SEAL'd Honor (Brotherhood of SEAL'd Hearts) by Gabi Moore (21)

Chapter 12 - Ellie

Rather than everything gearing down for the evening, it seemed like the darkness only brought things up an uncomfortable notch. The entire island revved up like a machine filled with unseen but scary sounding insects, and weird bird cries punctured the air and kept everyone from falling asleep. The temperature dropped, and everyone’s bodies, finally finished with the hard labor of the day, were slowly going cold and stiff inside our makeshift bunker.

We each did our best to bundle up with the shreds of clothing we had remaining, and then we put ourselves down in the sand, the cold and damp underfoot mercilessly covered by a thin mat of ribbed palm fronds knotted together. There was no wriggle room. Livvy was on the far end, mashed into the wall of sand and Carl lay next to her. Anthony was beside him, their backs touching, and I lay in Anthony’s arms, one part of me desperate to huddle close for the warmth, the other feeling so claustrophobic I could scream.

In the tense darkness, we listened as another storm gathered momentum to the east of us. In the stillness, Anthony gently caressed my fingers with his. I didn’t resist, but I couldn’t focus. All I could think about was where Todd and Charlie were, and when they came back, who would lay down beside me in this cramped sand hole. It was oppressive. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep. My eyes kept flicking open with every noise outside, every skittish change of the wind, every breath in the lungs of my sleeping companions, who, I hated to admit, were starting to smell.

My stomach hurt. I bounced around the idea that the mussels were bad somehow, that they were going to kill me slowly from the inside, but then I realized the grumbling was because I was still hungry. And thirsty too. Anthony’s hand stroked and stroked and stroked, and eventually it felt like a torture and I yanked my hand away. Things were too tightly packed, there was too much to think about, and it was all too close, and I just wanted to fall sleep and wake up somewhere else, far away from here, in my old life. Or maybe a completely new life.

“You don’t have to hold back, if you want to.”

I pricked my ears.

Carl’s voice sounded disembodied, like it came from the palms above us or maybe even from the stars peeking through the cracks between them.

“What do you mean?” I said. In the darkness, it was obvious that everyone was listening closely. Outside, beetles whirred madly in the forest and the crashing waves seemed to be climbing up the shoreline one scraping step at a time.

“You know what I mean. You’re a young couple and… well, we wouldn’t mind if you needed to, you know…”

The wave of nausea that passed over me this time was definitely not hunger related. What had happened with them in the forest …I had no explanation for, but I was certainly banking on them being as disconcerted as I was afterwards and never mentioning it again.

Anthony scoffed.

“In here? Now? With you both? Um, thanks but we’re good,” he said and pressed closer to me in an effort to put distance between Carl’s back and his.

“Look, we don’t mean any offense,” Livvy said quickly. “Carl and I are just very open, very relaxed about this kind of thing. We’ve all been traumatized by everything’s that happened, I know. But there’s no point being squeamish and weird about these things, right? It’s only natural. And we don’t know how long we’ll be out here for.”

I heard Anthony laughing low under his breath, but it was a cold laugh.

“Well, that’s considerate, but again, no thanks,” he said curtly, and wriggled some more. He was too close again. I hated the couple’s forced familiarity, but I was beginning to think that Anthony’s wasn’t much better. Was it too late to start digging a tiny hole of my own, in the pitch black, with a storm coming?

“We used to be like you both,” Carl was now saying. His voice still sounding so far away. “But it’s funny how impending mortality can make you really take a fresh look at life, and what’s really important.”

“What’s important right now is that we all try to get some sleep,” Anthony snapped. He always used that particular tone of voice when he was uncomfortable. I think he thought it made him sound authoritative. I thought it made him sound brittle.

“Is it a religious thing? Are you both waiting for marriage or something?”

The silence in the pit smothered us like a blanket. The fronds overhead rustled hard as the wind picked up and blew over our shivering bodies.

“Look, this conversation is simply no longer appropriate,” Anthony said.

Carl laughed. “Well, you’re welcome to retire to the gentleman’s lounge for a cigar instead, if you like. Look man, I’m not getting on your case, it’s just that, well, have you noticed the situation we’re in? I think trying to make conversation with your fellow shipwreck mates is perfectly appropriate here.”

“Carl, we all need to sleep. And no, discussing our sex life with two strangers is not appropriate.”

“So it is a religious thing then? You kind of give off that vibe.”

Livvy giggled.

“Are you serious right now?” I could feel Anthony’s body tightening up against mine in anger. “That’s got nothing to do with anything. You don’t have to be religious to not want to have sex in front of other people.”

“Oh? And what about watching?” came Livvy’s voice.

Again our bunker fell silent. The whistling of the fronds was getting higher in pitch. Thunder bouldered off in the distance like something terrible coming for us. I wanted to jump in and say something, say that we had never meant to stumble on them, that it was an honest mistake and that if they hadn’t wanted to be ogled then they should have stopped, should have hidden themselves better, something. If there was any sexual inappropriateness here, it was their fault, not ours.

“That was an honest mistake,” I said quietly, when it seemed like nobody else was going to say anything. The second I spoke, though, I knew it wasn’t quite true. We could have easily looked away, walked on, something.

But we didn’t.

They were right, of course. These weren’t ordinary times. We were squashed together like sardines in a pit on the beach of a remote island and none of us knew how we were going to survive the next few days. It did make it seem just a little less important to fret about privacy at a time like this, I guess.

“Well, suit yourselves. I suppose some people’s defenses are so strong even life or death situations can’t budge them, huh?”

Anthony grumbled under his breath.

“Speaking of defensive,” Livvy said. “Where’s Charlie? And Todd? They must have gone off more than an hour ago.”

Folded tight in Anthony’s arms, I prayed that my body gave no indication that the mere mention of Todd’s name had my curiosity piqued. But I was curious. Very curious. They had casually set off just after sunset without really saying where they were going or why. The pit was silent as everyone went off on their own thoughts of what Charlie and Todd were possibly doing.

It was a nightmare, all of this. I was stuck in a literal sand pit with a creepy free-love married couple, a fiancé who I couldn’t figure out if I wanted to blame or beg forgiveness from, and a head full of thoughts for another man who was at this moment doing something with some other woman. I didn’t want to imagine exactly what he was doing. But then, it was all I could think of. It was only our first night on this godforsaken island and already it felt like my entire world had been twisted and knotted up beyond belief. I wondered how good a life could it have been, if it came apart so easily?

“They’ll come back,” Anthony said. “Let’s just keep warm and keep our noses out of other people’s business, shall we?”

I knew what he was thinking. Todd and Charlie could fall into quicksand and never be seen again and he’d be happy for it. I couldn’t seriously be angry that he was jealous about Todd, could I?

Carl muttered something inaudible and the pit went quiet again.

It was so quiet that when the first drops of rain fell, we could hear each one pattering against the fronds, first softly and then louder until it made a steady, low thrum outside. Miraculously, beside a few stray drops, we remained dry. My fingers were raw from braiding and knotting those leaf ribbons, but it had evidently been worth it. I sat in pleased silence as the wet and noise outside stayed outside.

“Nice work with the roof,” Anthony breathed, and started stroking my fingertips again. I couldn’t explain it, but something about the simple triumph of knowing that we had, in just this small way, beaten the elements made me want to sing inside. Maybe we would get off this island, some way, somehow. Maybe I’d go back home with Anthony, and all of this would just be some hilarious, unbelievable anecdote. And I’d have a spring wedding with a freesia bouquet and Anthony and I would silently forgive each other everything, having learnt our lesson. We’d go back to our lives like people came back from wars – grateful, humble, and silent. This was just the part of the documentary to show how bad it got before it got better. This would pass. The sound of the rain falling on my makeshift roof outside was proof of that, and I felt it deep in my cold bones.

“I’m sorry about everything…” I said to Anthony. He said nothing and simply stroked my brow.

“I’m just happy we’re safe,” he said.

Maybe we’d live here forever. Maybe Todd and Charlie were being washed away out to the ocean as we spoke and we’d simply have to start up our own civilization in this strange Eden, from scratch, Anthony, two Eves and a slightly creepy Adam. Maybe we’d live here for twenty years and forget to speak English and devolve into savages who ran around naked and …wife-swapped. Maybe a rescue boat was on its way to us right now, and everyone in the real world knew we were gone, and were all watching their TVs to see what the latest was.

Maybe, maybe, maybe. Maybe everyone would die here except Todd and I, and we’d grow lean and tanned on mussels and wild berries and we’d fuck all day long until we both forgot where we even came from.

My eyes snapped open.

Jesus, Ellie, what a terrible thought.

The rain came down hard all around us. A solid, continuous low hum took over until there was nothing else to focus on. I couldn’t sleep, but my exhausted mind unplugged all the same, and went off wandering with the rain serving as a weird soundtrack to eerie images that sprang up before my mind’s eye.

It must have been the trauma, like Livvy said. It must have been all the sun and water and fresh air. What else could explain the fact that as the rain came down pelting all around us, I felt …turned on?

We were all in very grave danger, the world outside was unknown and threatening, death was only a few clear steps away from us. We were lost. Stranded. My stomach ached with emptiness and my hands and feet were raw. And yet, there was still something delicious about it all. We were on a land mass with an unknown name and location. No rules, no buildings or roads or anything made by man, nothing. Just us, as we were now, nothing but the clothes on our backs and the strength in our muscles, a few human pups in a warm nest against the rain. It made me want to… be different. Be new.

Was this the adventure I had been looking for all my life? Perhaps it had never been new relationships or parties or vacations that I was looking for. Perhaps it was here all along, hiding and waiting for me in a smelly dug out hole on a tiny island in the Pacific Ocean. It must have been the trauma that flashed those dark, unthinkable thoughts through my mind. Those thoughts that saw me not just losing control, but flinging it aside with force.

I left my body there, curled up dutifully with Anthony, but my mind went off on its own secret, forbidden adventure. And as though I was taking out some dirty treasure, I took out the memory of kissing him, and relished it. The rain in the storeroom had been a little like this. That moment was now lost; smashed to smithereens and sunk to the bottom of the ocean forever. Or was it?

My mind kept coming back to one point, again and again. I had to split up with Anthony. For him, and for me. No matter what else blew into my brain those weird, lonely hours, the end point was always the same: getting married was a bad idea, and as soon as possible, I needed to end it all.

When I stopped trying to resist the thought, my shivering body let go, and I fell asleep easily.

Chapter 13 - Charlie

Forget about the others,” I yelled. “We’re the real survivors here, you and I.”

I had to really shout to make my voice heard over the din of rain roaring down all around us. It was dark and muggy but as I paced behind him, I could still make out the carved ripples and knots of his toned back in front of me. I followed him with each hypnotic step as we marched through the forest, the rain coming down hard and pummeling all the surrounding foliage flat.

“I don’t care, it’s not right,” he said and went back to walking. I in turn went back to watching the muscles in his neck and shoulders work with each difficult step. The ground was turning to mud beneath our feet and there was nothing even resembling a path, but I knew we were close to our little bunker now. It was time to speak up. I had to say my peace while we were still alone.

“Fine, then we should head out and get help for everyone. How long could it take us both? We’ll head out first thing tomorrow morning, before sunrise, and we’ll go all day until we find help.”

“But we should tell them what we found, Charlie. We’re all in this mess together, and we have to get out of it together.”

I frowned.

When I had stumbled on an old, moss-covered canoe in the forest a few hours earlier, I was taken aback. I immediately had a million questions. But in truth it only took a few minutes for me to forget about wondering where it came from or whom it used to belong to. I just saw that it could take us away from here. That was all that mattered.

“The boat’s tiny, Todd, even fitting two in there is a squeeze. I don’t want any drama.”

“Why would there be drama? It feels wrong just taking the boat for ourselves.”

“But we found it, we should be the ones to use it and leave.”

“No, you found it. Why don’t you just leave on your own then?”

It was embarrassing how transparent I was. But sure, fine, he had me pegged. I had stumbled on a way out of here and I had one extra seat on the boat, why wouldn’t I choose him?

I walked on angrily behind him. I had to try another tack.

“Look, Todd, you can’t change the facts: there’s one boat, and two people can fit in it. There are six of us on the island. That boat is our only hope right now. Do you trust any of the others to be able to navigate it? Seriously? Fuck, we’ll just have another shipwreck on our hands!”

He still said nothing.

“That couple? I don’t think they could make it back to the mainland and if they could, I don’t really trust them to come back, do you? And Anthony and the girl? Not to be funny, but she can barely stand upright on her own. That leaves you and me. And if we tell them, they’ll only want to argue, and frankly, we don’t have the time to waste…”

He stopped walking for a moment and stared at the ground.

Without his shirt on, rivulets of clear water snaked all over his strong form. It was a good look on him: wild guy in some tropical paradise, beads of water prickling on his close-cropped hair… too bad he had such stupid taste in women. It was no big deal, though. In the end, Todd was a practical man, and I knew how to speak his language. The others were hopeless. With me, he at least had a chance of getting out of this hellhole and back to civilization. Even he couldn’t deny that that was an attractive proposition.

“Ellie needs medical help,” he said. “Her foot is in pretty bad shape.”

“OK? So let’s go and bring her back some help then.”

“No, she won’t last long if she doesn’t get help soon. She needs to go on the boat.”

“But--”

“Her and I will go. I can manage to paddle on my own. There’s plenty of wood around here to make a simple oar and like you said, we’ll leave in the morning and go as fast as we can out east.”

My face stung with the effort of holding off the tears.

“You can’t--”

“That’s the best way, Charlie. You’re a good rower, sure, and I know you won’t take offense when I say this… but I’ll be able to go quicker.”

A few hours before, I had been on top of the world, sure that my new discovery would finally be the thing that gave me an edge. Sure, I didn’t have a pretty white cleavage and a torn cocktail dress, but when it came down to it, I was useful. The fact that Todd wanted to disappear with her was a kick to the guts more brutal than anything we’d done on any training run so far.

He turned to carry on walking. The rain let up a little and I could tell we were close to our base camp. It was now or never.

“Todd, wait.”

He glanced back at me, his tired face streaked with water.

“Todd, I’m the one that found the boat.”

“I know you did.”

“I get some say in what happens to it.”

“Fine, Charlie, but this really is the best way--”

“You can go with her, I don’t care, just…”

He searched my face.

“Just, on one condition,” I said quietly.

“What …condition?” he asked slowly. I hated how hard his face was right now. But I didn’t care anymore. It was now or never. I was tired of holding everything together only to be passed over for people who had never contributed a thing in their lives. Tired of working my ass off to be considered second class, of beating everyone at the game and yet still feeling that I always, always fucking lost.

“You know what I want, Todd,” I said quietly and, despite the hostile rain and the anger smeared all over his face, I tried to smile at him with gentleness, or at least the closest I could get to it. A light went on in his expression when he understood what I was suggesting, followed immediately by a shocked laugh. Ah, there was that kick to the gut again. Utterly hilarious, even suggesting something with me.

“You know, Charlie, I’m beginning to suspect you have serious mental health problems.” He turned to carry on walking again but I grabbed his bicep and he spun around to glare at me.

“Todd, I’m serious.”

“I’m serious too. The answer is no, if that wasn’t fucking obvious.”

“Then you can’t have the boat.”

He shrugged my grasp off, hard.

“The boat’s not yours, Charlie. You don’t get to blackmail people when--”

“I’ve already moved it. You don’t know where it is. Only I know.”

A little shred of triumph flickered inside me, but I couldn’t return his gaze. I stared instead down at the mud pooling around my soaking feet. There, I had said it. I mean, I couldn’t sink any lower. There was no other way for me to get what I wanted and it simply wasn’t an option to let Todd go. I just wouldn’t let that happen. I could tell that he didn’t like it. But as I stood there before him and let him stare at me in disbelief, I realized that his liking it wasn’t even necessary, not at this point.

I get what I want in this world because I’m smart and work hard. It would have been sweet if Todd gave me a second chance, but given that he wasn’t going to, I was just going to have to take it. He’d come to his senses in the end anyway. He’d see what I saw, he’d realize all this bullshit with Ellie was just an embarrassing mistake and that I was the right one for him, and always had been. We needed to be willing to do all sorts of things to survive on this island, to eat and stay warm and dry, because those things were important. Todd was as important to me, and if I had to go to extreme measures to make sure that what we shared together survived, then so be it.

“You’re crazy,” he said at last.

I brushed past him forcefully.

“And you don’t have a boat,” I said. “Unless you agree to my conditions.”

“Save yourself then. Take Ellie and go,” he said, his face now filled with pleading. It was disgusting, how far he was willing to go for some dumb tramp he’d met only two seconds ago. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.

“You do realize that even if you play her knight in shining armor, she’s still engaged to be married, right?”

“She’s hurt and she needs help, Charlie. The rest of us might make it for a few days more but she--”

“Nope. If you turn me down, then I go on my own and leave all of you fools behind.”

“And if I agree to your condition, you’ll show me where the boat is? And you’ll let me take Ellie?”

I nodded.

“And you’ll stay behind?”

I nodded again. “If we …you know. Before you leave.”

He stared at me slack jawed.

“My god. You’re actually crazy. That doesn’t make any damn sense.”

I said nothing. Maybe he had a point. But maybe I didn’t care. I had played my last card and now there was nothing but to wait for him to play his. He walked on. I could make out the shape of our little ground hut a short way in the distance.

“I’ll think about,” he said in a clipped voice. “Give me till morning. And don’t fucking say anything to anyone. And I haven’t said yes.”

I held my tongue as we approached the pit. The white of Carl’s mostly bald head poked out from the end and he smiled as we lowered ourselves down inside and he closed up the roof over us. It was damp and steamy and nearly suffocating inside; the last place I wanted to be. Nobody said anything as we settled down to the ground, our wet clothes gluing us together. He didn’t even think twice about lowering himself to lie down next to her. I had no choice but to wedge myself down between him and the damp sand wall. It was a vision of hell, no question about it. But I wasn’t afraid of a little mud, or a little foul play. Come morning, I’d have what I wanted.

One way or another.

Chapter 14 - Anthony

It was one of those dreams that didn’t end, but bled over into waking life, slowly, so I wasn’t quite sure where exactly the dream ended and real life began.

We were all in a grave. A damp, sandy grave, buried beside one another in a grey heap. We were naked. Dead but still writhing somehow. We had left the realm of the living and were in a temporary hell underneath the earth, were the darkness hid our nudity. Like worms, curling and twisting over one another. And then I became aware that it was also sexual, that we were all participating in some kind of carnal rite, mashed into the earth and forgetting everything but our animal needs, squirming against one another desperately, crushing our bodies together as though we wanted to melt the boundaries of our skin and become a single hot, sordid mass…

It was only when I blinked my eyes open that I realized I had been dreaming at all. But we were in a grave. And we were packed tight against one another. The only thing remaining of that disturbing dream was my pounding heart and the ache of my erection pressing hard against Ellie’s soft belly. But I breathed a sigh of relief: we all still had our regular boundaries in place. I was not going insane. I was not a dissolving, sexually depraved animal. I blinked hard to adjust my eyes to the light. Well, I was not a dissolving, sexually depraved animal just yet.

“Baby? Baby, are you OK?”

Ellie’s whisper was faint as a spider web. Her breath felt warm on my chest. I stroked her and kissed the top of her head.

“Just a bad dream,” I said.

She shifted her body weight, obviously aware now of the stiff cock wedged between us and wondering how bad a dream it could have really been.

“A bad dream? It couldn’t have been worse than this…” she said, and I could hear the smile on her voice. I held her close for a moment. I had about four million nasty, conflicting emotions about Ellie. But this early in the morning, before I had properly woken up, I decided that the angst could wait for later and I would rather just stay nestled here for as long as possible, holding onto the last little threads of a normal life with her.

The pit slowly filled up with light, and I entertained the idea that I could smell morning coming on. There was a freshness in the air, the sea was quiet, and though my muscles were sore, it only made them feel all the better when I stretched out long, feeling my spine crack deliciously. Today, I would find everyone food. A lot of food. I’d step up and get us closer to a solution. I’d take control like I should have taken control yesterday. Ultimately, we needed to find a way off the island. But first, we had to secure a regular food source, and soon, before any of us started to lose too much energy. Ellie’s wound would heal any time now, and then she’d feel less vulnerable and then maybe …maybe we could go back into the forest.

I throbbed against her. She did nothing to acknowledge me, but I knew she felt it. With Carl nearly plastered to me at the back, and with that asshole Todd sleeping just on the other side of her, it was impossible to imagine anything more than softly grinding against her, softly kissing her hair, softly whispering a secret word.

Whatever drama happened here, Ellie was mine and I was going to do whatever necessary to guard this private, warm space between us. Ellie had been difficult all the time I knew her, but I could look past her flaws. I may have had my suspicions that she wasn’t a woman ready for the duties of marriage, but she was ultimately my woman who wasn’t ready for the duties of marriage.

I heard stirring and then peeked up to see Charlie standing and raising the roof, letting in bright, yellow triangles of light that soon woke everybody else. Everyone in our pit groaned and stretched, and soon we all peeled ourselves off one another and stepped out into the new morning. I tucked my hard-on into the waistband of my trousers, squeezed Ellie good morning and got up too, stretching my arms high overhead to release the creaks and tension of a fitful night.

Looking at the sun and the way it bobbed low at the surface of the water, I instantly knew what my plan would be: first food, then her. She was scared and confused. And wounded. It wasn’t her fault she was behaving like she was. And that immature piece of shit Todd certainly wasn’t making matters better. But I felt strongly at that moment that what we needed, and what she needed … was solidarity. To come together.

We needed whatever that lecherous old married couple had with one another. We needed sweet, sweet release. She always said she wanted more spontaneity, more passion, more spice in our love life. Well, it didn’t get more exotic than this.

I watched her limp out of the pit, still in her wilting silk and lace dress, and I was resolved: before sunset this evening, I would have her writhing on my cock and screaming with pleasure. She wanted to do naughty things in the forest? Well I would show her. I could take care of all her needs.

“Jesus, what did I tell you?”

I turned to see Todd snapping angrily at Charlie. She stood back defensive, hands raised. Interesting. Not that I cared much about their weird little love affair, but still. I’d rather they took care of each other so Ellie could focus all her attention where it belonged.

“Just chill out, OK?” Charlie said.

“I’ve just woken up,” Todd responded. “Don’t start. I’m …I’m going to get us all something to eat. I’ll swim out to find more mussels.”

Carl was listlessly kicking sand around and squinting at the sun as Livvy fanned her shirt to cool herself and then tried to knot the lower end tightly around her midriff. Without the usual civilized distractions of a morning routine, we all felt thoroughly bored after being awake for a mere five minutes.

Charlie shrugged and busied herself with the frond roof, then examined the collapsed and crumpled parts of our shelter. But I could tell she looked a little red in the face.

“Hey Anthony, are you coming with me, man? To gather mussels again?”

In this light, it was obvious what people saw in him. He was ripped. And good looking. But just looking at his stupid face was enough to get the rage boiling up in my veins. I didn’t give a shit if he was a marine or a seal or Rambo himself, I wasn’t going to play along and be his sidekick.

“Nah, the mussels are a dead end,” I said breezily.

He stood there, hands on his hips, looking like he was at a Baywatch audition or something.

“They’re not, you just picked the wrong ones last time. There’s plenty of food out there if you know where to look.”

I sighed and shrugged.

“Then go and look. I’m not wasting my time with it though. I’m going to try something else,” I said and started to put my still water-logged shoes back on.

“What are you going to do?” Ellie said. She was perched on the rim of the pit, and her foot dangled down, looking terrible. Scary black stains had seeped through her makeshift bandages. I hated the way it looked, like it was just a bloodied stump hiding under all that swaddling. Perhaps the damage was worse than it looked at first.

I cracked my neck and looked away from the sea, towards the forest.

“I’m going to look for food out there. We’ll have better luck with digging for more roots, and I swear I saw some date trees earlier. Maybe I can find a lizard or bird or something.”

Everyone looked at me and silently considered the prospect of eating roasted lizard.

“Fine, suit yourself,” Todd said and shrugged.

Shoes laced, I stood tall and cracked my neck again and then reached for Ellie. I leaned forward, gripped the back of her neck and pulled her in for a full, passionate kiss. She went stiff in my arms and didn’t kiss back. It was a kind of boldness that wasn’t really my style, but honestly I hoped that everyone there saw it, and understood exactly what it meant. I lingered, my lips hovering above hers, and pierced her gaze with mine.

“I’ll be back soon, baby. Will you be OK here?”

She nodded quickly and glanced away, looking a little like she’d been asked to play a role she didn’t really want to.

I stood again and nodded to the others, who were watching with me with interest. The sun was still one third submerged under the horizon. Todd sprang to action, peeled off his shirt and started walking towards the water.

“You’re …you’re going now?” Charlie said. She seemed strangely upset. Todd simply ignored her and spoke to the group at large.

“When I come back we’ll all eat some seafood for breakfast. Somebody needs to start a fire here in the meantime. Anthony, see if you can make your way back here within an hour or so.”

Asshole. Still trying to give me orders.

“I’ll be back when I’m back,” I said. He scowled up his pretty-boy face at me.

“OK, fine, just be careful.”

“Thanks, Todd, but I don’t really need you to tell me that.”

“I’m just saying. You don’t know what’s out there. It could be dangerous. If I were you, I wouldn’t even bother. Carl and Livvy have tried looking out there already, haven’t you?”

The couple nodded at him.

“Our best bet for food now is the ocean.”

“If you’re too afraid to explore a little, that’s fine, Todd. You go for a little swim, and I’ll meet you all back here later.”

“I’m not afraid…” he said quietly.

But I ignored him and set off. The group broke up and drifted off, each person trying to find some activity. I tried to wave back at Ellie as I made my exit, but she wasn’t looking my way. Her eyes were turned to the sea. To him. Determined not to let that fact hurt me, I made for the boundary where the light brush turned into denser forest. I’d be going in the opposite direction the couple had gone, slicing through the denser foliage and towards a knot of thicker trees that from the shoreline looked something like green pillow stuffing. Everyone would see who the real man on this island was soon enough.

After some time, the soft roar of the ocean disappeared and all I could hear were birds overhead and the crunch of twigs underfoot. I don’t know how long I walked for. It was strangely exhausting, looking at everything in front of me and trying to decide if it could be eaten or not. I put a few leaves to my lips and tasted here and there, but every single plant on the island seemed either covered in thorns and prickles or else tasted bitter as hell. I walked on, dismissing the growing pain in my feet.

I was hungry.

And horny.

And …I wasn’t even sure what to call the way I felt anymore. I pressed on, occasionally slapping insects off my skin and looking up to notice how far the sun had crept through the sky. I had failed yesterday to deliver with any food of substance. So today there was no question – I had to turn up with something real for everyone to eat or else.

I was never one to beat my chest and go in for the whole alpha male bullshit, but something about Todd easily stepping up to claim that role rankled me no end. It was the sheer arrogance of it. I could also stand around and pose with my shirt off if I really wanted to, but I was a man of action. Of intellect. A six pack was great but that wasn’t all that mattered. And nothing would shut him up faster than seeing me return to our little base camp with enough food to win everyone’s respect and remind Ellie that although I wasn’t a lame-ass navy calendar boy, I damn well knew what I was doing.

A glint caught my eye. I rushed forward, astonished.

Water!

I knelt down at a thin, clear trickle of a stream knobbled on either side with rough moss and rock. I lifted handfuls to my mouth to drink and nearly wept with how sweet and cool that water felt against my parched lips. I must have taken ten or twelve scoops, drinking long and deep and gulping down so hard it almost hurt to swallow. Thirst quenched, I stood and looked around, trying to remember if I could lead everyone back here later. I could picture it now: me up front, guiding everyone expertly, and them in the back, filled with gratitude and respect. In any case it was a good omen. Not food, exactly, but the news that I had found it would definitely go down well.

I carried on walking, so refreshed I felt ready to walk for days now. The foliage around me was growing thinner, though. Carl and Livvy had said that they had done a survey of the island before, but I wasn’t so sure about my orientation now – was that really the ocean I heard up in front of me again? I walked on and noticed the dark soil shifting to loose and white again. Yes, it was the ocean. A few yards on and I broke through some hanging vines and there it was: that maddening, hostile blue stripe that trapped us all here. And now it seemed like it was following me.

But it wasn’t the same stretch of beach I had come from. And on further inspection I realized I hadn’t gotten disoriented at all – this must just be some new part, some other section of a vaguely oval-shaped island. I stepped out onto the finer sand and tried to get my bearings. I realized with frustration that I had no idea where I was. The landscape ahead of me was all different, and the waves here seemed rougher, and they were converging on a smaller, tighter bay.

Again a strange glint caught my eye. I ran over to see what it was and then stared down at the sand, astonished. A glass bottle of Grey Goose Vodka, wedged in the powdery beach sand like a half hidden jewel. I crouched down to touch it and prove to myself it wasn’t a hallucination. I then realized there were many more, at least a dozen of them, scattered around me on all sides. I nearly laughed out loud at the blue and white seascape painted onto each label. Mana from heaven? A vision brought on from drinking contaminated water?

I scrambled all over the beach, running from one bottle to the next. Each one was as real as the next, unopened, and twinkling bright in the sunshine like a personal prank played on me by god himself. A recovering alcoholic lands on a desert island with a full crate of vodka …it sounded like the beginning of a bad joke. Then I saw it: a smashed crate, and a pile of debris still clinging to the sea foam as it lapped up to the shore, lazily piling everything on top of each other.

I ran over and fell to my knees to examine the mess. It was flotsam from the ship, clearly. Perhaps I would be returning to the others with more than I bargained for.

I tore through the pile, pulling off strings of seaweed and dusting away sand and shells. It wasn’t a promising selection. It seemed that this had all been tumbled away from one of the bars or restaurants onboard. What looked like torn cotton napkins were folded around some smashed glasses, a single flip flop, a section of an elaborate light fitting, a faux wood strip of paneling, and some weird coiled bits of metal I couldn’t identify.

No food.

The most intact elements of the whole mess were the clear bottles of vodka, so pretty …and so useless. I squinted out to sea to find evidence that anything else might have been washed up, but the view looked as peaceful and clear as the one painted on the vodka bottles.

With some luck, and further scratching around, I found a few packets of peanuts, a perfect bunch of grapes that on further examination was actually made of wax, and a few empty and crumpled plastic bottles. Vodka wasn’t the manliest of kills for a hunter to bring back to his tribe, but it was something. And the peanuts I’d give to Ellie.

I spent a good half hour searching for enough long strands of sea grass to fashion a sort of carrier for three of the bottles, combed the beach once more for food and then decided it was time to head back. The sun was already high enough in the sky that it was white and hurt to look at it.

Giving things a second thought, I cracked open a bottle and took a swig, wincing and then scowling at how a liquid so clear could feel so rough. I took another swig, then another. Hell, I wasn’t driving. My mission today had gone better than expected and I needed a little celebration. Some well-deserved stress relief, perhaps. After all, if a man can’t enjoy a little drink after a life-threatening disaster, when can he? Before I knew it, I had thrown back a quarter of the bottle.

I didn’t know why I was doing it; I just knew that there was no clear reason not to. A few moments into my little spasm of rebelliousness and I felt dizzy and sick. I plonked the bottle bank on the sand and waited for the horizon to stop wiggling before my eyes. I decided I wouldn’t go back through the forest after all. There really wasn’t any food back through there, much as I hated to admit it, and since I was on such a good roll, I might find even more treasure if I kept going.

I’d trace back along the coast line and eventually I’d have to land back up where I started. We were on an island, it made total sense. Perhaps the gods would throw me another strange blessing on the way. I chuckled to myself as I imagined myself stumbling next on a new bottle of fancy vermouth and a can of olives. Maybe Todd would bring everyone some stinking mussels, but what if yours truly pitched up with vodka martinis? I laughed a little to myself but felt sad all of a sudden and then stopped.

I hoisted the clinking bottles higher up my shoulder, bags of peanuts stuffed in my pockets, and walked briskly over the hot sand. I could come back later and see if anything else was washed up. I could empty these bottles and use them to gather the water I’d found. First, though, I had to see Ellie. I had something I wanted to give her.

Well, maybe I had two things I wanted to give her.

Chapter 15 - Todd

Under the silent water, things felt so much calmer. I took another big gulp, threw myself under and kicked hard to propel myself to the sea floor, where I knew there were edible treasures if I could just coax my eyes to stay open long enough to see them. Breath held, I scrambled my hands around and rattled through shells and mollusks of all kinds. Swiftly grabbing a handful of snails and paddling fiercely with the other arm, I floated upwards with ease, my chest filled to bursting with air and my head breaking the water’s surface, bringing me out into the sparkling sunshine.

I paddled over to the rocks, deposited my haul into the pile I’d already gathered, and pushed off to go for another lunge. The sun was so bright it was nearly blinding, my muscles felt strong and lithe and perfectly under my control, and the air twinkled around me clean and sweet, like it was a sheer miracle to gulp in huge lungs full of it and descend into that perfect blue.

I left the others this morning with a heavy heart. But this simple task of diving, hunting out little edible creatures and collecting them soon had me forgetting about it all.

It was just me, my free, easy limbs and blue, blue, blue all around. I was in my element. Content and carefree as an otter. This is why I had wanted to join the navy in the first place. I’m not a smart guy. Some might say I have a lousy work ethic and too little ambition. But what else was a man designed to do, but this right here? To use his body to its full extent, to stretch and swim and pull and leap and dive?

It made me happy. And it was a simple, honest happiness, one I could feel running all through my whole body, right to the tips of my toes.

I descended into the water again but came up this time empty handed. It was an opportunity for a break. I shook the water from my hair, and pulled myself up out of the water and onto the jagged island of rocks. I perched on my haunches and offered my bare back to the sun so it could dry the drops off my skin. I couldn’t make out anyone on the shore of the main island, and for a moment, I enjoyed pretending it was just me out here, the last man alive, surviving on nothing but my wits and what breath I could hold in my lungs at one time.

The bounty of mussels I’d already gathered plus the snails, a single bright orange crab and two little fish I’d managed to catch would be more than enough to feed everyone for today. And it was protein, too. It would keep up going and strong. And it would help Ellie’s wound heal faster.

A splashing sound had me turning around to see what was approaching me.

Charlie.

I stood and looked down as she swam over from some distant place on the shore, breast stroking casually and then hopping up onto the rocks with me.

“I told you to give me another day,” I said drily, trying not to look at her. The spell had been broken and my bad mood was returning. She took her time squeezing the water out of her long braids, then came over to examine my haul, tapping the mussel shells with a curious foot.

“Waiting an extra day wasn’t part of the deal.”

“I’m not haggling over terms with you. Jesus,” I said under my breath.

She shrugged.

“Looks like you found quite a bit,” she said. I purposefully avoided eye contact.

“If possible, I’ll go back in again and get even more. We needed every last scrap we can manage.”

“We sure can. Ellie’s foot is basically hanging on by a thread, isn’t it?” she said, more than a little flippant in her tone.

Perhaps she couldn’t understand being kind to someone without expecting anything in return, but I didn’t care. I wanted to help Ellie regardless of all the other stuff.

She chuckled a little to herself and nudged one of the mussels with her big toe. I was halfway climbing back into the cool water but shot her a hard look. Something about being on this island was making everyone a caricature of themselves. As though, because there was so little to look at out here, so little to do, we all had turned inwards and become magnified versions of our most striking features. It was early days but we had all broken and fractured just the same as the ship that night, and now we were just people-fragments now, getting worn by the sea and quickly turning strange. The couple were playing out some cheesy Blue Lagoon adventure all by themselves, I had devolved into a sea mammal …and Charlie had become a full-blown psychopath, no question about it.

“If you want to help, you can start by lugging all of that back to the shore. I’ll be over there in a second,” I said and made as if to dunk myself under again.

“Todd, wait,” she said and crouched down.

“What?”

“Do you remember what you said? That night?”

She was squatting low on her haunches, one wet braid hanging down on either side of her angular face and her tight belly crunched up into a dozen narrow rolls.

“What night?”

“You know what I mean, Todd. Our night together.”

I sighed.

“That was a long time ago.”

“So? I still remember it clearly. I remember what you said.”

I looked up at her, the combination of sun and salt begin to seriously aggravate my eyes.

“Oh? Well I’m sure I’ve said a lot of shit in my life…”

“You said you loved me,” she blurted.

“What?”

She rocked backwards and forwards on her feet, the damp ends of her braids swinging like the dark tips of paintbrushes.

“Don’t pretend you don’t remember…”

I swallowed hard and briefly considered just swimming away from her now as fast I could.

“I never said that to you, don’t be--”

“Oh, you said it all right,” she said and rocked forward a little, looking down at me as I floated beneath her in the water. “And you meant it, too. I could see it in your eyes.”

For a fleeting second, my mind raced off to a possible future scenario with this woman. Would she just lose her mind and murder everyone? I as beginning to have trouble understanding what her motivations even were anymore. Besides, what she was saying was ludicrous.

“I don’t have time for this shit,” I said and pushed off the rocks.

“Why do you keep resisting me, Todd? What are you so afraid of anyway?”

I tread the water for a moment, suspended in the blue and hating her for coming out here and ruining my special moment, for pulling me again into a drama I don’t ever remember agreeing to take part in.

“You know, Charlie, I’m getting real tired of all this. You’re making stuff up. I never--”

“Look at how embarrassed you are!” she laughed.

It was true. The inconvenient fact was that I didn’t remember what happened that night. Not really. She had been my first, that much I knew. But the rest I couldn’t remember at all. It was just a regrettable, humiliating mistake, but one I had never imagined would follow me for years.

At the time the embarrassment of being sexually inexperienced had proved too much. Charlie was always around, always hinting and pressing, and so she seemed like the natural option at the time. Had I known that she would sink her crazy hooks into me and never let go, I would have gladly stayed a virgin.

“Whatever I said, it’s in the past now,” I said and ducked under the water again. But when I emerged again with one more small snail, she was still crouching there, still watching me.

“You know, I remember, you made these little girly noises when you came, it was so adorable,” she said matter-of-factly.

I pulled myself out of the water and stood dripping next to her, forcing her to shift over on her haunches. I didn’t have the energy to be angry any more. I tried to push past her but she stood in my way. She rose up tall, and positioned herself right in front of me, an inch from my face, daring me to do something although I couldn’t imagine what. But as sorry as I felt for her, I wasn’t going to let her get a rise out of me. She smiled sweetly.

“Fine, Todd, you have one more day. But consider this. For the rest of your life, I might be the last woman you ever get to fuck,” she said, speaking slowly and with such a nasty edge it felt like each word was an obscenity. She leaned in, so close I could feel the heat off her body. She looked up to me, lips parted, and for a split second, I wondered if it was worth drawing out her little drama. Giving this insane woman what she wanted was nothing but repulsive to me, but it would get me access to the boat. The same boat that would get both Ellie and I off of this godforsaken island.

The moment froze around us as I wondered if she had the audacity to try and kiss me. But she smiled, brushed past me and then froze in her tracks.

I looked to see what had caught her eye.

It was Ellie, standing on the far end of the rocks, still wet from swimming and daintily carrying her wounded leg behind her. She stopped and stared at Charlie and I with a face that looked like it had just been slapped. Charlie turned to give me one last smirking glance, looked at Ellie and then paced off to the other edge of the rocks. She took one graceful, arcing dive into the water, made a splash and then began swimming back to the main island.

Ellie was pale and stammering, trying to say something.

“I… I didn’t mean to interrupt you both, I didn’t know …I’m so sorry,” she mumbled and turned around to hobble back into the water.

“Ellie, wait.”

I ran over to her and grabbed both her arms. She seemed surprised by this, staring down at the place my hands touched her cool, wet skin. She looked so white.

“What are you even doing out here? Your foot…”

“My foot is fine,” she said decisively, but I looked down to see that she had shed some of her old bandages and now the raw, exposed gash was visible and far worse than I first imagined. I instantly knelt down to look at it. I was worried about gangrene. Worried about some parasite getting in there and killing her within hours.

“Oh, don’t look at me like that. It looks worse than it is… Besides I think the seawater’s good for it. I came out here to help you carry the mussels, since I can still swim pretty well.”

I stood again and noticed there were tears welling in her eyes.

“Ellie, are you OK?” I said and touched her shoulder again.

I don’t know how exactly it happened, but in one smooth, easy movement she took a step towards me and flung herself in my arms, squeezing me tightly. I pulled her back and searched her face.

“Ellie, we shouldn’t--”

She came to me again and this time her lips went to mine, and not one atom in me could resist them.

It wasn’t a kiss so much as a melting; a surrender to what we had started with that first secret kiss we shared on the ship this great ocean had swallowed whole a lifetime ago. It was as though all the time that had passed since we had first done this just disappeared, and the watery world around us now shrunk into nothing, just a minor footnote compared to the whole universe which now consisted only of her fluttering breath, and her sweet, juicy lips. It was almost disturbing how the movements of her tongue against mine seemed to stir something wild inside me.

Her hands anchored against my bare chest and I felt her relax her weight against me. Her lips were still wet and salty with sea water. Her hair fell in damp coils on her breasts and pressed against my skin, sending a shockwave of goosebumps all across me. Gently, tentatively, I placed a curious hand at her hip bone and rested it there.

Everything from our old lives had been obliterated. But we were still alive. We still had air in our lungs and blood in our veins. Her warm body was still pulsing with life, and so was mine. We had nothing left. But there was something we did have, right now in this moment.

Desire.

Raw, burning lust that started down low and crackled all through the body like a fever. She made it all seem possible. She made this entire nasty game of survival actually mean something. Her hip felt like a promised land under my fingertips. I didn’t care about protein or water or shelter.

I wanted her.

I wanted her so badly I felt in that moment that she was what I had really been starving for all along.

I pulled her towards me and kissed her deeply again, my tongue earnest and delicate, desperate to taste all of her, desperate to feel if the hunger was mutual. Breathless, our kiss came to a natural pause and she pulled back to gaze at me, her eyelashes still sprinkled with tears.

“I feel so stupid about all of this. I mean, I barely even know you Todd…”

“Shhh… it’s OK.”

I swallowed hard and smoothed away the wet tendrils of hair. I hated seeing that kink in her brow. Her foot was probably infected and maybe she was just delirious, just in shock and not thinking clearly. I had no idea. I just wanted her to kiss me again.

“Anthony and I can’t be together anymore,” she said plainly.

His name snapped me to attention. I didn’t know what to say.

“You …I don’t know what this is, between us. But I know I can’t be with him anymore. After the ship wreck it was like something changed in me. I can’t explain it. Like when we were in that storeroom, and I thought we were going to die for sure, I just kept on thinking, was that all I had done with my life? Was that who I had decided to be with, in the end? It seemed all wrong.”

Except for the waves tossing and splashing quietly around us, everything was silent.

“Ellie, I don’t know what’s going to happen here. I don’t know if any of us are going to make it off this island, or if they’ll send help …I just don’t know. I understand you’re scared and upset, but don’t make any big decisions you may regret…”

She shook her head rapidly.

“No, I know what you’re thinking, but I know I’m right. I see things clearly now for the first time in years. Anthony is a wonderful man. He really is. He’s just …he’s not for me.”

A full wave crashed into the rocks beneath us and broke into a fine spray around us both. I could see that Charlie had long gone and I could make out nobody else on the shoreline.

We were alone. For the first time since the storm struck and everything changed forever, we were alone together. Just her, and I. Her body, and my body.

I wanted to grab her right then and take her on these rocks before I lost my nerve. I wanted to kiss her again, and never stop kissing her, and just release and see where it was that our desire really wanted to take us. She was so beautiful. Her body was an island all on its own, and my real shipwreck had been staring for the first time into those eyes and losing my moorings forever.

She was wild and uninhabited, beautiful but frightening, an unknown world that I couldn’t claim, but only visit and hope to survive. I wanted to tear off these last stupid shreds of clothing from both of us and face one another honestly. The truth was I didn’t know her that well either. But I felt her. I saw her. What would it matter, if I had met her in the real world and dated her and spent years and years learning about all the pointless shit that clogs up life, like what brand of coffee she preferred or what TV shows she liked as a kid? How could any of that possibly compare to what I felt right now, and could see right now?

She stared back at me sincerely, her salt and pepper hair windswept and joyful as the sea itself, and her eyes open and clear to mine.

“Have you told him all this?” I said quietly. She was still in my arms, still pressing close to me. She looked away and didn’t answer.

“Ellie …I can’t interfere in your life.”

She sighed and pulled back a little.

“What if we never make it out of here alive? What if this is the last chance either of us get to be honest about what we really want in life?”

It was a deep question. Too much to think about. But then again, nothing like this had ever happened before. The old rules had sunk to the bottom of the ocean along with every other thing we had taken as a given.

“What do you really want then?”

She answered me only with a look. I was instantly hard.

I squeezed her shoulders, kissed her temple and released her.

“Let’s get back to the main island. We need to get these things cooked before they go bad. And you need to speak with Anthony.”

She gave me the biggest puppy eyes.

“Ellie, I don’t know what to say. But I’m here for you. Whatever you need. I’m going to do what I can to help you, OK?”

I briefly indulged in a fantasy of what she might say when she saw the boat, when she knew I’d be the one taking her away from here, back to the real world and to safety. But she had to break her ties to Anthony first. I couldn’t do that for her. Part of me wanted to just throw her over my shoulder and claim her for my own, sure. She wanted me, and I wanted her, and by any natural law that seemed like the only thing that mattered. But in the real world, it wasn’t enough. She had to leave him of her own accord. I couldn’t force her hand.

We both slipped quietly into the cold water again, and waded out into the depths. She could swim surprisingly well, but I could tell her leg was still hurting her.

“How bad is it?” I asked once we had paddled out a few yards.

“Oh, I’ll survive,” she said through a tight smile. But every glance from her now had something extra hidden inside it. Twice now we had shared furtive kisses. Twice now I had started something that I shouldn’t have. Especially because now all I could think of was how I wanted more.

“Let me help you,” I said and swam closer to her.

Beneath us the bright blue gradually gave way to jade green and then a dimensionless, inky color even deeper below that. Warm and cool currents licked over us as we swam through the water. I linked my arm through hers and tucked myself under her, so I could support her weight in the way we’d been trained to if ever a marine was drowning or unconscious.

She was light, and perfectly buoyant in the water. Her cool, smooth skin slipped easily over mine as I held her on top of me and proceeded to kick hard to propel us both back to shore.

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t need to. It was a peaceful, profoundly erotic moment that felt as close to heaven as I could ever hope for here on earth. To the side, I could make out her long, nearly-blonde wisps of hair snaking rhythmically in the water.

My cock was fully hard again, but I didn’t try to conceal anything from her. By now, she had already understood my position when we exchanged glances on the rock a moment ago, so what good would playing coy be now? I could feel the contours of her body through the wet fabric of her dress.

When she stopped kicking, and lay back completely to let me support her, I happily kicked harder to keep us both afloat. And when she gently reached her hand back to pass cautious, secret fingers over the swollen bulge in my trousers, I let her.

Chapter 16 - Ellie

I know the timing could have been better,” I said. “But I’ve been feeling this way for months now. I know how hard you try, and how hard you work, but everything that’s happened recently has just made me think more carefully about things and now I can admit that this relationship is just not what I want anymore.”

With my remaining good foot, I kicked at the ground and sent a white plume of beach sand into the air. I cleared my throat. No. This wasn’t meant to be some horrible confession, or a therapy session. I needed to just be honest, just say what I knew we had both been thinking.

“It’s not that I’m unhappy with you, Anthony, it’s just that I’m not exactly happy.” I kicked another plume. No, that sounded way too dramatic, even given the circumstances.

I couldn’t mention Todd. And really, Todd had nothing to do with it anyway. He was a catalyst, maybe. But only in the same way that the shipwreck itself was a catalyst. We would have broken up sooner or later, and sooner looked better to me now than letting Anthony get carried away building a whole future that deep down I didn’t want to live in anymore.

I turned to pace the other direction and kicked up yet another plume. My foot was still burning, still bleeding a little and more worryingly, a red rash from the deep cut was fanning up my leg towards my knee.

Maybe I’d end up losing more than a fiancé soon, who knew. He was the man who had wooed me harder than I thought was still in fashion. He had bought me countless gifts, picked out the names of our children and given me an engagement ring engraved with the coordinates of the exact spot we had met. But he was also the man who had given me countless bruises, and who had told me once in a drunken moment of honesty, that one of the reasons he was attracted to me was because he knew I wouldn’t mind taking a back seat to his life.

“I’ve thought about it, Anthony, and I’ve made up my mind. The engagement’s off,” I said, a little louder. Yes, that sounded good. The words of a woman who knew herself. A confident, sure woman. ‘No’ was a complete sentence, right? He didn’t need to know the details.

By the time I had reached my destination, I had whittled down my little speech to the bone: I wanted out, and no, I didn’t want to discuss it. End of story. The only thing missing now was Anthony himself – he had gone off to find food hours ago, and that was the last we had heard from him.

It was getting late. Everyone had spread off to do their own little tasks and slowly we were gathering again at our shelter. But Anthony was still AWOL. The bottom half of the sky was already getting a hazy, pink and blue tinge to it and he still hadn’t returned. I forbid myself from coming to any hasty conclusions.

I walked on and pushed through the leaves to find what I was looking for.

Ah, there it was.

Earlier, Carl and Livvy had shown me this small stream. I peeked over my shoulder to see if I’d been followed and then crept closer, quickly shrugged off my cocktail dress and dipped one tentative toe into the water. The cool water was a shock, but a welcome one. It felt scandalous, having the soft breeze stroking over my bare skin, and I lingered there for a moment, in my underwear, relishing how illicit it all felt. I reached back to unhook my bra and placed it carefully on a dry rock beside me, then took two careful steps out of my panties and lay them aside, too.

What I had done with Todd this morning was wrong, no doubt about it. But he wasn’t to blame. I stared down at the clear, glassy water around my calves. But who was to blame? I didn’t know where to draw the line on my mistakes. I shouldn’t have kissed him. I shouldn’t have been on that ship at all, knowing full well that our ‘last chance’ would never amount to anything. I should have never agreed to his proposal at all. Going further back, maybe the first mistake was getting involved with a man I knew deep down would kill me slowly.

The damn storm was to blame. And this water right here was also at fault. This was the reason why I had to end it with Anthony. This feeling of… I barely even understood it myself. But it was wild and raw and real and it felt so different from the way my life had played out so far that it scared me. I was hungry and wounded and about to end an engagement, and yet the truth was that the shipwreck was the single most exciting thing to ever happen to me. I felt alive. It was more than adrenaline, more than the novelty of the situation or even the fear of not knowing if any of us would live to see out the week.

It was …this.

I crouched down and sucked in my breath as the warm skin of my thighs and then my abdomen sunk deeper into the cold water. Underneath it, my body looked blurred, its edges skipping and sketchy, like I wasn’t quite so real underwater as I was up here. The air around me smelt of roots and the chemical tang of water. Why had I never skinny dipped in my life? Why had it taken me so long to realize how beautiful it felt to be naked in cool water in the forest?

I dunked down deeper still and submerged to the neck. Now, the silky ribbons of cool water threaded over me, past my arms, through my legs and all around as I moved slowly, creating only the quietest, tiniest of ripples. I lay my head back to dunk my hair and nearly gasped out loud at how good the water felt flooding over every last hair on my scalp. I shuddered hard as sharp goosebumps washed over me, tightening my nipples. I leant back and floated for some time, stuck in a daydream that involved the leafy rooftop of the forest above me, the bands of sun streaking through it and my vague new plan to be someone else, someone different and bursting with immense, grateful lust for life.

After a while I grabbed my dress, held it under the water and tried to wring and scrub the fabric, coaxing out a full day’s worth of salt and sand and sweat. I did the same to my underwear and then stepped halfway out of the pool to hang everything up on some thorny branches. When I sunk back into the water again, there was nothing but the faint drip drip drip of my drying clothes and the distant call of birds.

I lay back again and floated on my back, idly paddling my arms.

I would tell Anthony, and he would understand. He’d be hurt, of course. But I knew that he must have been exhausted, too. Tired of pushing me. Tired of waiting for me to be the model wife I wasn’t. He’d understand. He’d have to. It all seemed so simple now. Why did people have to hurt each other like this? I would miss Anthony with all my heart. But floating so still and peaceful here, that seemed only like the smallest of details. I needed to let him go, just as easily as I had taken off that dress that was once pretty, but was now torn and just didn’t fit me at all.

My hands went to stroke over my belly. The water made my skin feel supernaturally silky, so that my hands slid frictionless over. After the day I had had, this alga colored water in this little rock pool was worth more than the fanciest spa in the world. I was empty inside – we had eaten, but only barely, and if we stayed here much longer, we’d all start wasting away in no time. Like they had a life of their own, my hands slipped lower onto the curve of my upper thighs. I stroked up to my hips, then all the way down again. How perfect it was to be alive!

I moved watery fingers over my breasts, circling hardened nipples that poked through the film of water if I curved my back upwards. I arched and looked down to admire myself. Out here, my body seemed completely at home. My two hipbones pierced the water and brought with them the smooth, white mound between them, a dune in a mysterious white desert made of water. I watched the water pool in my navel, lap over the rounded swell of my breasts and glide over me I had been born in this forest pool.

What would my life be like, if I started fresh, right now? Who would I be if I wasn’t someone’s fiancé, wasn’t the boring old Ellie I had been trapped in for all these years, but somebody different, somebody as exciting and strange as the dark forest closing in all around me?

My hands then slipped between my legs and stroked delicately over the insistent ache that had developed there. My whole body felt like it was prickling awake, every inch of my skin almost as sensitive as that sweet little spot my fingers were now circling.

I stroked slowly, delivering the smallest, most delicious electric thrills all through me, so that I could see the water ripple out around me as my breath quickened and deepened. I shut my eyes and sunk into the dark wateriness behind my eyelids as well. I teased and rolled my fingertips faster, till I could feel my own slickness in the water, my body hot and swollen. I brought that aching, glowing spot to as much torment as I could stand, then froze and hovered, suspending myself above an orgasm that promised to be deep and intense. I forced myself to breathe one long, shuddering breath in and then out. Nearly weightless, there was nothing but perfect, frictionless pleasure threatening to submerge me completely.

I eased a single finger inside and paused there, enjoying the secret, slow play of cool and warm water that had me quivering for release. I told myself: this is it Ellie. When this orgasm hit me, I would surrender completely and let it kill me. On the other side of that juicy death would be something new. Life would be the same, but I would something else. Reborn out of this dark puddle in the forest, resurrected and anointed with nothing but the silky thick wetness streaming onto my fingers.

I came silently. The orgasm was like a deep kick inside, pounding through me so hard I gasped and staggered back to my feet, my knees trembling unseen in the dark water beneath me. I stood there silently letting it rip through me; the easy, smooth waves of pleasure felt so right. In time, the wavelets in the pool calmed down too.

By the time I finally slunk out of the water and wrung out my hair, the sky visible through the trees was getting darker. My dress was still wet, but it was a welcome sensation to have the damp fabric against my skin as I wriggled it back on. I was probably not much cleaner, but I felt amazing all the same. Fresh in spirit if not entirely in body.

I slipped my sandals back on, took a deep breath and headed back to our base camp. When I finally found my way back, I was pleased to see a great, roaring fire on the beach sand next to our little house. It almost looked like a party. Carl saw my smile as I came through the clearing of trees and waltzed up to me.

“Impressive, huh? The wood finally dried up so now things are looking a little homier around here,” he said and extended his hand to me.

Though I could walk much better now by myself, I still welcomed his help. Why not? I was the new Ellie now. Who knows what my new personality would end up becoming. We hobbled towards the fire, and I noticed how the pink and blue of the sunset had deepened now. The sun would set any minute now.

“Is Anthony back yet?” I asked, fully expecting him to tell me that it was Anthony who built the fire, and that he was just around the corner as we spoke.

“Uh…”

I looked at him and the little frown on his forehead.

“He’ll come back soon, I’m sure,” he said, in that way people say things when they’re not sure at all. I nodded and walked with him over to some logs that had been placed in a ring around the fire.

I could see Livvy a little way off, sitting cross-legged close to the water’s edge, doing what looked like meditation. Fine. I chose a log and threw myself down onto it, relishing how good it felt to have the fire’s warmth on the front of me while the cool memory of my little moment in the forest pool was still at my back.

“We have plenty of dry wood, which is great, and there’s not a cloud in the sky tonight so nothing to put it out. We’re all gonna sleep like the dead,” he said with a smile.

I hadn’t spoken much to Carl at all, but he seemed sweet enough. He wasn’t the best looking man you’ve ever seen but his face was open and thoughtful and he seemed friendly enough. Maybe, new Ellie could be super compassionate and kindhearted. Maybe I’d become a grizzled hippie and meditate on the beach as well. Why not?

“Hopefully not too much like the dead,” I said.

He laughed.

“Yeah, you’re right, that was a poor choice of words. But we’re OK. We’re going to be OK.”

I flopped my mangled foot out in front of me and stared down at it, unable to summon much affection for the bacon-colored rash threatening to take over my whole leg.

“Will we though?” I asked. “It’s just like …what happens now? It’s as though everything’s just …stopped. Like we’ve already died but we’re still hanging around somehow, with nothing to do.”

Maybe new Ellie would be super emotionally mature, and expressive. Maybe I’d be a poet.

He was chuckling.

“We have as much to do as we’ve always had, there are just fewer distractions now,” he said with a mischievous smile. It was my turn to chuckle.

“Well, that’s very sagely of you, Carl, but a few of those distractions right now would have been nice, don’t you think?”

He stretched out long on his own log, his heels digging a dark, damp stripe beneath him, as he stared unfocused eyes into the fire.

“Nah, not really. I have the most important person in the world to me by my side, and I’m alive and breathing …what more is there?”

“Wow …so you’re quite the romantic.” The image of him in the forest the day before sprung to my mind.

“Not at all. I’m a practical man. There’s so much noise in life, don’t you think? A lot of time-wasting, a lot of commotion. But at some point, you have to ask what’s really important. All the other stuff? It all sinks sooner or later, right?” he said with the same irreverent smile.

Maybe having a randy wife who was good for a romp anytime, anywhere was the secret to his supernaturally positive outlook.

I scoffed.

If I wasn’t feeling so tired and weak, I could be Zen about everything, too. I bet I could look at this whole mess like a cute sitcom: there was the hot SEAL trainee, the ball-busting tough girl, whatever Anthony was and this guy, some fool with the patience of a monk.

“So, what’s really important to you, then, Carl?”

He looked out over to the shoreline and answered immediately.

“Her.”

I wanted to laugh again and tell him what a ridiculous sap he was. It was ludicrous, waxing lyrical about his wife at a time like this, when we were isolated who knows where and on the brink of almost-certain death. But I couldn’t. A lump grew in my throat as I realized: maybe new Ellie wanted that for herself.

“Anthony and I …I think I’m going to call off our engagement.”

He looked surprised. But he didn’t say anything. He just kept staring into the fire with a serene look on his face. He felt safe to talk to. The others were well out of earshot, and, what the hell, we were beyond small talk by now.

“What you said about Livvy? About her being the most important thing in the world to you? Well… Anthony and I aren’t like that. Not even close. I love him. I actually do love him. But not in the way I need to, you know? I want the best for him, if that’s what love means. But I also know I can never be the one to give him that.”

It felt strange to just open up to him like this. But the moment I did, and the words were out there in the real world and not just my frazzled head, it felt good.

I stared into the fire with him.

“So, that’s why I’m going to tell him it’s over. I’ve been stewing over it all day. Something about this place, huh?”

“Yup. Like I said, it’s amazing what you notice when all the distractions are gone,” he said with a sad smile.

“I feel awful about it though. Like it’ll eat at me until I just get it over with, just tell him. But he’s not a bad man. I don’t want to hurt him… I don’t even know if…”

I couldn’t finish my thought.

“If he’ll even come back tonight?” he said.

We both fell back into silent staring again, our eyes glued to the yellow and orange swirls in the fire. The sun on the horizon was the same color, and if you watched carefully, you could almost see it moving before your eyes to lower down and dip into the water, like it was extinguishing itself. We watched in silence until it started to darken more seriously. Right now, the prospect of another night in the sand pit was almost appealing. I felt cleaner, lighter, and less panicked somehow.

“Thanks for talking with me.”

“Thanks for talking with me,” he replied and smiled.

Anthony didn’t come. Charlie appeared an hour or two later and said she’d had no luck finding him, and her news put a dark mood over an otherwise peaceful evening. Todd kept his distance from the fire, avoiding me by busying himself endlessly with this and that. I didn’t mind. I was grateful, even. Anthony being missing felt like just another hopeless mystery thrown onto an already impossible situation. I didn’t know when to start officially worrying. With a sickening feeling in my stomach, I realized that even when he did return, it would only be to take him off somewhere into the forest and quietly hand him back his ring.

New Ellie didn’t feel guilty about these things, though, I had decided. We were all weary enough that Carl, Livvy, Todd and I went to bed not long after sundown, with the agreement that we’d have to search for Anthony in the morning, when there was light to do so. A little way off from our pit, the fire died down somewhat but its embers still glowed as darkness fell. Charlie sat outside alone, watching the coals pulse a little as they faded.

Inside the pit, I had a strange thought that I had conjured Anthony clean out of existence somehow, by thinking so hard about breaking things off with him. Todd clung to the far side of the pit and ignored me. It hurt, but I reminded myself that it wasn’t fair to ask him to get involved in my mess. I could only imagine what he must be feeling, but running around and kissing in secret was just not a smart strategy. We pulled the roof over us and secured it, then settled down for the night. Without the threat of another storm on the horizon, the world felt mercifully still for a moment.

I had already fallen fast asleep when I felt Charlie’s breath in my ear. At first I thought it must have been Anthony, creeping out from the darkness, or maybe even my nightmares themselves, and coming to admonish me for my crimes. But it was her.

“Don’t you dare make a sound,” she hissed.

Before I could respond, I felt something sharp dig into my lower back.

“Charl--”

“I said shut up.”

My body tensed up as I tried to understand what was happening.

“You need to stay away from him,” she said, her voice thin and sounding dangerous in the night air.

“From who?” I whispered. The sharpness jabbed again into my lower back and I winced and tried to wriggle away.

“Try to stand up and I’ll sink this into your kidneys, I swear. You think that little scratch on your foot is a big deal? Don’t try me.”

My head raced. I was now wide awake. Why was she doing this? It was obvious she was jealous about Todd, but a knife? I didn’t even know we had a knife on the island. Her voice sounded deranged.

“Charlie, please, can we talk? This is crazy…”

The knife point didn’t budge. I wanted to cry.

“You know, I was thinking about it. I hate women like you. And I could have easily killed you for trying to get in the way. But you know what? I’ll be gone tomorrow morning, before you’ve finished doing your hair and make-up, so you can thank your lucky stars.”

Gone? Where the hell did she think she was going? I thought of reaching out and shaking Carl awake, but the knife point was already just a hair’s breadth from puncturing my skin, and the venom in her voice told me that any sudden movements would likely be rewarded with a stab. I could scarcely believe what was happening.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Charlie. I’m not standing in your way. Put that thing away and let’s talk…”

She poked me with it. I bit my tongue. She was pinned so close to me I could feel the rise of her chest and she inhaled.

“I don’t understand, what do you want?” I said, my voice laced with panic.

She laughed quietly in the darkness.

“Just to let you know that I’ve won,” she whispered.

There was no question about it. She was crazy. She sounded like an insane villain from a movie.

“Oh my god, what the hell is actually wrong with you?”

I could tell she was a little startled at my outburst. The others stirred but nobody woke up. The knife was pulled away from my skin and I heard her breathe again behind me, still far too close for comfort. I briefly considered turning around and grabbing her, fighting back, something. But she was much stronger than I was. And clearly insane. Instead I took a deep breath and did what I could: played it cool.

“Just go to sleep, Charlie” I said and settled back down on the grass mat.

Whatever her point was, she had made it. If she was literally insane, the last thing I needed was to provoke her further. She was delusional. Maybe she was having a breakdown. But if she wanted to really stab me she would have done it already.

I waited for her to say something more but she didn’t. Exhausted, I soon fell back to sleep, too tired to figure out if I was more insulted or more afraid at her ridiculous threat. She wasn’t going anywhere. None of us were.

And she had won? Well, congratulations, I guess. I had lost. I had lost everything. And if she wanted to stab me in the night like the crazy person she was, she was welcome to damn well try.

Chapter 17 - Anthony

A harsh blade of morning sunshine forced my tender eyes open. I groaned. It felt as though every day passed on this island added a whole year of misery to my life. I felt fucking old. And tired.

With numb hands, I rubbed the sleep out of my eyes and tried to stand up. I looked down at my mosquito bitten, burnt legs. I looked up at the trees overhead, their dark leaves completely disinterested in my misery down below. I looked down again at my worn-out body. My clothes were dirty. My fingernails were black. I don’t remember choosing this particular spot to collapse on, but fuck it.

With incredible effort, I hauled myself up to standing and tried to draw a fresh breath. The oxygen stung my lungs. It had been a long, long time since I felt this way. But why bother with moderation and restraint when nobody else in this worthless world did? I wobbled on sore knees and realized that I was not hungover, but still drunk. Very drunk. I knew this feeling well – the dull, low-grade sense of panic that comes with the body realizing it’s been moderately poisoned.

Just the thought of the word ‘poison’ sent a deep rolling lurch through my stomach, and I involuntarily staggered forward, folded over and vomited long and hard. A thin, burning torrent of clear liquid shot out of me like a demon. Before last night, I hadn’t had a drink in at least a year. And now, within a short time frame, I had guzzled down almost two bottles of the stuff. I stared at the puddle of puke between my feet. Well, at least some of it was gone, now.

As though a vice grip had been tightened around my skull, my head thumped violently, and I could feel it all down through my face and into my jaw. I had the horrifying sense that all my organs had somehow come loose and were now rattling inside me; that each step had to be taken very carefully or I’d tear something internally and land up with as much integrity as that puddle of vomit. But it was nothing compared to the pain I felt as my new reality dawned on me. Before last night, I could have believed that things were going to be OK. That Ellie and I would be OK, and that this was all just an unfortunate glitch on the bigger picture of our lives together.

But now?

Fuck her.

And fuck him.

Why should I hide in the bushes? I was the wronged party here, and yet I was lurking away from the main camp? No way. In a few short days, everything that I thought of as real and good had been smashed into tiny pieces. I had nothing left. Well, except for that thing.

I turned to look at the thing in question, my latest discovery, lying inanimate off to the side. From here, to get back to the others was probably only a ten-minute walk for a healthy, normal person. But I was no longer healthy and certainly no longer normal, and lugging that thing behind me would slow me down even more. But I thought I smelt smoke on the wind and knew that they had likely started a fire. It gave me an idea.

I looked down at it, the last thing on this earth I owned, my only remaining possession. And now it had to go. If I was to be ruined and humiliated, then fuck it, why not go all the way? Why not throw it all in the fire and be done with it already? If I couldn’t have it, then nobody could. I was done with her. Done with giving her a free ride, trying to ‘save’ her when what she really wanted was to wallow in her stupid decisions.

I bent down, tried to swallow the evil waves of nausea washing through me and grabbed hold of its rough edge. It must have weighed almost as much as I did. I dragged, paused, took a breath, then dragged again, pitching through the foliage one weak step at a time.

When I finally saw the camp, I was pleased to see that I was right – the embers in the fire were still glowing an exciting orange, and everyone was still fast asleep. The sun would likely rise in an hour or so.

I shoved the heavy thing off to the side. Then, smiling, I set to work finding more fuel to stoke the flames for my own purpose. Being out in the fresh, open beach again was clearing my head somewhat, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that last night’s binge had seriously damaged something inside me. I set one remaining bottle off to the side – having drunk two and jettisoned the others – and busied myself adding twigs and branches to the dying fire, blowing until it caught and a small flame started licking at the new fuel.

Within twenty minutes my work paid off: the fire was big and roaring, the branches inside crackling and collapsing under a heat so strong I could feel it on my face from several feet away. I grabbed the end of the moss-covered canoe and dragged it over, then with one final lug I hauled it straight into the center of the fire. With a thud it crushed the twigs underneath, briefly extinguishing the flames which then shot out the sides again, flickering viciously along the flanks of the boat and sending out yellow sparks and smoke. Within a minute the fire had a hold of that ancient wood and was quickly turning it black.

I slumped down onto the white sand and watched it.

Good.

A few hours ago, it was a ticket out of here for Ellie and I, a boat to float us away from this mess. Now it was sailing its last journey on a river of hot fire, and would soon be nothing more than ashes. The thought made me laugh out loud. Some images you never forget. Seeing my parents’ smiling faces as I stepped onto the stage at my prize-giving ceremony. Seeing Ellie’s face for the first time. And now, another image was burnt in there: seeing Ellie locked in a passionate kiss with some young jock, pressed up against him like the whole future I had planned for her had counted for nothing.

This was the way life worked now, apparently. No justice, no sanity, just everyone’s lives balancing on one sudden and senseless accident after another. The storm had wrecked everything, and then, when I came walking back to our camp from the other side of the island, a second shock hit me harder than any storm could: I stood in disbelief and watched her as she kissed him, far out on a scratchy black patch of rock.

And now everything was different. If she wanted to destroy the life I had painstakingly created for her, well, let me help her! I’d gladly throw it all away. The flames were digging deeper into the dry wood now, growing higher and more violent. And to think she had the nerve to ask me to stop drinking.

“Fuck you! Burn, you piece of shit!” I yelled and threw a clumsy handful of sand into the flames.

The palm frond roof of the dwelling shook and soon I saw a concerned head poking out to see what all the noise was. Carl’s face froze as he looked at me, then at the flames. He looked just like a frightened little gopher with a human face, and somehow this made me laugh even harder, so hard the tears were streaming down my face. Livvy’s face soon popped out too, and the roof was hastily lifted and set aside as they both stepped out, confused and horror-struck.

“That’s right, you dumb fuckers, I’m burning it!” I shouted, and came staggering to my feet. When Ellie climbed out of the pit, rubbing sleep from her eyes, I stopped laughing instantly and remembered how fucking angry I was. She shared the same dumbstruck expression as the other two, and they all three just stood and beheld the mighty flames, burning our last escape from the island to sweet, sweet smithereens. It wasn’t exactly justice, but fuck it, options were few out here.

When Charlie sprung out of the pit, she didn’t dawdle though. I had brought myself wobbling to my feet and was standing proudly in front of the blaze, but she instantly threw all her weight at me, banging my shoulders hard and sending me falling straight back.

“What the fuck are you doing?” she screeched. “How did you find it?”

For a split second I was genuinely afraid of how wide her eyes grew as she bent over me and glared at my face, fuming. I was about to prepare myself for a beating when she spun around and grabbed hold of the end of the canoe, then tried desperately to yank it out of the flames. It budged little – but it brought the fire with it. She grimaced and jumped away from the heat, her hands blackened.

“That boat is mine! How dare you! Are you insane? That was my ticket out of here, you stupid idiot!” she yelled, hopping from foot to foot like she was about to explode with rage.

“Your ticket?” I slurred. “Bitch, I found it, it’s mine. And now I’m burning it,” I laughed.

The face she gave me was so dripping with rage it was almost as hot as the fire between us both.

“I’ll fucking kill you,” she hissed, and lowered her weight like she was going to pounce on me. But she thought better of attacking me and instead tried again anxiously to pull the boat from the flames.

The others had snapped out of their stupor and were now yelling at me, yelling at Charlie, yelling at each other.

“Is that a boat?”

“Where on earth did that come from?”

“Everyone just calm down!”

“Anthony what happened to you?”

“Tell me that’s not vodka.”

“Oh my god, there are other people here?

Ellie and I stood on opposite sides of the blaze, time slowing down for a moment, just enough for us to lock eyes. She was still just as beautiful as always, but this time she was tainted.

Dirty.

I had forgiven everything in her past before because she needed me, because I was the one who was going to save her from it all. The fact is that Ellie was never the perfect woman, and I couldn’t pretend she was anymore.

She was broken.

In the past her brokenness had made her interesting. Had made her vulnerable. Had made her mine. But not anymore. Now the potential for purity I had seen in her was all gone. She was just a worthless, typical woman, and I had been a fool trying to help her in the first place.

She looked at me sadly but I felt nothing. I tore my gaze from hers and saw that Charlie was now trying to roll the boat in the sand to quench the flames. Nope. I couldn’t have her do that. I leaped at her and clutched her around her waist, tackling her to the ground. She cried out and fought back immediately, bringing down a rain of pummeling fists onto my neck and head. The pain was so intense I was sure she had split my skull open like a watermelon, but she didn’t stop there.

Though I held her fiercely she started to kick and buck, twisting under me till she could knee at my guts and pry me off her. But even drunk I was stronger than her. Though the others were now yelling at us both to stop, the fight was well underway, and I certainly wasn’t going to hold back just because she was a woman. Just when she thought she had me, I spun around hard and managed to bring the back of my hand across her face, slapping her brutally so she reeled back away from me, stunned.

“Anthony, stop!” Ellie cried.

But I wasn’t going to stop. In a flurry of hands trying to pull us off one another, I saw blurred out the edge of one eye another hand that went for my remaining vodka bottle. I got to my feet, Charlie still clinging to my legs and wrestling me down, but wasn’t quick enough to stop her from grabbing the bottle. I heard a smash as the bottle broke and smelt the sudden scent of alcohol in the air.

My eyes closed as I dug deep to find the last reserves of energy I had to push her off me completely. I lifted my hand to strike her again but this time, a blinding sharp pain exploded under my ribs. I looked down to see the jagged edge of the broken bottle piercing right into the flesh of my side. The pain reached its peak and then turned into nothing. A sheet of white sparkled behind my eyes as I felt myself slump and heard the others screaming hysterically.

I took a few zigzagging steps as my broken body crumpled to the sand. My midsection felt wet to my fingertips. Kneeling, my bright red fingers told me she had stabbed me. My head whirled violently but I could no longer feel the pain. I could no longer feel anything. I relaxed my neck muscles and let my head fall heavy into the powdered sand.

This is what Ellie wanted, wasn’t it? A big, brutish alpha male asshole who would get into vicious fights?

Laughing to myself, I slowly managed to lift myself up again. The alcohol had anesthetized me. My body was nothing but a numb, dead slab of meat. I stood and flung myself at Charlie’s now turned back, clinching both arms tightly around her neck and pulling back hard.

“Anthony, let go of her!” came the cries again.

“I don’t even hear your voice anymore, Ellie! You are dead to me! You hear that? You no longer even exist for me!” I screamed, and the air in my lungs seemed to give me an extra boost of energy to pull Charlie back down to the ground again. I yanked hard on her messy pigtails, trying to top her.

“Anthony …please…”

Charlie’s fist came ringing through the air and laded brutally onto my left cheek. I felt the vibration but not the pain. I laughed in her face.

“You’re all fucking dead to me” I spat and continued wrestling her for all I was worth.

“Anthony, it’s over!”

The fighting stopped for a brief second. I followed the gaze of the others to a spot on the ground. I couldn’t make out anything at first, but then I saw it: her engagement ring. She had ripped it off and flung it to the ground, and now she was standing with both fists balled at her sides, tears streaking her face, glaring at us both.

“We’re through, Anthony. It’s all over. It ends here,” she yelled.

I had never seen her so emotional. But again, I felt nothing. Nothing but sweet, empty numbness blanketing over me. For a moment, I stood and just stared at the ring, at her, at the group of people looking on in horror, waiting for my reaction. It was enough to give Charlie a window to stumble to her feet and knee me hard in the ribs again. I howled in pain as we tumbled back into one another again, fighting as viciously as only two people with nothing left to lose can fight.

“Enough!”

I tried to lift my head. It was Todd, and he had both his arms linked through Charlie’s elbows. He was pulling her roughly off me, as both Livvy and Carl descended and tried to help me stand. Charlie went off kicking and screaming as Todd pulled her away, sand flying as she thrashed in his arms. Eventually he pushed her aside and she staggered to her feet, nose red. Wiping the blood on the back of her arm, she gave me a sour look but stood down. Her face was covered in scratches and her hair stuck out in all directions from her ruffled braids. I didn’t even want to know what I looked like.

“That’s enough. No more. You two should be ashamed of yourselves,” Todd said.

Livvy was now at Ellie’s side, stroking her hair as she looked on in tearful shock. I only had enough strength to lay in the same heap I was left in, breathing with difficulty, the rip at my side hanging bright red and open like something from a horror movie. The fire roared on, but the boat had been dragged far enough from it that the flames had been smothered by sand and now it lay steaming and smoking, tipped on its side. By some miracle, it was still more or less intact, although seriously charred.

The hungry flames flicked madly as we all stood and waited for something to happen. Todd stood, arms hanging at his side like the jutting ape he was, and Livvy and Ellie were both sobbing into one another’s arms. Carl merely stood and watched with empty eyes, and Charlie was sliding her jaw from side to side, running tender fingers through her mouth to fish out any loose teeth. I was bleeding onto the sand, feeling how my hold on life was getting more tenuous by the second.

Todd cleared his voice and spoke up.

“He’s drunk. Even here…” Ellie muttered. “Even here.” Her voice was nothing but a stunned whisper.

I gave them all a sarcastic, bloody grin. Todd sprang to action and signaled to the others.

“Carl and Livvy, you need to help him, please. Try to keep the sand out of the wound and try use the vodka that’s left over to sterilize everything you touch. Charlie, you and I are going to fix this boat up and prepare some food. Ellie…” here he looked at her with a sad knot in his eyebrows. “Ellie you lay low for now, you don’t look so good.”

Asshole.

The white haze behind my eyelids was descending again. It was like a literal curtain falling down over my life, and I was now seeing the end of this strange, final act that I never guessed I’d have a starring role in.

I passed out to the sound of anxious voices talking quietly around me.

Chapter 18 - Todd

I didn’t like the guy. Not one bit. I thought he was an uptight piece of shit with a chip on his shoulder, and I didn’t trust him one bit. But he was important to Ellie. I couldn’t just stand by and watch Charlie lay into him like that. And as for swallowing as much alcohol as he did? I wouldn’t say I had respect for the fact that he was somehow still alive. But the poor guy at least deserved the chance to sleep it off.

I tried speaking to Charlie but she wouldn’t listen. She dragged a log off close to the water’s edge and sat it on it for the longest time, sulking. I shook my head at the blackened boat that had caused all the trouble. It was amazing, how close I had come to doing something so stupid because of what… a bashed up old wooden canoe? That canoe? I guess everyone was losing their minds out here, me included.

I thanked my lucky stars I hadn’t given in to Charlie’s harebrained scheme and in a strange way, glad that Anthony had finally bought this whole mess to a head. Him and Ellie were finished, that much was clear. But that didn’t really change the challenges we all faced now.

Nobody had the guts to say it, but Ellie’s foot was looking worse and worse every hour. We were one man down and Charlie was utterly despondent. That left me and the couple, and they were already completely distracted trying to tend to Anthony’s gash while he was still knocked out cold. So, I was left to fix the boat on my own.

I grasped the ends of the hull and with one strong movement I flipped it over, sending a hollow thwock sound echoing over the beach. It was quite remarkable; unlike anything I’d seen before. It wasn’t a commercially made vessel. In fact, as I looked closely, the bands that seemed at first to be strips of wood were only carvings into one single, solid chunk of wood. It was a dugout tree trunk.

I gazed around the horizon to the edge of the forest. There weren’t trees big enough there to make something like this, and there probably had never been. Whoever made this boat was long gone, that was for sure.

I examined the surface carefully. The fire had scorched the outer surface quite badly, but to my relief, the inside was still solid and untouched. I knocked my knuckles all up and down its gently curved hull, sending charred flakes flying off the surface.

No termite damage. No cracks. Damn it, it just might work.

I squatted down low and dragged it over to the water’s edge, and Carl soon noticed and came trotting along after me, running inside the wet line the dragging hull left on the shore behind me. Charlie paid us no mind. She just sat crouched in her spot, hugging her knees and head hidden.

“You think it’ll go?” Carl said, eyeing the dugout.

“We’ll soon find out.”

I splashed into the surf and the second the wood cut into water’s surface it felt lighter and more buoyant under my grasp. I dug my feet into the sand beneath and leant back to pull the canoe further out, and it slipped happily onto the water. Carl stood on the other side and looked down into the hull with interest – no leaks. The inside was rough and covered with soft moss, but at least it was dry. We shared a smile. Maybe I had been too hard on Carl. After all, him and his hippy wife were so far the only ones who had avoided nearly killing themselves in under a week out here …maybe they had had the right attitude all along.

“It won’t hold up in any storm,” he said, “but if the weather stays just like this, it could carry two people a ways.”

I noticed how he avoided saying which two people it might carry. I squinted and looked out to the horizon. At this point, the existence of anything other than this hellish island was beginning to feel like a matter of personal belief. But he was right. This may the last and only solution we would get.

“I’ll hold it steady, and you hop in,” he said, and anchored his hands wide on the worn brim. I nodded, jumped up and lifted myself inside, the edges wobbling and listing for a moment before I lowered my weight again and steadied myself. We exchanged more grins. The wood beneath me felt heavy and safe and solid.

For a moment, I pictured that it had escaped its life somewhere long ago and floated out here just like we had. Maybe it used to belong to ancient American Indians centuries ago or maybe it was even older, and the last people to inhabit this place were from a time far back in prehistory. A primitive, savage race with no language, and no civilization. I ran my hands over the fluffy, splintered fibers inside. A bit like the six of us, I thought darkly.

“Well?”

“It’ll hold,” I said, then hopped out. His face was filled with questions.

“How is Anthony?” I asked, trying to segue gently to the real issue before us.

“Not good. I’m no doctor, but I’d say he has alcohol poisoning. I don’t know what happens if you drink a half gallon of vodka instead of water, and then sleep outside for a night, but I’m amazed he’s still with us at all. And that cut? That’s not good.”

I nodded. I was embarrassed on Charlie’s behalf. My fears that she was only a few steps away from homicide were looking more and more founded.

“You and Livvy weren’t able to do anything with it?”

His face went serious.

“Livvy unwound the cotton from a button on her sundress. She pierced him a couple times with her earring and tried to stich him closed, but it’s a big wound, Todd.”

I was touched with how much responsibility he was taking for a man who had done nothing but make a nuisance of himself since we landed here. I tried to shake the image of Anthony’s grisly injury from my mind. Though I felt for the guy, going on a massive bender at a time like this showed some serious lack of foresight.

“The boat holds two. We should make a decision who goes,” I finally said. Carl nodded as though he’d been expecting the question.

“Well, you should go,” he said, and we both started to push the floating canoe back to land. The water lapped curiously around the hem of my trousers, cool and fresh. We reached the beach and pushed hard to wedge the boat into the sand and lock it there. I gave it a few firm kicks to loosen some of the ash still clinging to the outside.

“Who else?” I asked.

He wrung the water from his own trousers.

“Take the girl. Take Ellie.”

I was surprised. I had expected him to motivate why he should go, at the very least, or maybe his wife. We walked leisurely back to the pit together.

“Ellie needs medical attention. She’s in bad shape but if she gets help in the next couple of days, she’ll be OK. Charlie can bite my ass, that girl is crazy. Anthony isn’t well enough to travel. And to be honest I’m not sure anybody here would care to go with him.”

“But what about you and Livvy?”

He made a simple, straightforward smile at nothing in particular.

“Well, we’re strong. We’ll be all right. And you’ll come back for us, won’t you, Todd?”

I had a lump in my throat. I extended my hand to his and we shook.

“Carl, so help me, the very second we make it to safety I’m sending someone back to get you and Livvy.”

He nodded and we walked a little further up. This time Charlie raised her head and watched us approach. I didn’t feel like talking to her. Didn’t feel like hearing the next installment of her arch evil plan. But things were moving now and whatever happened, we still were all in this mess together.

“Charlie, we’ve come to a decision. Ellie and I are going to head off in the boat and bring back help for us all.”

Better to just rip the Band-Aid off. If her performance over the last hour was anything to go by, it was possible that she’d jump up right now and try to tear my head clean off my shoulders. But she didn’t. She kept sitting, staring off, looking sullen.

“You should go,” she said quietly, her voice croaking. Carl and I exchanged surprised glances. She shrugged and put her forehead back on her knees.

In all the time I had known Charlie, I had never seen her give up before. Never seen her admit defeat, not even when she was face down in a foot of mud, sleep deprived and leopard crawling through barbed wire with an eighty-pound backpack strapped to her. Not on any drills, not when we were all exhausted and many other good men had given up and quit. But Charlie looked like she had finally quit. I considered walking over to her and saying a kind word, but then I thought better of it. We all had our own burdens out here, and I couldn’t make her mine. Besides, we would come back. This nightmare now had a timeline. It would have an endpoint, too, and Ellie and I would be the ones to go and bring it closer to us all.

“Let’s go and find something to make some oars out of,” Carl said. I admired his calm demeanor, and quietly promised myself I’d emulate it.

“Just a second,” I said as we walked past our pit.

Ellie was sitting silently with Livvy, and they watched me approach without a word. By now it was hard to ignore the painful looking redness creeping all the way up her white thigh. She was starting to look thin and gaunt, too, and the sun was starting to bleach out the silk of her dress. It broke my heart.

“How’s he doing?” I said and gestured towards Anthony. They had placed him down on his side under a tree with his shoes under his head, and his knees pulled up high. I felt for the guy. Neither of them said anything, though, which I took to mean the worst.

“The plan is settled,” I said. “Ellie and I will go off to find help, we can leave first thing tomorrow morning.”

Carl joined me to walk off.

“Me?” Ellie said. “But I’m completely useless, why should I go? Take Livvy or Carl.”

“The sooner we can get you out of here the better. Your foot, Ellie,” I said, unable to tear my eyes away from it. I could visibly see her swallow. Maybe pride made her want to argue, to be selfish and suggest someone else go instead. But I could tell the pain and discomfort of limping around this island was wearing her down, and won out over any misgivings she had about coming onto the boat alone with me.

“You go, sweetie. We’ll be fine here. I’ll watch Anthony, and we have enough food for a while. It’ll be OK,” Livvy said, and locked soothing eyes with Ellie. Ellie nodded.

“Carl and I are going to find something to use as an oar for the boat. In the meantime, do you think you could make another one of those?” I said, and pointed to the frond roof covering our sleeping pit. She seemed to pep up.

“Yes, yes of course. I think I can make a better one, as a matter of fact.”

“Good. We’re going to need shelter from the sun out there, so try to think of a way to make a sunshade, some sort of protection, OK?”

“OK” she said quickly. She was still finding it difficult to let my eyes meet hers.

I smiled at Livvy and went over to join Carl.

“We’ll leave in the morning, before sunrise,” I yelled out behind me.

As Carl and I walked into the forest in silence, my mind raced. How much of an asshole was I being here? I had never wanted to step between a woman and her fiancé. Not in a million years. But that was before I met Ellie. I won’t lie, it seemed like they were well on their way to problems long before I entered the picture anyway …but isn’t that the kind of thing a real asshole would say, just to justify being a real asshole?

There was no question. My role now was to keep her safe, to make sure she got off this island and got the treatment she deserved. The rest of it …I didn’t know yet. I could get angry that Anthony had tried to sabotage us all, but the truth was I was just as guilty as anyone. I kissed her when I knew I shouldn’t have. I took advantage of her when she was scared and simply needed someone to step up and take charge.

As we walked deeper into the forest, my mind settled: we were close to getting out of this mess. The only thing for me to do now was focus on the task at hand and forget about her.

“You thinking what I’m thinking?” Carl said and held up a promising slab of tree trunk.

“Actually, no I wasn’t, but that’s a good piece. Let’s save it,” I said, and took it from him, putting it over my shoulder and gesturing for us to keep walking.

Chapter 19 - Charlie

It was the end of our third night. Had so much really happened in such a short time? Being on this island had simultaneously been the most boring and the most wildly eventful time of my life.

I was the first to wake, and lay still for a long time in our little pit, bundled with the others in our usual order: Livvy, Carl, Anthony, Ellie, Me and Todd …on the end. He had insisted.

My plan had failed spectacularly. Really, it had failed long ago; the first moment Todd had informed me that he wasn’t interested in anything more with me.

I don’t know when I became so obsessed. I don’t know why. When you see those crazy people in those serial killer documentaries, or you hear about creepy stalkers shaping their whole lives around someone else, it all seems so bizarre. How could they do such a thing? What unhooked in their mind and came loose to make them pursue such a life path, and how did they get so far down that path without stopping to think about what they were doing?

Well, now I knew. They did it slowly.

Todd had been my secret, shameful obsession for almost as long as I could remember. I could trace my preoccupation with him back into the past like an archaeologist looks at the stripes in rocks. It all rested on that original hook that grabbed me: those words he spoke to me that night. He had said he loved me. He had said it. It was like having a spell cast over me. Had anybody in my entire life ever said those sweet words to me? He claimed they were a mistake, but I swiftly discounted that. He was mistaken. That brief moment of surrender I saw in him all those years ago was the real thing, the real truth I had been trying to get him to admit to ever since. All his protests otherwise had fallen on deaf ears, I guess.

But something about this place …something about having everything of your life stripped away from you makes it so much harder to cling to flimsy illusions. When I saw it, it felt like someone had ripped away a blanket I had been holding onto forever. But once I saw it I couldn’t not see it. Ellie was a sweet woman. And Todd cared for her. And, as much as it pained me, he didn’t care for me. At all. I saw the way they looked at each other, and it was something I didn’t have the strength to ignore anymore.

Everyone woke up soon after me and we all stirred, getting up early to see Todd and Ellie off. Anthony remained in the pit. It was creepy how little he moved. But he was coming back into consciousness here and there, and at least seemed calm. I knew that a single bottle of vodka could easily kill a person, so I had to admit, for a guy as intoxicated as he was, he still put up a pretty good fight. I wanted to think of him as a crazy idiot, but I soon realized I was nobody to talk.

I straightened my clothes, re-braided my hair and quietly rekindled the fire. The night before, we had tried with some success to smoke some mussels for Todd and Ellie to take on board. After we discovered a few bags of mysterious peanuts in Anthony’s trouser pockets, we packed that in the boat as well. Ellie put the finishing touches on her makeshift parasol, and the second she woke up she started looking for a way to attach it to the canoe so it hung over to form an enclosure.

For the next hour, we all worked on our own little projects in silence. The mood was heavy but hopeful. We were all exhausted, hungry and sick of one another, but it felt like the only option we hadn’t tried yet was working together. They were our last chance at rescue. I didn’t even want to think about what life would be like here once they were gone. So instead I put my mind to sorting out the fire and tried to forget about everything else.

The sky went faintly yellow at the horizon. It would be sunrise soon. I didn’t know where we were, but they’d have to give their all with a full day on that canoe if they didn’t want to be floating in the middle of nowhere when night fell.

There was a strange tension in the air as the boat was pulled out into the water and everyone started to load it up with what little we had: peanuts, a vodka bottle filled with stream water and some leftovers from last night’s dinner. Livvy had wrapped the tough little mussels and some crab meat in a broad leaf and folded it up, tucking it into the foot of the boat. All that remained was to attach the canopy.

But Ellie was having trouble. She tried at first to just prop each leg against the inside edge of the boat to create an arc overhead, but it wasn’t stable, and kept sliding out. Carl stepped in to help, and we all battled with it for a while, trying to figure out a way to keep the surface both anchored but high enough that they could sit inside and be shaded. The sun peeked out menacingly, letting us know that the clock was ticking.

“We need some kind of rope or string,” Ellie said. “These leaf strips aren’t strong enough to attach over here. Don’t we have anything else?”

We had already used up Carl’s leather belt, had torn off six inches from Livvy’s sundress as well as poached a few threads from her buttons. There really was nothing else. I thought carefully for a moment.

“Wait, I’ll get my knife,” I said and ran off. When I came back, Carl and Ellie looked at me with curiosity. I grabbed one of my braids in my hand and positioned the knife high up on it, close to the scalp.

“Charlie! What are you doing?”

Before they could say any more, I brought the knife forward and it sliced through my hair with a zing. The braided cord came loose in my hands, and I handed it over to her, then hacked the other one off in the same way. They were both wide wide-eyed, holding the limp braids in their hands.

“Don’t look at me like that, it’s a rope, isn’t it? And human hair is strong.”

I grabbed it back from them and started to immediately show them how to knot the unstable edges of the palm frond roof, hoping they didn’t see the wetness growing in my eyes. They said nothing, but both jumped in to help and in a matter of minutes we had firmly bound the rickety canopy to create what looked like a floating ox wagon.

Ellie tried to catch my eye, and I could tell she wanted to say something, to thank me, maybe, but I couldn’t look at her. Not yet.

“You all ready to go?” I said, voice crackly.

Carl, Livvy and I waded outside in the water and held onto the smooth boat edges while Todd helped Ellie climb in. She had woken up with a foot that had turned from red to a disturbing purple color. I tried not to stare as she lowered herself in, her flimsy cocktail dress basically nothing but a memory at this point.

It was a solemn moment.

Todd settled up front with his improvised stump oar and Ellie took up her own, smaller oar, not much more than a flat enough slab of wood. They both looked so small and vulnerable in there. We waded out slowly, the refreshing blue water lapping up till our navels. Todd was able to dig down into the sand with his oar and push the boat along. With all we could muster, we three shoved hard and sent the boat floating smoothly off into the distance. Livvy put her hands to her mouth and cried a little, and blew them kisses. Carl put his arm around her and we all watched them bob and glide away.

They waved.

We all shared the same thoughts at that moment. Would they ever come back? What would happen when they did? What would we do without them, now? They had barely floated off fifty yards when my mind started to race off with ideas of what could happen when they returned. To my surprise, one thought popped up that never had before: I would quit the military.

We all three turned around and went back to the shore. I wanted to tell someone. Tell them that if I got out of here alive, I’d turn over a new leaf. That I saw now, clear as day, every mistake I had ever made, and now I was hungry to get back to the real world and do the work of putting everything right again. The military wasn’t for me anymore. I couldn’t say exactly why yet. But it was so. I thought about telling Livvy and Carl. About trying to explain some of this to them, to tell them that I was sorry, that I had been wrong, that I really had never meant to do any harm… but before I could speak Carl was already talking.

“Livvy, you want to go and check up on Anthony? I think Charlie and I had better get busy finding today’s food as soon as possible. Right, Charlie?”

I nodded quickly.

Of course. Food. Maybe Todd and Ellie would find land and send us help soon. Or maybe they’d be hit by another storm and we’d never see them again. In any case, it was all out of my hands now. The only thing I could do was look for food.

The thought was strangely soothing.

Chapter 20 - Ellie

It took a long time for the figures on the beach to grow smaller and smaller and then disappear. It was as though the ocean itself was rising up to swallow them and the island they stood on, till there was nothing left but blue all around us, everywhere you looked.

It was overwhelming. The utter flatness of it all was so striking it grabbed the eye and kept it there, even though there was nothing to focus on, and no landmark to indicate any distances. We ourselves were squashed flat into that landscape, flat along the horizon which was all consuming. The world was cut in two – pale blue on top and deep heavy blue on the bottom, and us in our little boat wedged in that endless vanishing point between them. It was hard to know how fast we were moving after a while. Or whether we were moving at all.

Once we had broken away from the frilled edge where the water met the beach, and cleared the waves, the ocean was surprisingly flat and smooth. Regular, low waves lapped against the canoe. I sat near the back, under the awning that was tied in place by Charlie’s hair, and Todd sat up front, his shirt off and draped over his head to shield him from the sun. He rowed like a machine. Literally, like a machine made of muscle and skin and whatever rolling energy underneath that allowed him to keep paddling so strongly and smoothly, one beat after another. I watched as the lattice of knotted muscles over his back tightened when he lifted the oar, squeezed on the opposite flank to lower it, and his entire trunk twisted strong and smooth to pull, bringing the whole boat forward on its watery track. Up came the oar again, and then again.

Out here, time seemed to flatten out as well, and the only indication that a few hours must have passed was the slow ascent of the sun. Though the rough fibers underneath me prickled right through my dress and grated at my skin, I found my own steady rhythm with my own lighter, smaller oar. Still, I was soon sweating and breathing deeply, watching his back closely and adjusting to his movements without a word – when we veered to the left I quickly double-paddled on the left side to correct us. Without turning around, he made his own efforts to keep our course straight as well. We were a machine together. A slow, fragile rowing machine powered by two slow, fragile bodies that had momentarily found a shared goal together and could move as one. And we were moving. Slowly, perhaps, but we were moving.

In, pull, lift, forward, in, pull, lift, forward, on and on went the simple cadence of wood on water, nearly meditative, till my mind found some art in it, and even though my arms were burning with exhaustion, I approached each new stroke with a fresh intent to master it.

It wasn’t that it was sexual. But it was something close to it. One man and one woman out on the wild ocean of life, sharing a boat and using nothing but their bodies to propel them to an uncertain future. I imagined myself telling this romantic anecdote to all the people we’d meet once we found land again. But that thought quickly evaporated and my attention was lost again on the muscular workings of his back.

Then he stopped. Lifting a dripping oar and crossing it over the top of the boat, he carefully swung himself around so he was facing me.

Had I forgotten how to talk? Or was I just in a new stage of my life altogether, where I had forgotten why anybody needed to talk in the first place?

“I think I’ll try rowing from the back for a while,” he said after some time. Skin sprinkled with a few days’ tan and the deep azure blue all around him, he looked like he belonged in a fancy commercial. We looked at one another for a moment. It was odd: though we both knew so little about the details of the other one’s life, it was as though the turmoil we had endured together acted like a kind of glue, creating a foregone intimacy that played out on a deeper, more primal level. What we had left in this world was so meagre, it felt unnecessary to have any boundaries between us. And so we looked at each other nakedly. No pretense. For now, no words either. It felt like our gaze was all that we needed or wanted to communicate. In this new paired down day, it felt easy to shed layers, to peel down attitudes until only the barest, most essential core remained. And I found that core in his eyes.

I wanted to share everything that was knocking around in my heart. I wanted to tell him that I was sorry for involving him in my messy, stupid life. That I didn’t want him to feel responsible. That he deserved better than to just be some ‘other man’ and that I hadn’t planned any of it. That I felt raw and exposed and defenseless, but that whatever it was worth, I felt good with him, and admired him, and wanted to let him know that it was all OK, even the parts that weren’t OK.

But I said nothing. We sat and silently exchanged looks. There was water, and boat, and body, and nothing else. Eventually, he cleared his throat started dragging his finger through the still water beneath.

“We should carry on again in a moment,” he said. “We need to cover as much distance as we possibly can. Are you hungry yet?”

And with that he opened up the verbal floodgates and we began speaking, and we spoke for hours afterwards, with as much rhythm as we had when we rowed together.

We nibbled on the frankly revolting little morsels Livvy had packed for us and chatted about …everything. About the training he was going to. About his mother and how he had helped her through not one but two separate bouts of cancer. About how him and his friend had this shrimp barbecue once, where he had seem the biggest shrimp of his life. We spoke about the color of the ocean, and how expensive the cruise had been, and wondered out loud if it really was a hurricane that had hit us, and if so, what name they had given it. Then the topic of Charlie came up.

“To be honest, I don’t really understand her. I don’t get what the relationship between you both is. I have to admit it all seemed strange, even from the first day. Is she an…?”

“An ex? Well, yes, in a way.”

I was surprised at how easy it was for him to talk now, when he had seemed so withdrawn on the island.

“The thing you have to understand about Charlie, is that she’s not nearly as tough as she looks. Really. Charlie is …a complicated person. And even though things looked pretty bad back there, she is in the end my friend, and I respect a lot of things about her. Not everything, but a lot.”

I laughed.

“That’s a long-winded way to answer a simple question.”

“Yeah I know. Put it this way: Charlie and I …not dated exactly, but we were together very briefly. It was a mistake on my part, but she never could let it go.”

“You mean you guys just slept together?” I said. A guy as hot as Todd would obviously have loads of casual relationship, so I didn’t know why I felt so disappointed just then.

“Well, actually, just the one time. There was a lot of alcohol. We were young and stupid, I don’t know. I guess I had a lot to prove back then.”

“Wait, a lot to prove? What do you mean?”

He took his time answering me now. We were back to rowing again, our voices at the right pitch to carry over the slapping of the oars into the water. But I swear I could see him thinking in the muscles of his back. It was easier to talk, when we weren’t face to face, but I could tell we were now on a sensitive topic.

“Well, before her, I was inexperienced,” he said carefully.

“You were sexually inexperienced?”

“Well, yeah.”

“You mean …you were a virgin?”

His muscles rolled and pulled.

“Uh, yeah. Exactly. I’m usually not one to be pressured into anything, you know? But she really wanted to, and I guess I thought it was time and…”

“So she got really attached, but you both broke up?”

“Well, there wasn’t a whole lot to break up. I was honest with her. But she was convinced, I don’t know, that this meant we were soul mates or something.”

We rowed on a few paces further.

“And all your girlfriends afterwards didn’t mind that she was always there?”

He laughed out loud.

“All my girlfriends?”

“Well …however many there were.”

“Well, there were exactly none.”

“Bullshit. You must have had girlfriends.”

“Nope.”

Silence.

“Well …why not? Clearly there must have been plenty of opportunity along the way, right?” Was he an unrepentant player after all? Some kind of immature commitment-phobe? Gay?

“Well, it’s hard to explain…” he said.

Here, without thinking, I reached out to gently graze the skin on his back with my fingertips to catch his attention. He spun around quickly.

“Let’s stop here, I’m getting hungry again,” I said.

While he balanced the oars, I pulled out some more shriveled brown mussels and laid them out on our makeshift leaf plate. They were surprisingly tasty.

“Well, try to explain. I’m listening,” I said and gave him an encouraging smile.

I watched as he rolled his neck and shoulders to crick out the tension, and opened and closed his broad hands which by now must have been getting tired and sore.

“It’s like this. I realized that sex was a much bigger deal than I had thought at the time. I didn’t appreciate how …attached I could get. You know, I’ve always been this tough guy, right? Always the one that keeps his head in emergencies, that fixes shit when it breaks. I always played the rough sports, and did hunting and shooting and all the rest. So I guess you could say I was the most surprised of anyone when I realized I was actually a big softie. Long story short, after Charlie and I ...did our thing, I realized what a mistake I’d made. That I really should have waited for someone who it would be special with, you know? I realize that sounds pretty lame.”

I chewed thoughtfully on the last remaining morsel and folded away our leaf.

“No. It doesn’t sound lame at all.”

“You have to understand, the culture in the military is very …well, they don’t exactly encourage you to get in touch with your emotions,” he laughed. “I guess I expected sex to be just another thing to master. Just something to tick off the list of achievements, to get it done and say you did it.”

“And then …it wasn’t like that?”

“No, not even close. It was …important. I don’t know if I’m making sense, you know I’ve never told anyone about this so it’s hard to put into words. But after Charlie I told myself that the next time it happened, I would make sure I did it properly.”

I caught his eye.

“Wait, you’re saying you haven’t been with anyone since her?”

He colored a deep red.

“I’m sorry, that came out wrong, I’m just …surprised,” I said quickly.

“Yeah, well, that’s the problem. I just look like a big stupid meathead, but I’m not really,” he laughed awkwardly.

I shook my head.

“I would never have guessed, honestly. But thank you anyway for sharing that with me.”

Again our eyes met. In some ways, talking like this felt more intimate than the secret kisses we’d stolen in the days before. I almost felt embarrassed now even thinking about kissing him again, after so personal a revelation.

“What about you? So long as we’re floating out here in the middle of nowhere, sharing secrets, what are yours?” he asked.

It was going to happen. We were going to slowly ratchet up this conversation until one of us chickened out. I loved talking to him like this. Loved how this plain, blue, empty day felt like it might roll on forever.

“Well, honestly? It might shock you,” I said and raised a teasing eyebrow at him.

“Shock me? Uh oh, now I’m really curious.”

“You sure you want to know?”

He widened his eyes and smiled.

“Yeah, go on, tell me.”

“Well, I think we should,” I said.

“Should what?”

Here I caught his eye again. He understood. He looked away again, and I made out the bob in his throat as he swallowed.

“I think we should too,” he said. It was as though his words were lightning that struck me hard, and now every fiber in my being was singed with electricity.

“But I do wonder if it’s a good idea,” he said quietly, and looked away.

“You mean …you’re worried about Anthony,” I said, the disappointment hitting me hard.

“No …well, yes, obviously Anthony is an issue, but it’s more than that. Like I told you, I don’t take this kind of thing lightly. Sex matters to me, you know? I don’t want to feel like I felt that time before, not ever again.”

His outburst was so filled with passion I almost felt a pang of guilt for being so forward.

“Look, Todd, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to--”

“I want to,” he interrupted, “but I just said we have to be sure.”

It would have been prudent to start rowing again soon, but I suddenly couldn’t focus on that at all.

“I get it. Really, I do. My relationship with Anthony was over a long time ago, it just took a big stupid shipwreck for us to really see it. But it was a little like what you’re saying – realizing too late that something isn’t what you want, and now that you have a taste of it, you suddenly feel like you rushed into it, that it was a bigger deal than you anticipated. And as for this, as for us, well… no pressure. I want you to trust me.”

“No pressure,” he repeated, although I couldn’t tell if it was a question or a statement.

“No pressure.” I said.

This, of course, made everything seem one thousand times more urgent.

“Will you kiss me?” I said. He shot a hard look at me. “No pressure of course,” I added, a playful smile on my lips.

I felt the boat rock slowly beneath us as he shifted his weight to me and touched tentative lips to mine, his ropey biceps glinting tanned and hard in the late morning sunshine.

We shared a kiss that was at first sweet, and quivering with nervousness, but soon melted into something deeper and more fervent. Even the slightest flick of his tongue sent massive shockwaves all through me, and in a hot moment my entire body was raw with wanting, a pulsing ache growing at my clit.

He pulled back to gaze at me, and we exchanged more of that delicious, easy openness with one another, that same direct and unguarded seeing that felt so natural out here, alone, without anybody to tell us what was right or wrong. I extended a trembling hand to rest on his crossed leg, and for a while we both were lost in how electric it felt for me to simply stroke him up and down, my hand cool against his warm skin.

I reached down to grab the hem of my ragged dress and, with some effort, pulled it up over my head and placed it carefully to the side. My bra and panties still had some sand embedded in the lace and smelt of saltwater, but that didn’t seem to matter much now. Though I had starved for three days, I still had that loose, feminine swell beneath my navel. My leg looked like a train smash. And my body was so pale and soft compared to his, so yielding and loose.

But so what? His eyes were glued to my body, and as I settled my weight again and let him look at me, I finally felt for the first time what people mean when they talk about loving their bodies. I still had stretchmarks. I was still a little plump and round. But out here, in this barren ocean wasteland, I felt like Venus herself, a goddess, even more beautiful than hundreds of cubic square feet of this featureless ocean.

“You’re lovely. Will you take those off, too?” he said quietly. “No pressure.”

His smile was so mischievous I couldn’t help but grin myself and blush deeply. My hands went to my back to unhook my bra and my breasts fell loose and full from the cups as I took the bra off and set it aside with the dress. I was about to suggest it was his turn but he was already working the button of his trousers and, with a little wobble of the boat, he stood, balancing artfully, and took his pants off. He was now completely nude.

“No underwear?” I said giggling.

“I am a military man, you know. Haven’t you heard of going commando?”

I tried hard not to stare at his crotch but eventually gave up. He didn’t seem to mind as I ogled him. He was well hung, and his cock was already half hard, bobbing in his lap as he adjusted his hips to sit cross legged in front of me again.

And why shouldn’t I look? Was I some prudish schoolgirl who’d never seen one before? Wasn’t it one of the most beautiful parts of him in any case? The perfect, most obvious proof of his manhood, something natural and wholesome and real?

It was my turn to stand and wobble, peel off my panties and wobble back down again. Our knees touched but nothing else. The fresh air slipping all over my naked body and between my legs felt so supremely liberating I couldn’t stop myself from smiling.

“Your body is amazing,” he said.

“So is yours.”

I extended my hands out to touch him, and his abdomen pulled sharply inwards. I caressed slowly and deliberately, introducing my hands to every inch of his taut, toned stomach and grazing down over the tops of his thighs. His cock rested to one side, thickening visibly as I touched, till it stood up stiff and dark between us. I leaned forward till our foreheads touched, and he looked down with tenderness as I continued to stroke him. I dragged my fingertips closer to the coiled black hair at the root, but his hand jumped to stop mine. He swallowed hard, looking conflicted.

I pulled my hand away again. I understood. I wasn’t going to push him.

I don’t know why, but something possessed me to lean back, as far back as I could till I was completely shaded under the frond roof, and then, with my heart pounding madly in my chest, I began to part my legs. I spread them wide, leaned onto the small of my back and then lifted each foot till it hooked on the outside edge of the boat, my toes just dipping into the cool water. I could only imagine the view this gave him. One hand went to gently cup one breast and the other snaked down to that aching spot between my legs. Here, I split myself wide too. I wasn’t surprised to find myself completely soaking. I dragged an exploratory middle finger down through that wet cleft and pressed to release the gorgeous tension pooling there. I was almost too scared to open my eyes and see what he made of all this.

He was still sitting, very upright, his cock pointing straight up, and the look on his face was a touching blend of awe and intense focus. His hand went to touch my ankle and as I stroked, he glued his gaze to my pussy, staring hard as I caressed that juicy spot till I shuddered. His hand never moved further up than my ankle. It rested just there, on that small bone, seemingly there just to make the connection. Without exchanging a word, he leaned back too, placed his other hand on his meaty cock, and began to stroke himself, matching my own indulgent pace.

The sun beat down on us and the waves whispered secretly all around, but they were just backdrop for the slow, syrupy swell of things inside the boat. It drove me wild to see his strong fist glide teasingly over the fat length of his cock. I watched in awe at the tender movements, the subtle flick of his wrist near the tip, loving that not only was he touching himself in exactly the way he needed, but that I got to witness it all.

My own hand gradually picked up pace, and I slipped lower and lower down, circling the pad of my finger round that shuddering, swollen opening. I had already imagined a thousand sordid scenes in my mind, all of them with that thick, full rod of his stuffed deep into me, stretching me apart. I only had to touch myself delicately to set all of those thousand scenes off, popping like a string of fireworks that, once ignited, exploded on their own, right through me. I couldn’t help it when my eyes fluttered closed. My nipples hardened against my teasing fingertips, linking with the swirling pleasure in my core and spreading that hot bliss all through my body. I heard my own breath pick up pace.

“Fuck, you’re sexy,” he groaned.

Our eyes easily locked again. This time our gaze was raw and intense, his eyes alone penetrating me enough that I felt that the tightly circling finger at my cunt may as well have been him. His hand remained gently on my ankle, and the other was pulling long, smooth strokes, his veined dick pulsing inside his fist.

Watching this beautiful man pleasuring himself was the hottest thing I’d ever seen. He was simultaneously too rough and yet gentle, stroking expertly, an ordinarily private moment unfolding before my eyes.

I had never done this before with anyone. Never shown this part of myself to anyone. But with him it felt easy. And the more I saw that I was turning him on, the more turned on I got, till we were essentially fucking without touching one another.

His jaw tightened and his eyebrows twitched as I saw him get closer. My eyes feasted on every part of him. His tightly crunched ab muscles. His broad, sun-covered shoulders. His cropped hair. I loved the way the head of his cock bounced and bulged in his hands, and how his balls seemed to pull in closer to him the more riled up he got.

I wanted to reach out and touch him. But then again, this game we were playing was its own strange kind of delicious, wasn’t it?

Instead of touching him, I touched myself, touched where I knew he was looking, stroked myself in those deep places I knew he wanted to fuck. And he teased me in return, his engorged pole on full display, my hunger for it enough to push me to the edge of my own orgasm. My fingers were slick now and my hips were twitching of their own accord.

“Tell me how that feels,” he said, all of a sudden. There was the sweetest, most erotic desperation on his voice. I loved that this was all new for him.

“It feels …it feels like if I make one sudden move, I’m going to explode,” I said, voice breathy.

He groaned.

“Keep talking,” he said and stroked, his mouth slackening as he watched my fingers work.

“It feels like an ache, like it almost hurts. Like nothing in the world could get it to stop hurting but to be filled up, to be fucked really hard…”

He licked his lips.

“I really want to see you come, Ellie,” he said, in that same voice that seemed only a notch or two away from a whimper.

“I really want to see you come.”

I could hear his breath snag and catch as he stroked himself harder, his eyes fixed to mine the whole time. I returned his gaze, two soaking fingers now slipping inside as I inched closer.

“Are you ready?” he whispered.

I nodded my head slowly.

I released, pressed my fingers deeper in and held on as the first wave of pleasure hit. I desperately tried to keep my eyes pinned to his as my grateful body tumbled into a long, hard, juicy orgasm that had my whole body jerking. He stared back, his whole expression twisted and washed over with pleasure as his strong body bucked and he came with me.

I looked to see one creamy glob burst from him after another, his chest heaving as he milked the tip to coax out every last drop of his cum. I couldn’t suppress my own moans and felt my body tighten and twitch round my fingers, a full, sweet ecstasy beating all through me. I looked over at the edge of the boat. His other hand was still there, resting gently on my ankle bone.

My head flopped back and I relaxed, my naked body now limp under the mottled shade of the fronds. It took me a moment to remember how to breathe. I stayed as I was, still relishing how naughty it felt to expose myself like this to him. I wanted him to see me twitch. To see my open, exhausted body. To see just how much he had turned me on.

“Ellie.”

I closed my eyes to the yellow sun and listened to my heart beating in my ears.

“Ellie, get up,” he said, this time more panicked. I peeked at him.

“What’s wrong?”

He was hastily pulling his trousers back on, dangerously rocking the boat.

“Put your clothes on. Now!”

I snapped to attention and did as he said, and just as I had slinked my bra straps on and begun to latch it closed, I saw him staring off into the distance behind me. I angled my head out of the shelter and slowly looked behind me.

It was a yacht.

And it was heading right for us.

Chapter 21 - Todd

You’d swear we both hadn’t seen other human life for centuries by the way she gawped at the yacht. But it didn’t take me long to spring into action.

I stood up and started waving the oar high above my head, making the canoe tilt wildly from side to side. Ellie followed suit and upped me one by screaming out at the top of her lungs. To our utter astonishment, a series of three, echoing blasts came from the yacht’s horn.

They had seen us.

Thank god!

We turned to each other, amazed, and fell into a big hug. Then we both started sobbing. Easy, unstoppable tears streamed down my face as I kept looking at the yacht again and again to make sure I wasn’t hallucinating.

Could it really be? Were we saved?

I didn’t care if she saw me crying, dammit, this was the happiest I ever felt to see another human being. Once it was a little closer it honked its horn a second time and by now we could both make out three figures standing at the rails, waving intermittently at us. Ellie and I must have waved so hard back we nearly snapped our arms off.

It took a good ten minutes more for the yacht to get closer, and we could make out more details – it looked like a small luxury vessel, with two decks and a gleaming white finish on a nose so sharp it was like an iron gliding and slicing through the blue. When they were within fifty yards or so, I turned to Ellie again, who was pale as a ghost, and held her arm tightly.

“Come on, let’s go,” I said, and gestured towards the water. She looked down sadly at our meagre possessions in the boat. Her handmade sunshade bound together with Charlie’s strange, final apology. Our vodka bottle filled with water and a handful of the crumpled leaves that held our paltry lunch. I understood her hesitation. We had only recently clung to these flimsy belongings like they were the most important things in our small world, the tiny difference between survival and dying out here like dogs. And now we were leaving them all behind.

I helped her climb over the edge without tipping us over and I followed, the sea water swallowing me up easily and coming to my neck. She was having difficulty with her foot again, but I clasped her hand and we swam out together towards the yacht, where the three stood, lowered their aluminum ladder and watched us approach.

The engines on the yacht had gone quiet and now the whole boat bobbed gently and waited for us like an angel of mercy. I briefly turned to look back at our own ancient boat, now suspended aimless in the crystal water, freed to pursue some other adventure without us. I cannot describe the emotions I felt as I turned away from it and placed my hands on those slick ladder rails.

Though I was shaking violently, I managed to turn halfway up and help Ellie step on after me, her foot dragging behind her. I looked up to see the cautious faces of three middle aged men, all wearing golf shirts and swimming trunks, all peering down at us and wondering what the hell they were looking at.

Wet and exhausted, we stood there on the deck before them, dripping and exhausted. It was an awkward few moments. Ellie hid slightly behind me, not yet sure whether we were completely welcome here.

“My name is Todd McGregor, and this is Ellie King. We were both aboard the Odyssey Pacifica, which went down three days ago. We were stranded on an island and escaped in a small canoe. There are four other survivors we’ve left on the island, one in critical condition. Please, can you help us?”

The three men exchanged gob smacked expressions, before one jumped to attention and extended his hand for a handshake, not quite knowing what else to do. It was a surreal moment. Before he could speak, though, I felt Ellie grab at my shirt and spun around to see her collapse to the deck with a heavy thud. We all raced to her and immediately the three noticed her swollen foot.

“She needs medical attention,” I said, although it didn’t really need saying.

“Ok, I’m going to alert the coastguard. Don’t worry, you’re OK now. To be honest, we didn’t think there were any more survivors,” one of them said.

I knelt down to stroke Ellie’s brow but another one of the men was already hoisting her up and carrying her into the cabin.

“We have a first aid kit somewhere, please, come inside,” he said and whisked her off. I followed dumbly, not quite believing that any of this was really happening.

I heard the firm, insistent voice of the other guy on the radio with the coast guard. I followed into a beautifully furnished room below deck complete with tiny chandelier, gleaming wooden floors and an immense blue and white bed, which the man promptly lay Ellie down on. She was already coming to.

A glass of water was thrust into my hands before he set to work mixing up a bright pink electrolyte mixture. Without a word, he fed this to us both, although I was happy to let Ellie get the lion’s share. With glazed eyes she gulped it down, then lowered her woozy head back onto the pristine white pillows. She looked so wild and natural in this glossy room, like some ancient creature from another era.

I collapsed into a chair and watched the man fuss over Ellie, trying to update my brain to the reality in front of me. We’d need to get to shore and get Ellie to hospital as soon as possible, and then we needed to send for the others.

The strange, sexual window we had opened together just a few moments before had snapped completely closed and now seemed like only a passing dream. He made Ellie swallow some pills, and then felt all over her forehead before looking at her foot with a grave expression on his face.

Then he looked at me.

“You were out there for three days?” he said. I nodded. He shook his head and looked back at the wound.

“You’ll be wanting something to eat I bet,” he said, mostly to himself. “Look, why don’t you and your wife get cleaned up – the bathroom’s just through there – and I’ll fix something for you both to eat, OK? Just holler if you need more soap or anything else. We’ll take you both back to the harbor right now and we’ll get missy here to the doctors. It’ll take us a half hours, tops.”

He looked more awkward than I felt, but I was hoping my utter gratitude was a given in this situation, and that he’d spare me any further small talk.

He looked over at Ellie, nodded at us both and closed the door on us. Ellie relaxed her head over to look at me, her eyes bleary.

“I’m sorry, I don’t know why I keep fainting like that,” she said.

I immediately went over to her and laid at her side, stroking her arm to let her know that she didn’t need to apologize, didn’t need to say anything at all. I was still reeling from what we had just done together on the boat, and now all those new sensations were congealing and taking shape in my mind. My ‘wife’. It was a weird mistake for the guy to make, but it was only one of a million strange things that had happened today. I didn’t correct him. Maybe I liked that we looked like we belonged together.

She dozed in and out of sleep. I could smell the strawberry flavored electrolyte mix on her breath. I got up, went into the bathroom and resolved to run her a bath, even though at this point I was feeling pretty bushed myself. The tub was small but luxuriously fitted. I filled it quickly with piping hot water and stared dumbly at the rising level, wondering if I too was in shock.

On the spur of the moment, I grabbed a bottle of foam bath and squeezed some under the running water. It felt ridiculous, to have a full-on bubble bath after everything we’d been through. It wasn’t that such an extravagance was necessarily wanted. But if we were going to ease back into reality now, a bubble bath would be an innocent enough introduction.

I went back to the bed, gently lifted her up and smiled down at her weak but contented face. I carried her to the bathroom, gently peeled of her clothes – that poor party dress that had been ocean dunked so many times by now – and her underwear.

She held my neck as I lowered her down into the soapy water. It felt like heaven to touch her, after what had happened on that little wooden boat. She was certainly not a tiny woman, but her figure was mesmerizing. Her generous, soft breasts fell simply against my chest. I found it strangely touching how her porcelain skin was burnt slightly red around those places her dress hadn’t covered her. And I couldn’t tear my eyes away from that enticing little triangle nested between her legs.

She was awake, but drowsy, looking up at me with bleary eyes and something that might have been a smile on her face, might have been a grimace. I suddenly felt a wash of guilt at not having protected her more from all of this. Could I have found us more food? Would she have felt stronger now, and would her foot be healing better, if I had been smarter and found a better way to survive on that island?

I released her weight into the bathtub, then proceeded to undress myself and climb in beside her. She didn’t seem totally conscious, and her eyes were closed, but her head followed my every sound and I could tell she was trying hard to stay with me.

“Just relax, Ellie. You’re very hungry, that’s why you feel so tired. Once we clean up here, we’ll have something to eat and then we can rest until we get back to shore, OK?”

She nodded.

I climbed in and positioned myself around her, her back resting against my chest and my legs framing her body on either side. It was the same position we had taken when I helped her swim back from the mussel rock and she …touched me.

I took a loofah in my hands and began gently squeezing water all over her body. I took my time. Her eyes flickered open and she watched me with interest. I softly soaped up every inch of her beautiful, exhausted body and she yielded entirely to me. I realized after a while that I felt proud. She had been in crisis mode for the last three days, and had been bravely holding on. Now, with the end in sight, she could finally relax and let go. And she trusted me enough to do it in my arms.

I had to get out of the tub to wash her long hair. I supported the back of her head as she lay back and submerged herself till the water lapped at her temples. Her hair fanned out like a mermaid’s under the water, almost the same color as the soap bubbles. I gently ran my fingers through it, imagining that I was loosening out every last particle of sand, every last thread of stress from the ordeal we had escaped together. When I had finished with her hair, I ran some soap suds over her belly and gently slipped my hands between her thighs, soaping the soft, coiled fuzz there. My heart beat madly in my throat as I guided a tentative finger down the middle slit, opening gently to allow in the warm, soapy water. Her knees fell gently open and she let me.

I washed over her raw, angry looking wound and spent my time cleaning the sand off her other foot, too. Once I had cleaned every part of her, her eyes looked brighter and she even refused my hand as I offered to lift her out of the tub. Slowly she stood and climbed out, the water streaming off the many peaks and valleys of her full, womanly figure. I quickly hopped in after her to wash up myself and let the water out. She stood and watched me attentively as she toweled herself off.

A tiny island of sand gathered at the plug as the water drained away. We toweled one another off together, in silence, the simple tasks of bathing as welcome and monumental as any solemn ritual ever was. I was feeling more and more refreshed by the minute, and if the mottled pink color growing on her cheeks was anything to go by, she was feeling the same.

When we made our way back into the bedroom, we instantly discovered a little tray on the bedside table, and it was laid out with a few sandwiches, some fruit and what looked like glasses of lemonade. Without skipping a beat, she rushed over to it, flung herself down on the bed and in a second she had already gobbled down half a sandwich.

“Oh my god, Todd, this is the best thing I’ve eaten in my entire life,” she said with a full mouth, and I could do nothing but laugh. It was a joke. But in a way, it was painfully true. Still chewing, she got to work on the second half of her sandwich, and held up the tray to offer me the other sandwich.

I shook my head.

“Why don’t you eat both? We’ll be back on shore soon,” I said.

It was food enough for me just to watch her guzzling away, not even a half second of thought given to manners. I loved it. I had seen her sad and angry and horny and now, I had seen her ravenous, as well. I liked all her variations. And I liked just how much she and I had shared together these last three days – like we were both on a weird intimacy crash course.

I swallowed back the glass of lemonade and paused for a moment to feel the sugary ice cold reaching all the way down into my chest. While she got to work on the other sandwich, I sat beside her on the bed and ate an apple, then moved the tray to the door, checking to see that it was locked. It was. We found some simple clothing in the cupboard and dressed, her in a too-big sundress and me in a pair of old-man shorts and a t-shirt that had a picture of a cartoon manatee on it and ‘FLORIDA’ printed above it in a watery font. We took a moment to laugh at one another.

Then we both lay back on the bed, staring up at the molded ceiling, remembering how good it felt to eat and drink again. Our eyes were adjusting to the modern human landscape again: it was all plastic, metal, and fiberglass and no longer sand, water and tree.

“You know, when I bought tickets for the cruise, I told myself that it was a test. That depending on what happened during those two weeks, I would make my next important life decisions, you know?” she said thoughtfully.

I thought about reaching out to grab her hand, but held back.

“Looks like I got more than I bargained for, didn’t I?” she said and laughed quietly.

I didn’t want to think too much of what would happen next, back at shore. Whether she’d disappear from my life forever. I knew that the second we hit the harbor, there’d be a flurry of activity – there would be authorities, doctors, lots of talking, explaining, stress. For now, she was all mine, though.

I reached my hand over and took hers. We held one another there like that. I could still feel the sea waves underneath us. The same ocean that had wrecked everything was now pacified and carrying us safely to where we belonged.

She turned around and pressed her back to me. She was still warm and smelt like soap. I turned to curl my body around hers, and as I did so, I realized just how tired I also was. Without thinking, my hands started to tenderly, gently trace her curves, down and then slowly up her hips, her waist, her arms and at that faint swell where her breasts began. She pressed back into me.

I was hard again.

Wordlessly, her own hands glided over her body and soon she had shimmied up the end of her dress and pulled it high to her waist, exposing her bare, warm ass to me. I pulled my own shorts off again and pressed my naked, excited body against hers. We moved quietly, like ghosts, like two survivors who are dazed to find that they still have life in them, still have appetites.

It was easy to find that delicious sensation again, the one we had stirred up together on the canoe just a while ago. This time, though, I was as close to her as I could get, my face buried in her sweet, damp hair and the full length of my body pressing firm up against the full length of hers. Together, we found a slow, gentle rhythm grinding against one another, me rubbing into the silky skin of her amazing ass, and she writhing carefully back against me.

I don’t know how it happened. It was certainly not something I planned. I had spent all my life stressing about sex, stressing about expectations and obligations and crumpled under the weight of my own stupid neuroses – but all at once it felt like the most natural thing in the world to slip my cock between her full thighs and leave it there. She closed around over me, stroking me till I grew even more stiff. I nearly lost my mind when I realized that her beautiful, sweet pussy was the source of that warm wetness I now felt slick over the length of me. The head of my cock twitched, almost painfully. I just had to be inside her.

It was no momentous occasion. No great barrier was crossed, no new realm penetrated or vast new world unlocked. In fact, slipping inside her felt like the exact opposite: like coming home. Like being separate from her was the mistake, and coming together again was the relief. It was the perfect, satisfying sigh of one puzzle piece folding frictionless into another. My fears and anxieties disappeared instantly. I knew why I had never done this with anyone before. I had been waiting for her. Waiting for this feeling.

Even our breath went silent as I tilted my hips and brought the entire heft of my cock into her, pressing up and in till I could go no further, and the edge of my body met the edge of hers. I was struck how fucking hot she was inside. She was like a magic castle, with secret rooms that unlocked and opened to me the deeper in I pressed. I wanted to reach all the way inside her, to love her with every inch I had, to leave nothing of her unopened. We lay together, my balls pressing faintly against her now sopping clit, and breathed.

My arms easily found a place for themselves around her body. She folded effortlessly into my grasp, and every other part of us found its twin on the other: my chin nested in the crook of her neck, my knees tucked into the back of hers, my arm discovered a home tucked under the smooth cleft where her large breasts met her waist.

I closed my eyes and relaxed into her, feeling myself almost swell to fill her gorgeous cunt. When I pulled out slightly it was only to press back into her again, and repeat that sweet, sweet gliding feeling of finding my way back inside her each time. She was wet and impossibly silky, her hips tilting back to accept me in again.

And again. And again.

I placed my hands on her hips, not to guide the rhythm there – she was already fucking me well all on her own – but to all the more appreciate how beautiful it felt to have her moving against me like that, wanting me, taking me all the way in and then out again.

I pulled back and peered down a little, a dirty thrill shooting through me to see the wide bulk of my cock cramming into her little hole. I marveled at how her body accepted it all, how that split peach of her pussy clung to me and stretched around every thrust I gave her. Other than her slow, secret hips moving against my crotch, she was still and silent, and I had to rely on the signals of her body to know that she was enjoying it. Enjoying me.

This was it. It was happening, and it was nothing at all like what I had imagined. Every night on the island I had furiously jerked off with the most outrageous of fantasies in mind, Ellie always center stage. But now it was actually happening, and it was so, so much hotter than even my horny, desperate self had imagined.

Having already come so recently, it was only a few minutes before I felt ready again, as though being rescued and dragged out of the Atlantic Ocean was a mere interlude in our fucking and the previous three days had just been an extra long foreplay session. When I felt the peak of my orgasm cresting over me, I didn’t resist it, and it washed over me easily and fully. I pressed up into her as hard as I could, softly growling despite my best efforts to remain quiet, and squeezed her ass cheeks hard, trying to get give her every drop of cum right into the deep, delicious core of her body.

She came soon after, too, slow and syrup-like, and her exhale had the faintest sound of a whimper along its edges as she twitched hard and shuddered all through her hips.

It was dream sex. Floaty, soft sex. The kind of sex you can only have when you’re teetering on the edge of death and life, caught between two places, between stranger and lover, between hopeless and hopeful, between land and sea. Coming inside her felt like a giant wave crashing onto the shore and melting into millions of fluffy, foamy bubbles that stroked over the sand on their way back out again.

I softened inside her and nuzzled deeper into her neck. I held her. In a moment, she wriggled off me, pulled down the hem of her dress and rearranged my arms around her again. I was happy to be her blanket. We dozed for only a few minutes or so before we heard a polite knock on the cabin door and the voice of one of the men.

“How are you two doing?” he cried. “We’re just about getting ready to pull into harbor. You all set?”

He knew we had been fucking. I knew he knew. But I didn’t care. We had been starved out there, and we were going to greedily sate all our separate hungers now: for food, water, fucking.

We would need our strength for whatever was waiting for us back on shore. I had seen Ellie at her most frightened, he most desperate. I had seen her more naked than I thought it possible to see another human being. I had seen her dirty, in torn clothes and desperately gnawing at half empty mussel shells for nourishment. I had seen her limp and cry and swim and even fight.

But the prospect of what we would do now, in the real world again, was more than a little daunting.

Chapter 22 - Ellie

Two days later

“The doctor said to just take it very, very easy. Don’t mention it every second OK? Just leave it be. She’ll let us know when she’s ready to talk about it. I know how you can be.”

“Don’t be ridiculous, what do you mean how I can be? She’s not an idiot, she’s going to notice one way or another, don’t you think?”

“You see, that’s what I mean, don’t be so callous.”

“Fine, I already said I won’t, can you drop it? She needs us right now, let’s just try and keep our cool, OK?”

“Fine.”

The voices were familiar to me but it took me a long while to place them: my mother and sister, in one of their usual bickering sessions.

I peeled my eyes open and all at once a million facts burst into my mind, which up until that moment had been blank: I was in the hospital, they had given me something and told me how they would need to operate. My mother and sister had been there, drifting in and out of my awareness so that I wasn’t quite sure if they were really there or only my feverish memories.

I was back on shore. I was in a crisp hospital bed, the sheets dry and stiff against my skin. I was alive. I was also in immense pain. But I was now waking up, and quickly. I sat up in bed with such force it made my head spin. I saw them both turn to gawk at me.

“Ellie! Good lord, child, you’ll yank your drip out!”

My mother came rushing over to me and helped me sit upright. I swallowed down hard to rid myself of a weird ball of nausea at the back of my throat. Suddenly, I remembered my mission.

“The others,” I slurred. “Charlie and Carl and Livvy and …I have to...”

They both exchanged worried glances as I struggled to get my tongue to work properly.

“Yes, honey, they sent a rescue party back to Santa Majella the second they could,” my mother said carefully, her hands pausing over my pillows as she fluffed them. My sister was already on her way out the room, presumably to go and call the doctor.

“OK, sweetie, there you go. The most important thing to do now is just rest, and heal, OK?”

I felt confused and irritated. I didn’t like the way reality was only coming back to me in stingy patches. I didn’t like the way she looked down at me, barely concealing the pity in her face. She had seen us off at the port a few days ago, but at the same time it felt as though I hadn’t seen her in a lifetime.

“Where’s Anthony?” I managed to say.

She frowned and busied herself with tucking me in, even though the blankets were fine. I asked her again. My sister Angela returned and bought a man in a doctor’s coat and blue check shirt with her. Mom looked relieved.

“Ms. Elinor King, so happy to see you’re awake and with us,” said a large, imposing man, blustering over and immediately examining me. He wasted no time looking into my eyes, then he touched the soft underside of my jaw and examined my wrists for something. I was too weak to ask what he was doing, or resist, even though I was beginning to get tired of feeling like people were tiptoeing around me.

“Doctor, where is my… where is Anthony?” I asked. He gave me the same frown my mother did. I couldn’t summon energy to get hysterical, but it was starting to become obvious that there was bad news, and that it was being deliberately kept from me. The thought alone made something panicky grow at the base of my throat again.

“Please just tell me what’s going on,” I sobbed, and my head panged with my raising my voice. The doctor perched himself seriously on the edge of the bed, and clasped his hands together. My mother and sister hovered by the shut door, looking like they were attending a funeral.

Fuck, I hated this.

“Elinor, you’ve been through quite a lot these last few days. Now, you were shipwrecked on a tiny and uninhabited island in the Pacific called Santa Majella. Your cruise ship sank but rescue missions managed to save most of the passengers. Though they did a scan of the area for days, for some reason they never discovered anyone on your island, and you were presumed dead along with dozens of others.” He spoke clearly and dispassionately, like he was reading from a textbook.

“The gentleman who saved you told us about the other four remaining on the island, and the emergency services were dispatched to retrieve them.” Here he paused and looked like he was choosing his next words carefully. “You were very ill, Ellie. The injury to your foot was serious, and caused a loss of blood supply to the area which deprived that tissue of oxygen. We’ve given you antibiotics but you needed emergency surgery to remove the affected tissue…”

There it was again. The panicky lurch at the back of my throat. I hurriedly threw off the blanket covering me to look at my foot, and cried out in horror at what I saw. Or didn’t see.

“Now, Ellie, try not to panic, we needed to act fast as the infection was spreading very rapidly and could have traveled to your heart…”

His words disappeared as I tried to understand what I was looking at.

My foot.

It was gone.

A thick padding of bandages was bound tightly around it, but it was as clear as it was shocking: the place where my foot used to be was now empty. Just fresh air in the place that should have been my foot. A whole lot of nothing. Completely gone. Missing.

I couldn’t even sob. I’m not sure what happened in those brief moments afterwards, but the doctor must have rushed to give me a tranquilizer and as I collapsed back down onto my pillows, I could see the appalled faces of my mother and sister, their hands to their mouths.

It couldn’t be happening. I had just hurt myself. It was all just a mistake. They had stolen part of my body and this was all just a big, sick, morbid mistake, a joke…

Some traumas are so extreme that they can only be taken in pieces. Some tragedies are so big they need to be broken into smaller tragedies and swallowed one chunk at a time, because at full size the human body and mind simply cannot digest it all.

Over the next few hours, I descended far into a strange pit. I was asleep, drugged up heavily, and would wake up for a moment, confront that bizarre thought again, and then pass out again from the sheer improbability of it all. No foot? How could that possibly be?

The next time I woke and encountered the same nasty, immovable fact, it felt duller than the time before. It took me hours, the better part of a day to look at the nasty fact square on and realize it wasn’t going anywhere. This really was my life now. They had amputated my foot. And it couldn’t be put back on again.

Numb, I somehow found my way through those hours. My mother and sister flitted in and out like angels of death; the doctor came, with medicines and platitudes. The light in the room changed from bright and fresh to dimmer, until the fluorescent lights were turned on and the sickening smells of food wafted in and out of consciousness.

I don’t know how long it was before I could sit up, clear headed, and take a look down at my mutilated body again. Shaking hands pulled off the thin, scratchy bedding. The stump was as I left it. Hideously asymmetrical with my other foot, which now seemed like some kind of mercy. I touched the bandages and found them cold and strange. My brain told me that the sore flesh was still there, even though my eyes gave proof that I no longer had a foot to feel, pain or otherwise.

The sensation was too strange. Lump in my throat, I quickly covered myself back up again and tried to think. This was OK. I could do this. My mind raced with potential futures for myself. All my thoughts seemed lopsided and leaning. What the hell was I going to do with one foot? My numbness started to feel like a protective blanket, and when the pain got too much, I happily retreated inside it. I couldn’t think about this. Not now. I turned on the TV.

I nearly laughed out loud when I saw what was on the screen.

Me.

I turned up the volume and tried to piece together the news segment that I was watching. Footage of unassuming sea water was cut with photos of the front of a hospital and back again to a groomed woman in a studio.

“Onto news about Hurricane Maude now, and confusion around the number of actual dead and injured remains. Authorities have now claimed that last week’s four separate rescue missions sent to Santa Majella revealed no signs of survivors, raising fears that still others may have been missed and stranded at sea. The unnamed pair rescued by leisure yacht Esprit are in critical condition and receiving medical care at Long beach Memorial Hospital. First responders have yet to make a statement about other survivors remaining on the island, but ABC7’s correspondent will stay with the story.”

The little icon in the lower right of the screen was a cartoon coconut palm on an island. The word ‘Stranded’ blazed across the bottom of the screen as the woman shifted in her chair and switched to her next story.

I flicked the off button.

It was a lost at sea story, but it was real, and it was happening to me. They knew about the other four on the island. Were they here in this hospital with me? A million thoughts knocked through my mind.

Where was Anthony? Was Todd OK? What did they even do with my foot, once they took it off!? What day was it? Do you get a refund if the ship sinks? Had I even bought insurance? When last did I eat? If I fell asleep again would I wake up with some other part of me removed?

Another day may have passed, each time with me trying to stomach a little more of the bizarre set of circumstances that had suddenly become my life. It was like walking into very cold water an inch at a time, your whole body trying to pull up and away from it with every step in. I lost track of day or night. But at some point the doctor returned and sat on the edge of my bed again.

“You’re lucky to be alive,” he said eventually, and the words were empty and completely meaningless, like something said in another language.

“A hurricane of that magnitude is rare for this neck of the woods. But they say the vessel had already drifted far enough off course that it caught the brunt of it before the storm broke land. It really is remarkable, how unlucky you were in all this.”

It seemed like an overly personal conversation to be having. I said nothing and hoped he’d just talk about my catheter or send a nurse in to change my dressings.

“Now, Elinor, it’s time we had a frankly unpleasant conversation about a few things. I know you’ve asked after your fiancé. I know you must be sick with worry. The fact is, though, that when the emergency squad arrived at the island, he was already in a very serious condition…”

Anthony’s face popped into my mind’s eye.

I thought of how carefully he’d ironed and folded his shirts before we left. How he double and triple checked our itinerary, and how he had planned everything in his life, and mine, with exactly the same obsession. I thought of his pale legs getting burnt in the sun, and the way he looked at me when he keeled over after Charlie stabbed him. I couldn’t stop a half dozen stinging tears from rolling their way down my cheeks.

“He was suffering from acute alcohol poisoning, Elinor. His liver was failing. It’s not easy for me to be the one to tell you this, but he didn’t make it back to the hospital in time. He passed away on the trip back to land.”

The air around my ears whined and crackled. I couldn’t swallow. I suddenly felt woozy. The doctor placed one firm hand on my arm and tried to steady me, and I instinctively clasped back.

“He …he’s dead?”

The doctor’s crestfallen face was his only answer. He closed a large hand over mine and gave a consolatory tap.

“He …you say his liver?” I sputtered. I was trying desperately to stop myself from crying, and this was all I could think of: asking for details.

“He had a blood alcohol level of 0.5. It was astronomical. At certain high levels the gag reflex is compromised and the body is unable to throw up anymore. And his wound…”

“Charlie!” I said.

“Excuse me?”

“He had a stab wound,” I said and tried to blink through my tears and focus on his face. The doctor frowned deeply.

“Yes, well, the police are looking into that matter, and it’s not for me to pass comment on that. His autopsy showed acute liver failure. The other matter is being dealt with. Now I realize this is a terribly emotional time so please don’t hesitate to--”

“So it was the alcohol? The reason he’s dead is because of the alcohol?” I said. I could hear my voice getting louder. He looked at me a little alarmed.

“Well, yes. He must not have realized the damage he was doing. He was severely dehydrated. In any case, Ms. King, I must be going and--”

“It wasn’t Charlie’s fault then,” I said. And not mine, I thought silently.

“Well, I won’t say that having a stab wound helped, but it was largely superficial. I realize this can be hard to hear but whatever happened on that island, Ms. Charlie Beaufort is not to blame for your fiance’s death…”

I stared at him. I knew what he was thinking. A sordid lover’s quarrel. A lethal fight. And now, the jealous fiancé, seeking revenge for her murdered partner. I said nothing. It was easier to let him believe that than the real reason I was crying right now.

He rose and made for the door, giving me one last final pat on the arm.

“Your mother and sister are on their way,” he said, and left.

The room was quiet, waiting for me to fill it up again with something. Would I cry? Would I flop down onto the bed and sob into the pillows? Or I would I sit here for a moment longer, staring numbly at the wall, waiting for my emotions to catch up with me?

Chapter 23 - Todd

Eight months later

I looked at my watch. I had about twenty minutes till my next lecture. I put my head down and picked up my pace. The courtyard looked beautiful this time of year – a few of the trees were just changing color and things felt cozier somehow. I hoisted my backpack higher up on my shoulder and got lost in the rhythm my feet found on the paving bricks underfoot.

When I had first put in my official withdrawal of my application to train as a SEAL, my supporting commanders took it as a sign of temporary insanity. After everything that had happened, they kindly told me they’d keep my spot available till I was ready. But I never became ready. They asked me why. Everyone asked me why. But it was hard to put my finger on what exactly made me change my mind so abruptly.

I had dreamt of being a SEAL for longer than I could remember. It felt so natural a choice that I had never even imagined another path for myself. And yet, all of that seemed to evaporate completely in the days after we made it back to California and I could start piecing my life back together. It was something I couldn’t tell anyone, but as the months rolled by, I began to think of the entire wreck as a blessing. I had only been sleepwalking before, going along with a life path that I had never had the guts to question, caught in the momentum of something that felt big and inevitable …right up until it just didn’t anymore.

Sometimes, the only way to move forward in life is to completely destroy everything you’ve done till that point.

I went back to school. My minor celebrity probably helped a little given my less than stellar grades. People never had questions for me exactly, instead they only found it necessary to tell me at length what they would have done in my situation. “Oh, I would have gone absolutely crazy!” they’d say when they realized I was the guy they’d seen on the news, or “If I were you, I would have just stayed out there, huh? Your own little island paradise? Ha ha!”

I didn’t mind. I’m not particularly good with words so I soon gave up trying to explain to people exactly what it had been like for me out there. The media forgot about the whole incident in a month. It was a freak hurricane that no weather models had been able to predict or track, and it was over so quickly people could scarcely believe that yes, an entire luxury cruise ship had gone down into the Atlantic and yes, only a few survivors remained bobbing in the ocean.

There had been events. There were charity benefits and memorial services for those who didn’t survive. But I didn’t go to any of them. Again, I couldn’t explain why. My tragedy felt smaller, and more personal. Like it was only running parallel to this great national disaster that had caught everyone’s imagination, and it felt weird to go out in public and mourn mutually for a thing I felt had nothing to do with any of them.

My feet moved swiftly over the courtyard. Today was my favorite module, and we were doing my favorite topic: genetic mutations and how they play out in that epic dance of life called natural selection. I had always held an amateur interest in ideas like this, but something about the shipwreck made it feel all the more real for me: tiny ‘mistakes’, or accidents, in the DNA can occasionally prove to be so beneficial to the organism that instead of it being a drawback, it becomes a great gift, something that allows the creature to thrive where everyone else can’t. Sometimes, you have to completely break something in order to see what new and interesting possibilities lie just ahead. The shipwreck was a total, unmitigated disaster. But somehow, it was the one mistake that allowed me to thrive in a new idea, a new life I had never even dreamt of for myself up until that moment.

I hadn’t heard again from the others.

That was mostly on purpose.

Carl and Livvy stayed in touch for a while but they lived in another state and had their own busy lives. Last I heard Carl had written a book about it but I decided to leave well alone enough and not read it. I had tried to reach out to Charlie a few times, but she had been reluctant. She gave me a letter she had and wanted me to pass it on to Ellie. But Ellie was the last person I wanted to see. Yet another thing I couldn’t explain, what can I say.

Once I had delivered her safely to the hospital, I was no longer needed. And when I later heard that Anthony hadn’t made it out alive, the remorse I felt was so intense I couldn’t bear to seek out Ellie again. I wanted to speak to her again more than anything, no mistake. To just share a moment again with the one person who I felt truly understood, who would listen to me and not feel the need to say anything in return. I was so hungry for that connection again, for that ease I had found with her and yes, for that that touch. That sweet way that our bodies had fit so well together…

But that was just selfishness. Just dreaming.

Ellie had lost her fiancé. And while he lay hurt and fading on the island, we were thoughtlessly distracted with our own needs. I strongly suspected that she would never want to see me again; that back then she had temporarily lost her mind and that now we were back in the real world, she’d be mortified to see me, to face me again after what we had done together. In truth, a part of me was too afraid to meet her just because I couldn’t bear having her say all of this directly to my face.

I was nearly at the lecture hall when someone called out my name. I must have been hallucinating. I spun around, thinking how dumb it was that I had been daydreaming about Ellie so hard I was starting to actually hear her voice, when I saw her. In the flesh, standing there in the sunshine of the courtyard with her hair loose and a green satchel slung over her torso. It was really her. She looked as surprised to see me as I was to see her.

“Ellie…?”

She had a crooked smile on her lips as she walked over to me. I hadn’t seen her in the better part of a year.

“How did you find me here?” she said with a shocked laugh.

“Find you? I study here.”

Her eyes widened.

“But I study here!” she said.

We both laughed nervously. God, she looked good.

“This is… this is quite a surprise,” I said. I couldn’t help but grin. The sight of her face just did that to me, even still. She smiled back.

The drama from the months before seemed smaller, and more manageable, now that she was just a girl with wavy hair and a satchel standing in front of me.

“You …I thought you’d be out there doing something heroic on a battleship or something,” she said.

Had she always been this pretty? In all my memories, Ellie was unkempt. Her wild, sandy silvery hair was all windswept, and her bare feet dusted on the bottom with beach sand. Now it almost felt like meeting a strange new family member of hers, one who wore crisp new clothing and had her hair styled and colored.

“Well, that was in another life,” I said. “I’m studying now. Biomedicine. Cool, huh?”

Her face was so bright and alive.

“Biomedicine? Ooh, fancy. I’m studying too. Obviously,” she gestured to the books she had perched on her hip. “I’m finally doing my teacher’s diploma… of finishing it, I should say. Luckily they let me transfer a bunch of credits so it wasn’t a total cold start for me.”

My eyes fixed on her small pink fingernails clasped round her books. I didn’t know what else to say. It was all the small talk I could muster. Was this really the woman I had spilled my guts to on that boat a million years ago?

“Hey, Ellie, isn’t it weird how this is so much more awkward than anything that happened on the island?”

She laughed instantly and easily.

“You’re so right! Actually, I think about that kind of stuff all the time. How life was almost less scary for those few days, you know? Just easier somehow. That’s probably going to sound really bad…”

“No, no I understand exactly what you mean. Like, we’ll never starve again, or have to worry about where to sleep for the night, but I almost feel like that was a better kind of stress than, well… you know,” I said and held up my own books.

She giggled again.

She had a rich, soft laugh that felt like a warm breeze in mid-summer. Hearing it again like that I realized that all this time I had been missing it.

“You too, huh? I feel you. A few rounds in the ring with my new tutor group isn’t exactly life-threatening, but it sure feels like it!”

We let the smiles fade from our faces slowly, and then we were there together, again, and it felt very much like something should happen.

“I thought about you a lot, after everything,” I said quietly. She looked away and then back into my eyes.

“Me too.”

“You never got in touch though,” I added.

She frowned.

“Neither did you,” she said simply.

I shifted my weight. To hell with the lecture.

“But …I didn’t feel it was right to contact you. It wasn’t my place,” I said. Her frown softened and she sighed.

“I don’t know what to say. I thought about it. I thought about finding you and calling you up. I saw you gave that interview as well but then I thought, you’re probably moving on, probably continuing with your training…”

“I thought about you every moment,” I blurted. She looked at me quickly. In those eyes was all the same gentleness and openness that had drawn me in that first night I had literally run into her on the deck of the ship. But she looked pained.

“I never got in touch because of …well, you know. Because of Anthony. It still weighs on me, Ellie.”

“Me too,” she said quietly. “But Todd, please don’t blame yourself…”

“I do blame myself. I had no right. Say what you want about him, you were his fiancée… and that’s not the sort of man I want to be.”

She sighed loudly and looked away again.

“Todd, Anthony killed himself.”

I was taken aback. What an odd thing to say.

“What? But the cut Charlie gave him…”

“Charlie had nothing to do with anything. Anthony had a history with alcohol. It doesn’t make anything any easier, but I understand a little better now why it happened. He poisoned himself. The doctors chalked it up to a big mistake, that he was delirious from the heat, or dehydrated, or he just didn’t realize how much he drank. But I know Anthony. Anyway, I don’t want to talk about any of this. I’ve spent months in therapy, and I’m finally getting out of it now, you know? And a lot can change in six months…”

“Eight months.”

“What?”

“It’s been eight months since we last saw each other.”

She gave me a slow, loaded look.

“Hey, Todd?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you wanna just start over again?”

“What …do you mean?”

“I mean… I’ve only just bumped into you and already everything is so serious. I’m too young to carry around ghosts, Todd. I’m done mourning and moping. Can we just…” here she screwed her eyes as she stared towards the sun and thought for a moment. “Can we just pretend that none of it ever happened?”

I was surprised.

“Let’s just imagine that you and I have never even met before, and see what happens?” she said cautiously.

I smiled at her, a little unsure. But the look on her face was so light and welcoming I couldn’t help but nod.

“Yeah, OK. Why not? Like, we just pretend this is the first time we’re meeting?”

The look on her freckled face was so deliciously mischievous.

“Yeah! Let’s leave all of that in the past. No guilt, no memories and dredging up stuff that’s already over. Just you, me, and whatever happens today, right here,” she said, and swooped her hand to gesture across the courtyard.

“No pressure?” I said, and gave her a naughty wink.

“No pressure,” she said with smile.

I exhaled and looked around at the courtyard. The students had filtered off to the surrounding lecture halls. But making that class was the last thing on my mind right now.

I extended my hand to her.

“Well, in that case, Todd McGregor,” I said. “Pleased to meet you.”

She grinned.

“Elinor King,” she said and nodded cordially.

“Can I call you Ellie?”

“Sure.”

I leant forward and lowered my voice. She leant forward to hear me.

“Before we start, though, there is just one thing I’d like to dredge up from the past,” I said, suddenly serious.

“What’s that?”

“Well, I still owe you that second cigarette,” I said with a grin.

She laughed.

“Fair’s fair! Pay up then so we can start with our clean slate,” she said and held out her hand.

“Trouble is… I don’t smoke anymore,” I said.

She raised her eyebrows.

“Really? Hm, I’m impressed.”

“Yes, well, as you said, a lot can change in six months!”

“Eight,” she said and winked back at me.

When we decided to ditch classes for the rest of the day and head over to my apartment, it felt like we had both been washed away by a deluge of stories and jokes and questions and anecdotes. I had never spoken so much with anyone. We had spent at least three hours that afternoon chatting away and I still felt like I hadn’t said enough. She was the same Ellie I remembered, but with so many other, different facets to her it was like seeing a 3D version of something you had only till then known from flat pictures.

There was no topic we didn’t jump into and yack away at. It felt so easy and wonderful and happy. And after some time it really did feel like we had started anew. She slowly started to become a new person to me, and I realized in talking to her how different I myself was. There was a comfortable familiarity that was set off just there, off on the horizon, where we could come and find it later. I already knew, in my own small, unacknowledged way, that I loved her. I already knew that my body understood and adored hers. I already knew that should we look closely enough, we could find depths of passion between us …after all, we’d already done it.

And yet it felt easy to merely put that aside for a moment and just… talk. Like we could take our time wading back up to that far point again, assured of its existence, guaranteed of what delicious things were waiting there for us when we were ready for them. It was like we had jumbled all the usual milestones of a typical relationship. We had ticked off the gut-wrenching parts, the steamy sex parts, the soft, tender parts. What we hadn’t done was be silly. We hadn’t goofed around and talked nonsense and relaxed on a sofa with one another. But we were sure as hell catching up on that front.

“You know what I think?” she said suddenly, putting her coffee cup off to the side. We were already on our third pot and the sun had just set.

“What?” I said.

“I think you and I should go on a date.”

“A date? Then what the hell have we been doing all this time?” I said laughing. She playfully slapped my forearm.

“I’m serious! Consider yourself vetted for a real, proper, genuine date.” I looked down at her hand touching my arm, right where she had left it.

“Vetted, huh? Awesome. Glad it only took…” I checked my watch. “Five and a half hours!”

“God, has it really been that long?” she said.

I nodded.

“I shudder to think what a big, long, serious, genuine date would look like with you,” I said. She laughed.

“Well, first of all you’re going to meet me at that little pizza place on fourth, you know the one? The one that has all those pot plants on the wall?”

“Carlucci’s or something?”

“I don’t know. But there. We meet at 6pm, to give us lots of time.”

“Time for…?”

“Wooing. You’re going to woo me, you see,” she said.

“Uh huh. I see. How am I going to do that?”

“Well, you’re going to pitch up with some random little gift. I’ll say how you shouldn’t have, but really I’ll love it. Then you’ll say something sweet, and you’ll ask if you can kiss me.”

“Damn. I sound charming.”

“You are charming,” she said and flashed me sparkly eyes. “I mean, will be charming, on our date…”

She couldn’t help but giggle.

“What happens next?” I said, putting my chin in my hands.

“Well… after a lovely meal and amazing conversation, we head out for a walk over the commons, to see if we can spot the moon. By that point, you’ll probably be wanting to hold my hand.”

“Sounds about right.”

“Then, I’ll suggest we come back to my place, for a coffee, only, I won’t be really asking you for a coffee,” I said.

I gave a phony gasp.

“What! You don’t mean to say…”

“Oh yes. By that point I’ll be seducing you.”

“You minx, you.”

“I know. Thing is, you’ll be a little reluctant. You’ll say, are you sure?”

“And…?”

“I’ll understand that it’s too soon. We agree to reach a friendly compromise.”

“A compromise?”

“We settle on a long, sexy kiss against a tree on the commons, and bid each other adieu,” she said with a nod of her head.

“Oh god, do I get another date?” I asked.

She laughed loudly.

“Depends on how the kiss goes, I guess.”

Epilogue - Ellie

Four Years later

Saint Majella. Patron saint of expectant mothers. And the island on which all of this started.

It was ridiculous how close it was to the mainland, when you really looked. Because of its size, it wasn’t shown on most regular maps. Though it was only an unassuming 12.4-acre hunk of ground in the middle of nowhere, it had actually taken up much, much more room in my mind. My mother and sister were horrified when I told them our plan to return. They’re superstitious thinkers, though. I’m not.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” I announced, and went into the cabin bathroom to heave a little. I came back up, hand clamped over my belly. Todd looked concerned.

“We can anchor here and wait a little? Till the nausea passes?” he said.

I shook my head.

“No, let’s keep going. I want to make it there before noon.”

He nodded and turned again to the wheel, looking like he was born to sail small watercraft out on the blue yonder.

The ocean below was a jeweled blue, and chopped through with waves and soft undercurrents that made it look like shattered but still intact glass. The sky up overhead was equally elemental – far up and unconcerned with us below. It had been four long months to plan this trip. Todd already had some yachting experience but he first needed to get a proper license. Then we needed to rent and insure little ‘Honeybee’, get special permits to visit the island, and then get prior approval to make sure we weren’t pitching up on the island during seal pupping season.

We had both laughed hard at the conversation we’d had with the environmental protection bureaucrats. A surly woman had informed us, “you have to think of the seals… it’s one of their breeding grounds. Of course they’re not always there.” Without skipping a beat Todd had replied, “Yes, I know that, there weren’t any seals last time I was there” and she gave us both a doubtful look. “Sir, it’s a highly-protected island, with restricted access. When did you possibly visit it?” Cheery Todd had replied “When I was training to be a seal” and man, we had laughed for days about the look that came over that surly woman’s face just at that moment.

But all the paperwork was done now, all the boxes were ticked and the fees paid, and now we were allowed to hunt out this tiny, obscure little patch of island that had once been our home for three long, strange days. And we couldn’t have chosen a more perfect day. The sun was warm but not hot, and seagulls wheeled silently in the clear breeze, a pleasant wind that also blew into the sails and stretched them taught, like giant canvas lungs.

Todd was busy and completely engrossed, so I had time to perch on the edge and feel the ocean spray kiss my legs. There was still no sign of it. In fact, we had to hit the GPS coordinates just right if we expected to find this little speck. Todd was shirtless and lost in his work, as he always was when something required his hands. That’s one of the things I loved about him – the fact that he was somehow at his most still and calm when he was in motion. He wasn’t a man built to sit on the sidelines and watch. He had insisted on learning to sail this boat and, remarkably, he had picked it all up pretty quickly.

I looked down at the ruffled hem of my skirt whipping and rippling in the wind, and smiled. It wasn’t happiness I felt, but something like a slow, quiet contentment. It was the knowledge that the thing that was meant to happen was happening.

“Todd …am I seeing what I think I’m seeing?”

I shaded my eyes with one hand and pointed to the horizon with the other. Hands on his hips and his feet spread wide, he glanced over then grinned at me.

“Of course it is, did you think I wouldn’t get us there?” he said and laughed.

“Not for a second,” I said and turned my squinting eyes back to the faint snatch of brown in that uniform blue landscape. From this far away the whole place looked meager and bedraggled. The trees seemed to be clinging to the place like they knew they were surrounded on all sides by salt water. The whole place had a ramshackle feel about it.

Todd was expertly hopping around the deck, busying himself with ropes and grabbing hold of the rudder in his strong hands. We were heading right for it. I’m not a very practical woman, I’ll be the first to admit it, but it’s times like these I can see exactly where Todd was coming from. There was a simple, noble beauty to the whole expedition. Using nothing but wind, water and brainpower to navigate the wild and hone in on the single precise thing you desired. If you could know the pleasure in that humble activity, you’d also know everything you’d ever need to about a man like Todd.

It took us at least twenty minutes more to approach land, and I watched in a dozy, half-meditative state as the speck of brown grew and grew on the horizon and eventually expanded to cover all of it. We were only a few yards out when Todd dropped anchor, lowered the steps into the water and invited me, smiling ear to ear, to step down.

I hobbled a step at a time. He had fought me on it, but I wasn’t going to bring my prosthetic with me. Not for this trip. It was silly, I know, and a little stubborn, but it felt right. It was like confronting an old bully or someone from your past I never quite forgave. I wanted to meet the island as I was: one foot less but in every other way, much, much more of a person than the first time I had stepped foot here.

I took the first step, took the second, then plunged to the waist into the cool blue, Todd holding out his hands down below to support me. I lifted up my skirt high and was momentarily glad I had slipped my bikini on underneath everything.

The coarse sand sieved through my toes as I walked up and towards the land, legs in slow motion through the water. The ocean had a way of doing that: of slowing everything down, whether you liked it or not. The landscape before us was still alien to me: after all, I had only woken up on this island long after all the main drama had passed. For me, it had been the neatest scene change. I had blacked out on the ship, and come to, right on these sands.

But not Todd.

I scanned his face to try and read what he was feeling, to find any little sign of recognition. But he was simply engrossed in the task at hand, and held my hand firmly as we walked over to the dry sand.

Once we set foot on land, I lowered my skirt hem and took a full breath. The wind took it up again and played with it, as it did my hair, and all the strange yet almost familiar smells of salt and fish and rock introduced themselves.

“So this is it,” I said.

“This is it.”

Soon, life would whirl around on its axis again and everything would change forever. Both Todd and I were entering into a new life stage together, and so coming here to say goodbye to this place was a now-or-never deal. Hadn’t we both dreamt of this island frequently for the past five years? Hadn’t we both laughed and smiled whenever someone ask where we had met, and cast sidelong glances at the other? It was now time to move on. Time to get the ‘closure’ I had tried in vain to explain to my mother and sister.

“Can I take that for you?” he said and gestured to my backpack.

“It’s OK. I want to hold it,” I said.

“Did you… did you want to do it now?”

I thought for a moment.

“Yes. Let’s do it.”

After we had both taken our fill of the views in all directions, we walked in silence deeper into jungly part of the island. In my memories, the trees had seemed so much denser and foreboding than they seemed now. They just looked like aging, non-threatening versions of themselves. It was cooler in the shade as we walked on.

“What about here?” he asked.

I looked over at the big palm tree he was standing beside.

“Yes. That looks good,” I said.

I told myself I wouldn’t cry. I squeezed my eyes shut and bit down hard to gather myself for a second. I slid off my backpack, unzipped it and reached inside. I took out two things as Todd watched me solemnly.

The first was a little wreath I had made from willow branches and flowers. A ribbon with the letter ‘A’ painted on it was tied to the top of the wreath. The second object was an envelope, and inside that envelope was a letter that I hadn’t ever read.

Hands trembling, I opened the envelope and took it out. Todd reached out to help but I waved him off. This was something I had to do myself. I opened the folded letter, smoothed it out and set it aside. Then I put the wreath at the base of the tree, and cleared my throat. I tried my hardest to hold off on my tears. I wasn’t sad. I wanted to be here, and I wanted to do this. But that didn’t make it hurt any less.

“Do you need me to go?” Todd said quietly.

I shook my head.

No. He was a part of this too. I had been told that when the others were recovered from the island, Anthony had been rushed onto the rescue boat and immediately asked for a pen and paper. He had begged Charlie to write down everything he said, and to swear that she would find a way to get the letter to me. By the time they had all made it to shore, though, he had already gone.

Charlie took a few months to reach out to me after that, but I had avoided her and sent her off after she tracked me down, then stashed the letter into a bottom drawer, knowing I didn’t have the heart to read it. And there it had sat through five years, one job change, several house moves and a marriage.

But I would read it now.

I wiped my eyes on the back of my hand and looked down at the old, yellowing paper, creased heavily down the middle. Todd stood somberly beside the tree and waited.

The handwriting was unfamiliar and done in a cheap black ballpoint, scratched in sloping lines. I wasn’t superstitious, like I said, but it was hard not to feel that something was happening now. I would release Anthony, and release myself. They were unspoken words about unfinished business. Whatever it was that he wanted me to know, I knew that by the time I reached the end of the letter, I’d be ready to move on and forget everything.

I began to read.

“Dear Ellie. Life is so much more fragile than I thought. I won’t see you again, at least not in this world. Please listen to every word that I write here and try to understand it. I’m in so much pain. I’ve never meant anything more than I mean this. Ellie, I have done everything wrong. All the things I held onto meant nothing in the end. For me, Ellie, please don’t hold onto things like I did. I cannot describe what it feels like to know that you’re dying. But I am soothing myself right now with the thought that you can do better than I did. Please be happy, Ellie. It’s all that matters. I couldn’t, but you can. Please be happy, Ellie.”

By the time I reached the final few lines, my voice had broken into a sob and the tears dripped down onto the page. I choked them back, carefully folded the letter up again, and held it in my hands for a moment. I then went to the palm tree, dug a little hole in the soil in front of the wreath and placed the letter inside it, before covering it over again with damp soil.

Todd stared hard at the ground with me, the twitching tendons in his neck telling me how torn up he was, too.

On my knees now, I patted down the cool soil, then stood. Was I relieved? I don’t know. But strange, deep feelings washed over me as I realized that Anthony had moved on a long, long time ago, and it was only me who had been the ghost, clinging to the past, unable to let go.

I had taken my lost foot as proof that life was punishing me for what I did to him. But now I could see that Anthony didn’t hate me. He hadn’t cursed my name with his last breath and he hadn’t wished me dead for what I’d done to him. In fact, the letter had contained a medicine that I hadn’t known I’d needed until I tasted it: forgiveness.

We stood for a moment more looking at our modest memorial, before Todd took my hand and guided me away. Walking out into the bright sunshine of the beach again felt like a cleansing. Tears still on my face, I somehow found a way to smile.

“I feel better now,” I said, and it was an understatement.

Todd’s hand went gently to touch my lower belly. It was sweet, protective little gesture that he had started doing ever since I had found out I was pregnant. It was only a small curve, but I knew full well that it’s often the smallest things that take up the most space in your life.

Todd kissed my neck and then wandered off, sensing that I’d need to be alone for a while.

I had forgotten one massive detail about this place: how quiet it was during the day. When the wind stopped streaming through the trees for a moment, the island was washed over in a kind of loud silence that felt impossible to ignore.

I sighed and took a walk along the beach, examining here and there for signs of …anything, really. Was I looking for evidence that we had changed this place as much as it had changed us? Did I want some proof that we had been here at all, and all those memories were not just images that came to me late at night to torment me and keep me from sleeping?

The truth was there was nothing.

And I felt nothing.

Nothing remained of the days we had spent here – how could it? – and the island was just as bare and cruelly indifferent as it was the first time we laid eyes on it.

I wandered over to the gradual slope where the water’s edge stroked the shore. Endless, rhythmic waves came again, left again, came again. Hypnotic, and a little senseless. Time just marched on here, to its own slow, elemental rhythm. For this island, five years was nothing. I bent down to look at the sand granules and wondered which of them had even been here five years ago. Wasn’t an island just a naked part of the ocean floor, a high piece that peeked up over the water level? In time, I guess even this island would be ground away and float off.

I had had enough. I stood, dusted the sand from my knees and scanned around for Todd. He was far out over to the other end of the beach, wading in some rock pools. I walked off towards him.

“Feel like some mussels?” he laughed when I reached him, then waved a glinting blue shell in my direction.

“Oh my god, don’t even joke,” I yelled back.

He was like a little kid, bent over and investigating the sea creatures that lived in the pockets of water between the rocks. I hopped onto them as best as I could, being unused to walking without my prosthetic, and went over to sit with him on the rock’s edge. He was more robust than I was, that much was true.

“Weird, isn’t it? Being back here?” he said.

I nodded.

“Are you sure this is even the right place? It feels so much …smaller,” I said.

“I know what you mean. But this is it. Santa Majella.”

“Not much going on here, huh?”

“No, not really.”

We both laughed.

It had been so important to me, coming back here. It had felt like the closure I needed. Now that I was here, I had mixed feelings. There was nothing special about the place, only about all the things that had happened here.

Todd was important.

The baby was important.

But this island?

I hadn’t expected to, but I started to feel like I was ready to leave, even though we’d only been here a short time. There was nothing left to do. Well, maybe there was one thing…

I reached out and placed my hand on his knee. He put his hand on top of mine and continued staring out at the horizon.

“Todd, let’s head over to those trees under there… I want to lie down for a moment before we head out again.”

He instantly got to his feet, helped me up and we went over in silence to the shady grove of palm trees behind us. The sand here was powder soft and gave way like a cushion as we sat on it. Todd settled his weight down and invited me to sit between his legs and lean back against his chest. It was the wide blue sea in front and Todd’s warm, supportive body behind.

We sat in silence, his fingers playing in my hair and then finding their way to my neck, along with his lips which gave sweet, light kisses on my shoulders. His other hand was softly around my waist.

“Todd, do you think I’m getting fat?”

His kisses turned into playful nips.

“Don’t ask me that again or I’ll go for your jugular next time,” he breathed and I laughed, trying to squirm away.

“You’re beautiful,” he said. “Your body is perfect to me.”

I smiled, grabbed his arm and guided it further up, so it cupped my breast. He seemed reluctant at first, but then teased lazy circles around my hardening nipples. I took hold of his other wrist and guided it down, so that the tips of his fingers just grazed the valley between my legs. I wanted him. Here, and now. And there. I twisted back and offered him my lips, which he dutifully kissed. I never got tired of how good it felt to taste him like this, to feel his tongue caressing mine.

He stopped me though, and pulled back to look at me with concern.

“Ellie, are you sure you want to…?”

I kissed him again, hard, to stop him from talking. I could feel the smile on his lips.

“Well, you’re the one parading around all day without your shirt on, it gives a girl ideas you know,” I said and playfully bit his lower lip. He took my head in his hands and searched my face.

“Just be serious with me for a second, will you Ellie? We came here for a reason. Is this what you really want? We’re not coming back here ever again…”

I sighed.

We had talked about this every evening for the last two weeks straight. I knew what he was asking. He had been patient. But he had also hinted strongly that he was ready to move on, ready to forget about this whole place and everything it came with. And he deserved a real clean start. We deserved a relationship that wasn’t a sequel, wasn’t a closing scene, wasn’t a conclusion to some other tragic story but the beginning to a much better one. A relationship that stood in its own right.

“I want it.”

It was all I needed to say. His body closed around over mine again and his lips once more found my collarbones, my neck, my shoulders. I moaned and tilted my head to the side, enjoying the goosebumps, and that amazing way he knew just how to tease my nipples so they tightened and sent hot little sparks all through the rest of my body.

After all this time together, we had our own carnal shorthand, and he knew exactly which buttons to press to have me squirming in no time. My body knew him, knew his touch, and wasted no time playing its part.

I loved the way I could feel his chest rise and fall underneath me as his breath deepened. I loved feeling that familiar hardness in his pants, and knowing what it meant. It felt naughty, being out here like this. The chances of another living soul seeing us were beyond remote, but then again, it was hard not to feel like we were breaking a taboo by being so flagrantly outdoors like this. His hands were moving more urgently over my stomach now, and when he slipped his flat palm over that soft swell, my hips instinctively rose to meet him.

Tired of kissing him over my shoulder, I swiveled round and faced him, on my hands and knees, and kissed him so deeply it sent him backwards a little, throwing his hands back out behind him to support himself. I couldn’t stop my hands as they hungrily took in every knot and bulge of his well-developed torso. He smiled and let me have him, looking down at me with amusement plastered on his face. Me being so desperately horny during early pregnancy had been a pleasant surprise for both of us.

I had soon shimmied up the hem of my dress to allow me to straddle him and then I set to work trying to greet every inch of his belly with a kiss.

“Hm, you really do want it,” he purred, and leant back even further.

I did. I couldn’t explain it, but somehow this was the missing piece, this was what I had come here to do. It was a big middle finger to this hellish island. It was the last word in the whole story, and I was going to have it, right here and now.

I pushed him back so he fell flat onto the sand and reached down to lift my dress high overhead. I tossed this aside and with as much abandon as I could muster, and then did the same to my bra. I couldn’t be bothered to take my panties off – I didn’t want to miss one second straddling him. Instead, I fell forward for another deep, juicy kiss and let my hips wander over that thick bulge I could now feel at his crotch. Lips still locked into his, my hands went to work unzipping him and releasing that meaty monster of his. I had fucked Todd in every position, in every room in our house. I had fucked him fast and I had fucked him slow. We had had angry sex, and playful sex and cute, sweet sex and serious sex and rushed sex. But no matter how well-worn that path, no matter how many times our bodies had come together like this before …I always wanted to do it again.

His cock bounced swollen and purple from the slit in his trousers and I left it just like that. It looked hot, seeing just that most delicious part of him poking out through his sensible, practical clothing. I slowly stroked the damp spot on my g-string against the veiny length of him, relishing the thrill of nothing but that flimsy strip of fabric between us. I played here with the friction for a moment but eventually the craving to have my bare skin against his bare skin was too much and I reached down, slipped the lacy material to the side and pressed against him again, kissing him now in two places.

There’s something truly extravagant about pregnant sex. It has its own kind of gluttony, filling up a cup that’s already full, drinking when you’re already intoxicated… It felt like a joyful excess, to keep begging to be filled with his cum when it had already proved so potent.

His hands reached up to pull me down for more kissing, but I was getting impatient. His other hand grabbed a firm handful of my ass and pinned me down, rocking and grinding my hips against that stiff rod. I usually loved letting go and giving Todd reign over me.

I loved trusting that he’d know exactly where to lead my body and how, and I could simply melt into it all. But today, I felt differently. I squeezed my knees tight against his trunk and held my hands at his biceps, playfully holding him down and letting my long hair graze his chest. He seemed sweetly taken aback, but only smiled softly, and he held my gaze and didn’t do a thing to protest.

“I feel like we’re the only two people left alive here,” I whispered as my hips kept up their teasing rhythm over his shaft. His smile was dreamy and distant.

“Like we’re just two wild animals, lost, forgotten, and we only have one another to rely on… for everything,” I moaned.

He raised an eyebrow at me. I usually wasn’t very chatty during sex either.

“And like animals, like savages we need to fuck to keep our species going, to keep one step ahead of danger at all times, to survive…”

He propped his hands behind his head and cocked his head at me.

“Are we ever going to get to all this savagery or are you going to keep telling me stories?” he asked, then yelped when I lurched forward to nip his shoulder with my teeth.

“You’d better watch out, mister, I’m the alpha female here, and you’re my chosen mate.”

I felt his cock bounce against me.

Still holding one another’s gaze, I shifted my weight onto my knees and knelt back, arching my ribcage to display my chest to him fully. I grabbed each breast and squeezed, rolling and teasing the nipples to points, still grinding wet in his lap. I tossed my hair so it fell over my shoulders and down my spine, then let my head fall and imagined that it was all true – that for this moment, we lived in a simple world. A world made only of sand and sea and wind and flesh, a world so close to death it was thrilling, so near to primal, unspeakable longings that there was nothing left to talk about, nothing to think about.

There was only doing.

Only fucking.

When I squeezed his engorged head into my pussy, it took my breath away for a moment. I tried to register how intensely thick and solid he was, how the sensation of being firmly opened by him sent little waves all through my hips. I was only three months pregnant but already I felt myself changing internally, shifting to become deeper and juicier. He groaned and arched his back to bring his hips up and deliver another slow inch into me, and then another.

We liked to draw this part out. Draw it out so slow that every inch of him deserved several breaths, till every part of him was deep and settled inside me, the perfect fit. I swear I could feel him grow bigger even still, crammed completely inside, his body expanding to take the shape of mine.

He tried to put his hands again at my hips but I firmly removed them, placed them back where they were and let him know with a stern look that I would be controlling things from now on. He bit his lower lip as I rose my hips off him, letting that gorgeous cock glide slickly out of me, then at the tip I lowered again, finding that sweet inside place once more, wiggling down to get even the slightest bit deeper. Just having him inside me was enough to drive me wild. Just the weight of that thick, heavy cock spreading me open inside had my pussy streaming wet onto my inner thighs. My body knew well what pleasures were coming, and knowing they were coming was half the pleasure itself.

The beach sand was cool and damp under my knees, and the trees whispered silky above our heads, casting down their mottled shade on our bodies. Far inside me, in some invisible place, something quivered with hunger. Something that only he could sate. I settled my weight over him, hovered parted lips close to his ear and began to slowly fuck him. My rhythm was inspired by the wistful rise and fall of the waves off in the distance.

Cheek to cheek, I pleasured myself on his body and he responded keenly, tilting his hips up to fill me, to move with me as I stroked that delicious spot inside and found myself inching closer and closer. When I began whimpering, his lips went to my cheek and planted dozens of tiny, soothing pecks there, encouraging me, daring me to go harder, go faster.

But I didn’t need any encouragement. I raised my body and arched my back again, throwing my full weight down on his cock and swirling my hips over him, then, still not satisfied, lifting and dropping onto him with a juicy slap, a feverish tempo that I didn’t want to stop for anything in the world. His clenched jaw told me he was right where I was. Right at that quivering precipice where going any further would mean surrendering to it all… and so we went for more, together.

All at once, his ab muscles crunched hard as he lifted himself up and sent me jumping off his lap.

“Get on your hands and knees,” he barked.

It’s not like I could have resisted, even if I wanted to. I obeyed and savored how a damper, darker sand was hidden just underneath the white beach sand, there when I clawed at the ground to stable myself for what was to come.

It was beautiful soil. Cool and deep and rich, fed from the ocean underneath it, half water and half earth, some perfect blend of hard and soft, yielding in my fists as I sunk my fingers into it.

I lowered my chest and raised my hips up, collarbones nearly grazing the ground, my hair falling into the sand and shells. This hair he grabbed in a fist and yanked back to bring my head back up again. I let my eyes fall closed as I felt him admiring me…

“I just want to remember this moment,” he said when I turned to gaze at him. He had torn off his trousers and was fully naked now.

“I want to remember what you looked like right before I made you come all over my cock.”

The kick of pleasure this sent through me was enough to make me want to come there and then. I shut my eyes and offered my ass up to him again.

We were the last two souls alive, who was to tell us what was right and wrong? What we could and couldn’t do to one another?

“Do it,” I muttered low under my breath, daring him.

He was swift. His hips came banging hard into mine, bringing the full, fat length of his brutal cock into me. I swallowed down a yelp and let the waves pass through me. Again he thrust, his now bare skin slapping against mine, and again he thrust, and again, till I could barely breath. His cock burrowed deeper into me with every pulse, reaching even those furthest parts in my body, those parts that made my whole body tingle and go limp from pleasure.

“Oh fuck,” I groaned.

His pace was strong and unrelenting. He knew that when I was this turned on, he could be as rough with me as he liked. Turns out, what he liked was to be pretty rough… He had me firmly by the hair, so that I couldn’t resist or squirm away from his fucking even by even one inch. No. I was to receive every part of him, to the full, right in my deepest, most tender parts. When I felt myself starting to come I could barely sputter out a cry. Because he didn’t stop, because he kept fucking me straight through, I came long and hard, each thrust drawing out my syrupy pleasure like taffy. I screamed long and loud when I couldn’t stand any more, and the bliss exploded right through me. He kept fucking me until he came too. Fucked me hard until I could feel his hips bump and shudder as he dug into me one last time and delivered that wet load of cum inside me, his hands clasping onto my hips for dear life.

“Fuck yes,” he growled and I felt his cock twitch and bounce inside me. I moaned and clenched around him, milking him, my cheek now flat on the cool ground as I came down from my own thundering orgasm. We both collapsed down onto one another, covered in sweet and sand, giggling at how disgusting beach sex turned out to actually be.

“That was fucking incredible,” he said, chest heaving, whacking the sand off his knees.

I turned to give him a mischievous smile as he settled down beside me. What could be more perfect than laying here nude on a beach, freshly fucked by a man that I loved, filled to the brim with the juiciest, most perfect part of him? What could be more perfect than watching the palm fronds sway and dance over us, first showing the blue of the sky, then hiding it?

“I didn’t hurt you, did I?” he asked all at once, and propped up onto his elbows to stroke the wild hair from my face. I shook my head. He kissed me. We were like two exhausted sprinters, celebrating after the finish line, muscles still twitching hard.

“Want to go for a swim?” he said eventually, and got to his haunches.

“Absolutely.”

We raced each other down to the shore, naked as the day we were born, but wiser.

And happier.

We kicked up the white foam as we splashed into the waves, laughing madly. We dunked under the water and let the cold wash over our hot bodies. It was the most delightful feeling in all the world. Todd let go of my hand and dunked under again, coming back up with a drop on each little spike of his hair. He shook it off and beamed at me, then fell backwards into the water to float on his back. I joined him, dissolving into the weightlessness of hovering just on the surface, the soft water lapping at my nude breasts, and slipping over the mound of my belly.

My ears went deaf for a moment and I stared up at the blue. The water drops in my eyelashes caught rainbows as I gazed up at the blazing sunshine, blissful. I could still feel him inside me. Could still feel the aftershocks of coming, as he said I would, all over his juicy cock.

I smiled.

After we had washed ourselves in the salty waves and I had twisted my hair back up into a knot on the top of my head, we walked out and back to shore to retrieve our clothes. Todd was strong and noble-bodied. I was a little more inelegant, and I hobbled after him, my little stump well healed over but still gnarled and angry looking. None of that mattered to me now, though. This body of mine was a miracle. All the life that had been poured into it was a miracle; it was big enough to hold me, and beautiful Todd, and the new little one that would be here any day now…

We made our way back to the boat, salt-sticky and feeling wiped out, but happy. We had a few hours to make our way back to shore now, and I would let this island heal up like a wound, let the ocean close up over it in my mind and never think about it again.

I will never know why any of it happened in the first place. I will never know why the storm hit us, and why we had survived. But what I did know was the lesson it had taught me. Never again would I take any day for granted. If I didn’t feel like I was happy to leave my life at any moment, content with the choices I had made up to that point should death come looking for me again one day …then I didn’t want to make those choices. I only wanted those things I knew could withstand any accident, any calamity, any swift change in course.

I was older now, a little slower, a little more cautious. My heart had healed, even though the scarred parts were still gnarled and angry looking. I was one foot down, sure, and worse for it. But I had another foot. And hands. And a heart.

And best of all, I was alive.