace of them as well. She let out a little gasp as he pulled them over her knees, revealing the full dark beauty of her sex. Both of his hands cupped her knees and caressed the inner softness of her legs. She awkwardly slanted both legs, as if to cover herself, some latent Victorian sensibility suddenly awoken. But it was too late, his hands moved further down, brushing the soft white flesh with his finger tips, and causing her to squirm as she widened her legs until her pubis was a small mound in front of his nose.
She had little pubic hairs, a little field of straight black hairs that all converged at the tip of her clitoris. He leaned in without warning and the top of his tongue scoured over the top, forcing back the fold, and she squirmed again, both legs locking against his head and her hands digging into the fabric.
“Oh, geezus,” she gasped.
Dylan seemed to smile and began to lick at her labia, forcing back the layers of skin as he tasted her and she moaned deeply and looked down her chest at him, her hips already rhythmically moving with the motion of his tongue. She felt her loins filling with a kind of energy, a linger of passion that promised to burst at any moment. She reached down and gripped the top of his head with one hand, pulling him harder and harder into her, willing his tongue into the opening of her vagina where he pulsed against her insides – entering some sort of Braille that only he, only Dylan, would ever be able to decipher.
His cunnilingus quickened, and again found the ripe berry of her clitoris and she gripped at her fallen tank-top and smothered herself with it as a scream erupted, only barely muffled, and her other hand tore at his hair, so wracked with the pleasure that overtook her. Dylan’s head was locked between both quivering thighs, his lips buried up over her pubic hair, and his chin dripping with her by the time she stopped flailing, and the tank-top fell away from her mouth, damp with her saliva and her breathing a sagging pant.
“Oh, geezus,” she repeated, and met Dylan’s mouth as he swam up between her legs. Somehow, he had already shed his shirt and she relished the sweet warmth of his skin against her bare breasts, and instinctually opened her legs wider. “More,” she asked, and he came away from her lips. She could taste her own nectar on him, and licked her lips.
As he undressed, she covered her mouth, beholding the full size of his member again. It wasn’t just the candlelight, she realized, he is truly massive, and for a moment, she feared what was to come next. She was still a maiden by all accounts, and she had heard only stories, passing rumors and whispers shared amongst friends or gossiping women, of a pain that was both excruciating and filled with ecstasy in one.
“Be… be gentle,” she said, her eyes trapped on the full engorged member that struck straight up from the mass of his pubic hair and rubbed against the flesh below his navel, leaving a small wet smudge there. “It’s… my first time.”
“I will be, Sarah…” he said, leaning down to kiss her neck again. “I promise.”
She couldn’t help but look down as his body pressed her thighs further apart until she was fully spread-eagled, and her legs pulled back. She had never felt more vulnerable in her life, exposing herself so readily to a man. And yet, as she looked up, she saw that Dylan was only staring at her, beckoning her own eyes with his, and she instantly relaxed against him, the muscles in her legs softening as he eased into her. I promise, lingered in her mind and on his lips, and she forced herself to hold his stare even as she felt something hard and warm prod the divot between her legs.
She let out a huff and closed her lips tightly together, her eyes closed in expectation. He reached down and gripped his penis, causing the head to swell red and purple, vivid in its rage and desire, and butted it against her. At first, she was certain he would not fit inside her and wanted to cry out, but his eyes calmed her, never flinching as he pressed slowly, slowly against her vagina.
She was learning muscles she had never had to work before, and started to breathe heavily, until she feared she might hyperventilate, and tried to steady her breathing. When she looked down she saw her labia enfold the head of his penis fully and let out a long merciful sigh through her closed mouth and tipped her head back as her vagina accepted him fully and she relaxed.
“Sarah, oh God, you’re so tight,” Dylan blurted, through a gasp of his own.
Her hands found his wrists, planted on the sofa, and tightened around them. “Further… further into me,” she pleaded, almost in tears. “Please fuck me, Dylan. I want you inside me… all the way inside me…”
She was babbling, and she was aware of the fact she didn’t make sense – there was only this moment. She was surprised at how similar the act of sex was to transforming into a bear; the same present, the same now, burning like a spark, hot and blinding as you neared it. Until it filled everything, your whole being. She tilted her hips back further, and Dylan moved all the way into her, his pubic hair tickling her glands and labia, and she felt like she was going to explode and her eyes rolled back.
“Fuck me,” she murmured but it was only a breath.
Dylan began to squirm inside her, moving his hips into her with wet squelching movements that caused her to pull her legs back even further, like she was squatting on her back. He looked down and saw her vagina fully distended, his member moving smoothly in and out of her, the pink flesh as he slid out. Her fingers were like talons around his wrists as he pushed into her again, gazing down over her naked body, and trying to remember everything about this moment – the swaying of her small breasts each time he thrust against her sex, the way the muscles stood out in her arms, easing her toward a climax. The sharp angles of her lips pulled back in a grimace that was the delight of coming.
“Sarah, you’re so beautiful,” he sighed and leaned down over top of her, his buttocks pushing into her again and again, and causing her to cry out from between her sweat-stained lips.
“Let’s switch,” she said a moment later, and they both awkwardly turned on the couch until she was riding on top of him. Her white thighs moved like pistons and she reached down and rubbed her own clitoris as his hands cupped her breasts, squeezing her nipples tightly between the spaces in his fingers.
Sweat was running down both their bodies now, wending between Sarah’s breasts even as Dylan brought his hands underneath them, sliding down her waist, which pulsed with each jutting gesture of her hips. Her legs spread wider, her thighs coming apart to give him a full glimpse of the soaked black mat of her own pubis, sticky with both of their own fluids, and he bit back on an overwhelming sensation to plunge his face against her bosom.
He didn’t need to, she let out a deep moan and collapsed onto his chest, her face hunched over his shoulder. With one hand he gripped the back of her head, as if he were consoling her, and with the other, traced the slick groove of her spine to the base of her buttocks which plunged heavily onto his member.
“I’m… I’m going to come… hold me,” she breathed through rapid gasps.
His hand went lower, and he inserted his middle finger in the groove of her buttocks, even as she began to ram herself harder into him. Her legs were like desperate animals unto themselves, gyrating quicker and quicker even as her breathing reached a climax and she moaned with ecstasy into his ear.
She came all at once, her whole body a quivering mass of white flesh that suctioned itself to him, and he held her, feeling her vagina cramp and spasm, squeezing on his penis, which was still in her. It was too much and he came too, in one lunge, shuddering up inside her with such force she let out a scream and lifted her head for a moment, her eyes closed and face arching toward the ceiling.
“Fuuuck!” she cried aloud, and reached down between both their legs, and collapsed onto him again, this time in exhaustion. Dylan held her, panting himself, taking in the damp scent of both of them. There was something animal in the sweat and saliva that seemed to cover both of them, and then something more pungent as he felt his member soften out of her and her hand plying the wet mess of their crotches.
She pulled her hand to her face, almost as if in curiosity. Her fingers glistened in the lamplight with his semen and her own cum. He could smell it; he almost came again as he watched her rub it across her lips and suck them both, then she leaned down heavily and kissed him. She was hot, like a burning ember on his chest, and he gripped her by the neck and kissed her lewdly, savoring again the taste of her.
“That was….”
“No words,” he hushed her, and hugged her tightly.
She slid off him and buried her face against his chest, letting the afterglow settle on both of them. It was only when she felt Dylan gently combing his fingers between her hair that she finally slept again. Outside, the stars were like fixed eyes, telling their narratives in the dark. Even if the story they told would have blood in it.
But just for tonight, she wanted to tell herself. Just tonight, let me forget about tomorrow. Let me be the bear that I am, nestled in the arms of another. It was enough.
*
Morning seemed to come too soon, and with it a mixture of emotions. Sarah looked up to Dylan, who was already awake, his fingers still grooming her hair, and he was smiling at her. She smiled back and nuzzled his chest hair playfully.
“Morning, you,” he said.
“Morning, you.”
In the daylight, he looked less grim. She remembered last night with almost fluid detail; the smell of blood and the panic of death, of sitting on Dylan’s lap and the excruciating task of sewing his head. She reached up and touched the bandage, as if to ascertain that none of it had been a dream. He kissed her hand.
“How does it feel?”
“Better,” he said, “but I’ll probably have a cool scar.”
“I like scars,” she admitted, “but you probably have a concussion, too.”
“Good thing I didn’t go to sleep right away then,” he winked, and she blushed. “I heard you’re not supposed to do that if you get a concussion.”
She playfully swatted him in the chest and sat up. Her small upturned breasts flashed at him, and she yawned. He ran a finger over the smooth skin of her stomach and she flinched, tickled by his touch.
“You really are beautiful,” he said, and before she could blush again, he sat up and kissed her on the cheek, then the forehead. She wanted to cry. Not for the old reasons – out of fear, or stress, or panic – but because of something else. Something she hadn’t dared to believe would ever happen to her, and which she still kept from entering her thoughts in any meaningful way.
Simply feels good to be loved, she said, and left it at that. Even though she knew that was just the tip of the iceberg. But what lay underneath that simple phrase was too much right now, especially when they had other things to consider.
“Chris,” she murmured.
Dylan nodded and stood up, and she couldn’t help but sneak a peek at his firm buttocks as he crawled off the couch from under the small quilted blanket and pulled on his pants again. “I checked on him a few hours ago… you were asleep again, inconsolably lost in a dream,” he laughed. “You sleep deeper than he does, after all.”
“Is he…?”
“Sleepy and disoriented. But good,” he said. “I’m going to make some breakfast. Can you do me a favor? He was in bear form for quite awhile so I think he should make a full recovery. But I am worried about infection… I was thinking I’d make him some yarrow tea. Do you know it?”
She nodded. “Feathery green plant, smells nice? I have basic knowledge of plants and stuff,” she said, standing up as well. It still felt odd to be naked in front of a man but there was also something refreshing about it. The skin around her crotch and legs still felt tight with the dried fluids of both of them, and she could smell it even now – pungent and sweet – and it made her shudder again with renewed passion.
What’s happening to me, she thought. I want him inside me again. The thought, so blasé and straightforward, shocked her. She pulled on her thong and discarded shorts, and found her tank-top as well, pulling one arm through even before she was out the door.
Outside the sun was bright, a call-back to warmer summer days. It was almost possible to convince herself that Chris and Dylan hadn’t been shot by poachers. They’ll be back, he had said, before they’d made love. She gulped, and focused on finding the small sweet smelling plants that would rejuvenate Chris.
And if they come, her mind asked, what then?
***
Two and a half kilometers away, moored to a small blasted hitch of land on a smaller island, the small fishing trawler Pygmalion rocked gently with the ebb and flow of the tide. It was a modest ship, renovated for long distance and long term trips, with a fully operational kitchen and facilities, and only the top of the line radar and navigational instruments; in every sense, a home away from home.
For Arthur Murcheson, it was both his hobby and livelihood. If it had been a woman, he joked, he would have married it years ago, and given the boot to the hard-edged woman who currently held that title. He was always the life of the party, even though that party usually consisted of his own kind: equally hard-edged men who shared his passions of hunting, women, and beer. Misogynistic tendencies aside, it had become a tradition among his small clutch of friends to go on a hunting or fishing trip every summer before the autumn struck in.
He’d heard rumors about a small island off the coast having some of the biggest bears that anyone had ever seen. Part of him regarded these sorts of tall-tales with a bit of skepticism. He was more than familiar, after decades of hunting in the bush, how a four point buck could suddenly become eight. Or how a one kilogram salmon could magically become six. Occupational liars, he said, but he didn’t hold them too stringently to account, since he knew he was at least partly guilty of the same thing.
Nevertheless, he’d taken it upon himself to look into the rumors and found an old fisherman who had attested to it, and even shown him several blurry photographs. But the shape was unmistakable. On a gamble, he’d decided that this year’s hunt he would try to ascertain the legend of the island. With him were his buddies Kyle and Sean, and his son Kieran, just back from university.
Everything had seemed to be going well; everyone was happy and the beer was plenty. The jokes and atmosphere light and jovial, even though all four men knew that they were venturing into protected waters. Fuck the rangers, Arthur had announced. They didn’t really care about poaching and everyone knew that there were no bears this far out. If anything, if they did find a bear and shot it, they’d only be proving that knowledge truthful, right?
His strange logic had been enough for his passengers. But now, things on the Pygmalion were grim, the tension was palpable, you could almost cut it with a knife. In the forward section, there were still screams, long mournful howls that seemed to cut through the bulkheads.
Arthur’s son Kieran looked as pale as a ghost, despite the fact they’d managed to bandage the wounds and get him cleaned up. But he would be scarred for life – he might even die. He drifted off to sleep, and Arthur watched from a stool as his son held onto his life by a thread. He hadn’t even seen the giant grizzly, it had come out of the woods like a torpedo and slashed Kieran’s belly like a hot cheese wire. The stench of blood and sweat and fear clung to every surface. Arthur leaned down and kissed his son’s forehead.
“You hold on, kid,” he said, and turned.
Outside, Kyle had his arms crossed. Sean was biting his thumbnail, both men seemed balanced on edge, waiting for Arthur to speak first.
“Is he…?” Sean squeaked.
“Out, for now. Bloody bear nearly ripped his guts out… I… I don’t know if he’ll make it.”
“Shit, Arthur, we need to go. The longer we stay here, the worse off Kieran’ll be… he needs a fucking doctor,” Kyle blurted, offering some rational reasoning to the table.
Arthur merely nodded at him. “I know. That’s why Sean is gonna take Pygmalion back to the docks, you got that?” the other man nodded furiously. “You leave in five minutes, go plot the course.”
“What about you?” Kyle asked sharply.
“Go!” Arthur said to Sean, who ambled off obediently, and turned to Kyle. “This isn’t over. I’m staying… I’ve got supplies and I’ve got the outboard. I’m going back.”
“That’s fucking ridiculous Arthur!”
“They almost killed my boy!” the bigger man boomed, and it echoed through the boat. Reluctantly, Kyle took a step back and rubbed his jaw, set with a good four days of scraggly growth that made him look older than he was.
“Arthur, something’s very wrong here… that… that first bear you shot,” Kyle began.
Yes, Arthur wanted to say. Something strange indeed. He was almost beyond happy to see the rumors of the island come true, and on their first day perusing its coastline. The grizzly had been black, fierce and long-legged, although not as big as the original claims but you had to take those stories with a grain of salt. It had been Kieran who’d spotted him first, from the back of the outboard, and Arthur had raised his sights, leveled and shot.
A wave must have hit the wale of the little boat though, because the shot went wide. He saw the bear collapse, though, and the other men had cheered him on as they landed ashore. But when they made their way to where the grizzly had fallen, there was no bear at all – only a naked man, fetal and white on the dark sand, blood pulsing onto the sand around his head like a cruel halo.
“Shit,” Kieran had sad, always the sage, among them.
It was impossible, it had surely been a bear. Sean and Kyle and Kieran had agreed. It was hard to register. Old Native stories about shifters, skin-walkers, came flooding back to Arthur but he kept them to himself, no need to scare the other men. They’d probably laugh at him anyway. And yet, here was the evidence. He had shot a bear but now they were all gawking at a young male.
“Is he…” Kieran was about to say.
Arthur raised his gun again, and Sean’s face blanched. “Arthur what are you doing?”
“Look,” Arthur said plainly, “we’ve been hunting… illegally… off an island that is rumored to have bears. And now, there’s a fucking kid… I’m cleaning this up. You shut up… Kyle, take them back to the boat…”
The seriousness in the old hunter’s voice was enough to silence Sean, and even Kieran. Kyle had become his right hand, silent and grim but abiding. That’s when it had all gone to hell. Arthur had raised his rifle to finish off the job. They’d have to bury the body somewhere up the hill. Make it deep. Then never talk about it again.
The sound that came next was a growl and a movement of fur and muscle, and when he turned, another grizzly, this one as huge as the legends, was lunging over the sand, impossibly fast. Kyle and Kieran both tried to raise their guns but it was pointless. The grizzly had body-checked Kyle out of the way easily enough, then turned his attention on his son.
“No!” Arthur had said, his face a vicious compilation of hate and fear, and had raised his own gun and fired. He knew the bullet had found its quarry, but it was like shooting at a locomotive. Blood spouted from the bear’s soldier but he only growled at his attacker and swung at Kieran.
Everything went into slow motion then, and even now as he thought about it, everything was a blur. Somehow they had pulled Kieran away from the monster, and Arthur had fired again and missed. They’d made it to the outboard and then he’d seen another person – a woman. She had screamed at the bear and then both of them had disappeared back into the woods.
Impossible, he wanted to blurt. In the other room, Kieran made another groaning sound.
“I’m going back to that island,” he repeated.
Kyle gave a curt nod. “Then I’m coming with you, Art… you’re not doing this alone. Sean can take the Pygmalion back on his own. And you’re going to need another gun, I think. But just what do you plan to do? You… you saw it, too… that kid, he was a bear.”
Arthur wasn’t prepared to give his friend his theory, not just yet. Not until he could confirm it with his own eyes and preferably at the end of his own rifle. Yes, the kid had been a bear. And, he suspected, the woman who had appeared on the beach probably was too. Shifters. The legends were almost impossible to believe, but… his eyes flashed.
What could be a better test of a hunter’s skill then to bring in something so rare, so exotic that it defied the imagination? He licked his lips and gave Kyle a stern look.
“Get your goddamn gun, then,” he said. “Five minutes. Time to take this fight to them.”