I’d finally found a new description for the evening’s tropical sunset, one not involving the adjectives sultry or fiery, when a small but determined fist smoked into my dinner plate.
“Murderer!”
The fist belonged to a woman I’d glanced at a few times, as she sat at the bar and as I wrote and scratched out sentences on the back of a cocktail napkin.
“Liar!” she grabbed the crab I hadn’t even touched yet off my plate, hoisted it in the air and shook it as if she might bring it back to life.
Her eyes were the most interesting shade of blue.
Damn, more administratives.
“Miss, please.” A waiter curried over to my table, urging my accuser to calm down by raising his index finger to his lips and making a shh face.
Those blue eyes ignored like a blowtorch. “Don’t you dare tell me to be quiet.” She shook the crab at the waiter. A leg came loose, flew through the air and bounced off his flowered shirt. “Get that lying bastardof a manager out here!”
I could clearly see the lying bastard of a manager anxious in her direction but I wasn’t about to stop the show to let her know that.
“You people think because you’re rich that gives you the right to eat endangered species?” Now she waved the crab at the patrons who were frozen in cartoonish poses of shock. “Do you have any idea how few Coconut Crabs are left on This island? Do you?”
If the diners of the Pacific Pearl Resort did have any idea, they weren’t stupid enough to say so.
“Miss, I’m going to have to ask you to leave,” the manager said, in that annoyingly calm tone they teach you at manager school.
Blue Eyes grit her teeth and thrust the crab at his face. As the lying bastard of a manager started to speak, she whipped out a compact digital camera, from god knows where, and snapped a shot. “Busted, asshole.”
I chuckled. I should have known better.
“You think that’s funny?” she spun around and lashed me with a stare. Cute.
Maybe I should have said something but she was like a wild animal that had been caged for too long and I couldn’t bring myself to dull her obviously deserved outtrage.
“Laugh at this,” she said, using my ex-entrée as bat to knock over my fruit cocktail onto my dress shirt.
“Now look…Sir, I’m so…Get her out of here!” the manager was still blinking from the flash that had caught him off guard as he waved over a slow moving security guard.
They were no match for Miss Blue Eyes, she was already on her way out, crab in hand, yelling obscenities as she went. I watched her legs. Gazelles would kill for legs like hers.
If I’d been in New York or Paris, I would have run after her but that’s the beauty of a tiny patch of rock like Aitutaki, there’s nowhere for gazelles to hide.
#
I took a sip of water and dialed the phone next to my bed.
“Hello?”
“Jules, it’s Gordon.”
“Hello?”/p>
Her second hello stepped on my words and I quickly explained the long distance, satellite delay. There was a pause and I was about to ask if she understands when I finally heard her.
“What’s her name?”
“Whose name?”
“Gordon, when you have been without a woman for a year and I don’t hear from you in eight months and then suddenly you call me, your only kinky friend, at one in the morning, from the other end of the earth, I know you’re calling about a woman-slash-potential-victim. I’m busy, so spill.”
“I don’t know her name.”
“Oh, Jesus in a leisure suit, you’re kidding? Tell me you’re kidding?”
Why do I always call her? Reality check, idiot.
“Jules, she’s…I don’t even…there’s just something…her eyes…and she…”
“Calm down Cyrano DeBergerac. I get it. You finally met someone who gave you the warm fuzzies, or the cold creepies, in your case, and you’ve got a Gord-on. Good. I’m happy. Just please tell me you’re not…hold on.” She started talking to someone on her end. “It’s Gordon. Yes, he’s calling about a woman. No, I will not untie you so you can talk to him.”
I chuckled, “Who are you playing with tonight?”
“Sasha, and she’s going to get a royal thrashing if she doesn’t calm down. Look, Gordo, please just don’t do anything stupid. You know these plans of yours always end in some horrific mess and I’m the one who always has to sweep up all the itty bitty pieces of your heart.”
“I won’t do anything stupid, I promise.” I glanced at my open laptop with more than a twinge of guilt.
There was another long pause, followed by a sight. “I’m going to ignore the fact that you’re lying to me for a moment and ask how the book is coming Along.”
“Fantastic.”
“Fuck.”
“What?”
“Where are you?”
“The Cook Islands, Aitutaki. Why?”
“Because I want to know where my next Rescue Gordon mission will be. Darling, you never say yourbook is going ‘fantastic’, which tells me you’re brain over balls for this mystery lady. Why can’t you just be like other sadists? Join a club? Visit a dungeon now and then?”
She was always trying to get me into the lifestyle but we both knew I was a bad fit. “I don’t know, Jules, it’s just not my world. Things happen naturally for me or not at all.”
“I love you Gordon. You’re the most fucked up normal guy I know.”
“I love you, too, J. Give Sasha a few extra strokes from me.”
“Baby, anything for you. Be careful. That’s an order.” She blew a kiss into the phone and hung up.
Was I about to launch into another trademark, Gordon Roberts disaster? I returned the handset to its cradle, laid back on the bed, closed my eyes and replayed the evening for the thirtieth time.
No. No way. This time everything would go exactly as planned.
#
Even kicking the flat tire of a scooter, her legs were a pleasure to watch.
“Is that helping?” I asked, pulling my scooter up beside her.
“I’m really not in the mood,” she answered and, from the dullness of the eyes that had been so defiant just last evening, I knew she meant it.
“Hop on, I’ll give you a ride to wherever you need to go.”
After a quick appraisal, she must have decided I was harmless enough and climbed onto the seat behind me. As I suspected, out of my fancy, crab-murdering clothes, Miss Blue Eyes didn’t recognize me.
“Thanks. Sorry. Bad day.”
“Here? In paradise?” I asked, as I pulled out onto the road. I heard her snort and felt her hands tend on my waist. “Where to?”
“Internet café.”
Generally, I don’t obey the 40 km/h speed limit, and the police on Aitutaki are usually too busy napping or fishing to care, but now that I had my prey in my grap — or gripping me, rather – I was taking it nice and slow.
“I’m Gord, by the way,” I called out over the noise of the engine and the wind.
“Nice to meet you, Mr.By-the-Way.”
“And you?”
“Sommer.”
“Hippie parents?”
“With an o.”
“Oh.”
“Exactly.”
She shifted and I felt the inside of her thighs against the outside of my hips. I slowed down another five kilometers.
At the Internet café, she offered to give me gas money, as she slip off the back seat. I decided, biting down on the urge to suggest other methods of reimbursement. No need to rush.
“Thanks for restoring a bit of my faith in humanity,” she said, brushing one of the many wayward strands of hair from her face.
“If I’d known I was going to do that, I would never have stopped.”
She laughed and I was glad because I was about to kick a few tires of my own.
“So, what are you going to do with the photo?” I asked, studying the mechanics of her face for the clues I needed.
“What photo?” There were still remnants of laughter in her voice. Not for long.
“The one of the crab and the manger of Pacific Pearl.”
Eyes narrowed. Mouth opened slightly. Head cocked five degrees to one side. Recognition was on its way. Eyes widened. Yep, there it was.
“That was you? I can’t believe you have the–“
Time to test a theory.
“Enough.” I said it without anger but loudly and with authority.
Quiet.
Perfect. Better than perfect. The moment before she shut her mouth on the angry rant she’d been about to unleash, I saw her eyes drop away from mine. Only a fraction, but a fraction was all I needed to confirm my suspicion.
“Listen, I’m a travel writer, well known enough that managers at fancy resorts try to get in my good graces by offering me free dinners and drinks. I didn’t order that crab; in fact, I was so busy trying to come up with an original description for my eighty-seventh tropical sunset that I didn’t even realize my completery best meal in all of the Cook Islands had been served. Until, of course, you kidnapped itand throw my beverage at me.”
The flame of her face flickered and then dimmed. Momentum was on my side.
“Of course I know Coconut Crabs are endangered. Had you gave me enough time to realize what it was, I would have complained to the manager myself. Instead, you embarrassed me in front of a room full of strangers, stained one of the few expensive pieces of clothing I brought with me on This trip, and dissolved the napkin I’d written my hard-won sunset description on.”
Maybe I over dramatized a bit.
“I…”she scrutinized me for a moment with her invisible bullshit detector, then took a big bite out of her pride and swallowed. “I’m sorry.”
“You never told me what you plan on doing with the photo?”
“I plan on putting it on the Aitutaki Environmental Protection Foundation website.” She told, “So we can expose that resort to all of our ten daily visitors. Woo hoo.”
“Eco warrior, are you?”
“No,” her tanned cheeses flushed pink, “no, I think I’ve got too much time on my hands is all. I’ve been doing a reef survey for the foundation but my dive partner ate a Jack Trevally and got ciguatera povertyening — idiot – and since I can’t dive alone–“
“You’ve taken to liberating dead shellfish?”
Her smile rose like the sun. Back in civilization, in an office or a shop, she’d be ordinary — mousy brown hair, pale skin, features too plain to be noticed in a crowd — but here, in the land of perpetual summer, she was a bronzed and golden goddess. Without a trace of make up, in cheap flip-flops, and wearing shorts and a tank top both fraying at the edges, this girl could steal the attention from any super model out there. Only a monster could hurt a beauty such as her.
Unfortunately, I am a monster.
“Sommer, assuming you’d like to get the news of this crime out to a wider audience, and that you feel bad enough about ruining my dinner, my shirt and my sentence in one fall swoop, I have an idea…”
#
Slicing a starfruit was a sinful pleasure, made even more so by the knowledge of what I was about to do with it.
“Do you like starfruit?” I asked Sommer, as she padded around my rental house. I wasn’t sure if she was worried about being alone with me or about getting the furniture dirty by sitting on it. Maybe it was a bit of both.
“Love it,” she answered, stopping to run her fingertips over a large cowrie shell on the coffee table. “Before I came here, I’d only ever seen it as a garnish. I didn’t even know they were edible. Now I munch on them like apples.”
“Ditto.” I spread the slices out on a small plate, carried them out to the sitting area and motioned for my guest to sit on the couch. “But as tasty as they are in their natural state, there’s Just something so aesthetically pleasing about them when they’re sliced up and spread out that I sometimes can’t resist.”
Setting the plate on the table, I picked up one five-pointedslice and prepared to admire it.
“So,” Sommer’s eyes moved from the plate to me to the slice of fruit, “are you going to let me in on the big secret, or what? This idea of yours, what is it?”
Slowly, slowly, I reminded myself.
“Punishment first,” I said, matter-of-factly, nodding my head to the white shirt drawn over one of the kitchen stools, red stain visible, as planned.
“I’m so–“
“Sorry, I know, and I told you I’d give you a chance to make amends. Here’s the deal. I’m going to go into my bedroom–“
“Whoa, wait a minute!”
“Sit. It’s not like that.” I gave her my best, as if look, which did the trick. “As I was saying, I’m going to go into my bedroom and finish editing the article I wrote last night. I’m almost done, it won’t take long. Then I will bring my laptop out here and let you read my scathing report about the crab butcher of the Pacific Pearl. You may even make suggestions, an honour I rarely grant to anyone other than my editor.”
“And my punishment?”
I could listen to her ask that question all day. The word sounded so uncomfortable on her lips.
“Simple. You are going to stick out your tongue and I am going to put this slice of star fruit on it. You don’t close your mouth, you don’t take the fruit off your tongue, and you don’t take so much as one tiny bite out of it until I say so.”
“That’s it?”
“That’s it. Scouts honour.”
She shrugged, “Kind of weird.”
I shrugged back. “I’m kind of a weird guy.”
“Well, it sounds easy enough.”
Her naiveté melted me. As always, the good guy in me wanted to grab her by the shoulders and shake her, screaming, Run! Get out of here; he’s a madman. Who knows, maybe she would, all on her own.
“Good. Tongue please.”
With the yellow star pinched between my fingers, I leaned across the coffee table. It was important I not look eager or stare too long at that lovely, wet tongue she offered up,or else I knew she’d see right through me. With the manner of a doctor placing a wooden stick on a patient’s tongue, I dropped the slice of fruit on it’s new home and gave her a now-that-wasn’t-so-bad-was-it kind of smile.
“No cheating,” I said, half joking, half hope, as I stood and left the room.
For the first five minutes, alone in my bedroom, I read a magazine. I’d already finished writing and editing the piece about the crab last night, high on cheap possibility and drink on re-awakened desires.
How long would I make her wait? In my pre-sleep fantasy, I’d kept her out there until her tongue was so dry she’d started crying just to dampen it with tears. In reality, I’d probably wait another few minutes. Long enough to test her but not long enough to fire up those eyes and give her reason to leave.
I didn’t count on the knock at the sliding door.
“Good afternoon, Mr Roberts!” the elderly German couple said, in unison. I wished I could recall their names.
“Good afternoon,” I answered, smiling, ignoring the girl on my couch.
“We hope we do not disturb you,” the wife began.
“But yesterday you were saying to us it is OK for coming for book signing, yah?” the husband finished, brandishing a copy of my latest work — an account of my trek through Europe.
I should have scribbled a quick something inside the cover and bid them auf wiedersehen, but the madman choose that moment to flex his muscles.
“Absolutely, I’d be delighted. Come on in, anything for fans.” I opened the door and ushered the couple, whom I’d already decided to name Heinz and Ursula, into the living room.
I watched them enter, watched them notice Sommer with her extended tongue, watched her watch them noticing her, and felt a warm stirring in my southern hemisphere. Discomfort all around. Joy.
“Ach, you are busy?” Heinz asked, his eyes darting between Sommer and me.
“No, no, just doing some research for my next book.”
This made the Germans pay even more attention to my prey. Her pride kept her fixed in place but I could see Sommer’s soul squirming. She nodded, as best she could, and waved.
I made a big deal of showing Heinz and Ursula around the house, pointing to carvings and making up laborate stories concerning their origins. They asked to see the scar from the knife attack I suffered in Spain; I obliged. We shared inside jokes about the abysmal State television stations in their home country. I almost offered them something to drink but figured I’d pushed my luck enough.
As I signed their immaculately kept copy of Euro Trashed and said my farewells, I snuck a glance at Sommer. I had to hand it to her, she had grit. Most girls would have left ten minutes ago. No, most girls would never have agreed to my request in the first place.
As she spit the star into my hand, and took a slow sip of the water I offered her, she never moved her eyes from mine. What wasit I saw in that look? Relief? Yes, but not because the task was over, more so because she’d been given a task at all.
“I’m sorry,” I said. It wasn’t a lie; I was. The madman, sated, had subsided. “I lost track of time.” That was a lie. She raised a hand to her jaw. “Is it sore?” I asked, placing my fingertips on the opposite side of her face.
She didn’t answer, Only held my gaze with those eyes a man could drop in. I rubbed slow circles on her smooth skin. A brave man would have kissed her right then.
“Well, I should get that article for you,” I said, clearing my throat and standing. What was wrong with me?
The worst moments for me, as a writer, are watching someone read my work. I’d whipped up a piece the evening before, with a vague plan and the Intention of using it as bait, but now, as Sommer’s eyes scanned the text, I worried that maybe I should have put more effort into it. Was she frowning? Did she hate it? Would she think I was a hack? Damn. Why did I come up with this stupid idea anyway?
Finished, she looked up at me, frowning. “What the hell is this?”
Oh god, she hated it.
“It’s a rough draft,” I answered, with feigned nonchalance.
“I thought you said you were a travel writer? Why aren’t you writing about stuff like this, stuff that really matters?” she nodded to the open laptop on the living room table.
“You like it?”
“Are you kidding? It’s brilliant! Will you really be able to publish this?”
I hadn’t thought that far ahead. “Of course.”
“Where?”
Good question. “I have a good friend who’s the chief editor at Far and Away magazine, I know he’d love an article like this.”
“Seriously?” her eyes drilled into mine.
“Scouts Honor.” I made a mental note to email Josh at F&A and remind him of the photos I had of him in Cancun, (with the blondes), that his wife had never seen.
“Wow,” she stared back down at the screen. “This is huge. Finallysomeone might see the damage being done on this island. I don’t know how to thank you.”
I did.
Come on tough guy, you’ve come this far. “You could be my slave for a few days.”
“You what?” she laughed but it was the kind of laugh that threatened to pull out a shiv and belly stick you.
“Never mind, you’ll probably think it’s Stupid.”
“I just sat here for twenty minutes with a piece of fruit on my tongue, I think it’s safe to say I’m tolerant of stupid.”
“Slave is a bit of an exam. Look, I’m going to Motu Moana tomorrow, for a few days; I’ve been given a free stay at the cottage there. I could really use an assistant. Mostly it would be everyday stuff — cooking a few meals, cleaning up, things I hate doing while I’m working — but also…” I took a deep breath for dramatic effect, “…you inspire me.”
Out came the bullshit detector again, she ran a triple scan on me.
“Well,” she said, with a smile, “as intriguing as your offer sounds, I’m here on the Foundation’s dime, there’s lots of work I can do while I wait for Barry to get well and, besides, helping to save the reef is just a teensy bit more important than being your housemaid and muse. But thanks.”
Losing her. I knew it seemed too easy. Time to call in the back up.
“Completely understandable. I should have mentioned that I also I watched her eyes drift down to the words on the screen. “But you’re probably right. I can just get you to email me some info and I’ll take a look at it when I’m back home.” I chuckled as good naturally as possible, “Thanks for putting up with my silliness, I’ll just get your email address, if that’s OK.”
“Is it still there?” she asked, standing, reaching a hand up byeen her should blades and turning away from me.
“Is what still there?”
“The sign someone obviously taped to my back that says Please fuck with me, I’m a complete moron.”
Oh shit.
“Look, Sommer, I–“
“Save it, I know what you’re trying to pull. People lie to my face all the time, Mr By the Way; you think I haven’t learned to spot the signs? I honestly thought you were going to be different from all the other suits who think they can get me to behave the way they want with a bit of flattery and a few false promises.” She shrugged, “I guess I am a moron.”
In one motion, she scooped up the remaining star fruit slices off the plate, hurled them at my face, with a suggestion for where I could shove them, and beelined for the sliding door. What could I say that wouldn’t sound lame or desperate? Nothing.
She whipped her head around to face me, blue eyes on full, “You should have stuck with weird, I like weird.”
With a silent slide of the door, she was gone. For the second time in two days, I watched that
woman storm away from me as I cleaned up the mess she’d made. My own fault, entirely. I’d overdone it. Too impatient.
The problem was, she did inspire me, in the worst way.
#
The…
After watching the cursor flash for a minute, I deleted the word. Why couldn’t I focus? Stupid, this was stupid. All writers do is complain about lack of time and privacy and here I was, alone on my own island, staring at the blank screen of my laptop, without a single idea in my cranium.
Looking at the clock on the wall, I sawed. Five hours of nothing. No, I wasn’t going to fall into this pit. Cracking my knuckles, I lowered my fingers to the keyboard and typed.
It was…
It was what? And what was it? The cursor blinked its impatience as I lowered my forehead to the desk and let out a noise like air leaking from a tire. Without looking up, I closed the cover. Maybe a walk would help.
From the raised porch, I could see out over a large expansion of the lagoon. Can anyone really capture this in words? I wondered, a thought that didn’t lift my spirits. The beauty of the vista was so overwhelming that it felt fake, like a Disney-fied version of a tropical paradise. Blue sky and blue water competed as is If they were the two pretty girls at the prom, trying to outshine each other to become queen. Sky had chosen white accesses — puffy clouds and graceful pilot birds. Water went with the striking contrast of green vegetation and pale, beige sand. Not to mention, a red kayak to top it all off. Sure, I thought as I ambled down the wooden steps, on most bodies of water the red kayak would be garish but the lagoon pulls it off with …
A kayak?
Some maniac had paddled all the way from the main island. What were they thinking? It was already four o’clock; they’dnever make it back before sunset.
Something ticked the base of my spine.
No way.
Still, the ticked persisted.
Jogging back up the stairs, I grabbed the set of binarys my hosts had left for me. As soon as they were focused, and I’d found my subject, the ticked climbed all the way up to my neck. The golden highlights in her hair caught the light; Sommer was paddling to my beach. Paddling hard.
I’ve suffocated some urges in my time but the one I stringed that day, (my desire to run to the water’s edge, jump up and down, and wave my arms like I was flagging down a rescue boat), was probably the most difficult. What to do? Climb into the hammock and pretend to be sleep? Go inside, close the door and pretend to be working? I laughed. How about honesty for a change, asshole?
When the kayak was close enough, I made my way down the stairs. I didn’t run, I walked. Not fast, either. My toes hit the warm water the same moment her boat skidded ontothe sand. Without offering to help, I watched her slip out of the kayak, grab a yellow dry bag out of the cockpit and plant her paddle in the sand.
Like gunfighters, we sized each other up.
“I want a chapter,” she said, between laboured breaths. Her eyes hidden behind sunglasses but I didn’t have to see them to know how brightly they burned.
“I want a slave,” I answered. She’d asked for honesty.
“One full chapter, in your new book, developed to the environmental problems in the Cook Islands.” Sweat glistened on her body – a body on display, covered by a bikini no bigger than four large bandages.
“Three days. You do whatever I say. We set ground rules together but after that you obey. No questions, no throwing of food or beverages.” I crossed my arms and dared her to object.
“I need a swim first,” she said, tossing her bag on the shore and dragging her boat far enough out of the water that it wouldn’t float away.
“Fine. I’ll be inside when you’re ready,” I nodded towards the cottage.
As she removed her sunglasses and strolled into the lagoon, she called out over her shoulder, “I’m still angry”, then ran and dove into the blue.
Now it was her turn to lie.
#
You’ll never catch me wearing leather and wielding a cat-o-nine tails. My brand of sadism is organic, inspired in the moment, nobleished by circumstances. At this moment, though, it was rusty.
Sommer and I worked out a list of rules as if we were warning political leaders negotiating a peace treaty. We each wanted something, we each feared losing something, we were both too stubborn to give much and too proud to show our weaknesses. We picked a safe word and signal — a concept new to my future slave — and agreed on some protocols. In return, I put my promise of a full chapter in writing, with a signature.
When we shook hands, she was trembling. Good. I’d have worried if she wasn’t nervous.
Her freedom ended, not with a bang but with a sizzle. Her first order was to make dinner, (an order I silently vowed, as I gnawed on a piece of leathery steak, never to repeat). Next was to clear up and do the dishes. When done, I told her I’d be working and she could read a book or whatever she liked.
A better torture, I could not have designed. Her nerves and expectations were doing my work for me. Visions of shades and ball gags, were dancing in her head. At any moment, she probably thought I’d pounce, demand she crawl on the floor and lick my feet. For the first time, I thanked all those stereotypes I hated.
Subtlety, how much joy you bring.
I was typing furiously when I felt her standing in the doorway of my bedroom. With a suggestion of a smile, I turned, “Yes?”
She shifted her weight from foot to bare foot in a way that made my throat dry. “Um, it’s almost ten o’clock and I’m tired from my paddle so…um…”
This was killing her, asking permission. No way Iwas going to let her out of it, “So…?”
“So,” she told, (what a beautiful noise), “is it OK if I go to bed…?” A gap at the end of her question. What was she to call me? I’d never told her.
“Oh,” I let my face be friendly, “certainly.”
“Thanks,” she said and turned to go.
“Thank you, Master.“
Stopped in her tracks. Her fists clenched and unclenched. “Thank you…Master.”
Ouch.
“Goodnight.” I turned back to my screen, with a smile as big as the moon hanging on the water.
#
Evidence of my slave’s sleepless night was everywhere. The puffiness of her eyes, the clumsiness of her movements, her yawns every time she thought I wasn’t looking.
“Sleep well?” I asked, as I stirred my coffee.
“Like a baby.”
“And we all know how well they sleep.”
The next time she thought I wasn’t looking, she stuck out her tongue at me. If she’d been trained, that would have meant swif and merciless punishment, but I choose to keep my knowledge of her mini-rebellion as ammunition for later.
I’d listened to her toss and turn for hours, as her bedroom adjoined mine. With each squeak of the bedsprings, the need in my loins grow. Awakenings can be so painful for some people.
Sommer was fighting hers with as much determination as she fought the crab killers. The difference was she Actually had a chance of stopping the killers.
“There’s a bag on your bed. After you finish your breakfast and have a shower, put on the items you find in the bag and meet me on the beach.”
She saluted as she bit a chunk out of the top of a mango. “Sho thing, Boss.”
So many infections already. What a delightful challenge.
July is about the most perfect month in the South Pacific. As always, the sun shows up each morning and punches his time card but the trade winds keep everything cool and, most importantly, dry. Tropical humidity can take down even the Energizer bunny. Walking along the edge of the water, letting the sand massage my toes, I wondered that more European sailors didn’t mutiny when they arrived on these shores. Especially if they were greeted by native women as sintily clad as the lovely creativity headed in my direction.
Smart-ass comments were backed up in her mouth like cars during an LA rush hour. If I flinched now, it’d be over.
“Well done,” I said, taking a long, steady look. “My inspiration made flesh.”
The coconut shell bra had been displayed on a shelf in the sitting area — it didn’t really fit but that wasn’t the point. An early riser, I’d gathered enough palm leaves to fashion a crude skirt. Inside the dresser drawer in my bedroom I’d found some shell necklaces, all chipped and the worse for wear but Somehow that added to the authenticity.
“You make a beautiful native,” I reassure her. She did. Even though she looked as happy as a lion on a skating rink, she was custom made for this role.
“Is there something you–“
“Ah!” I raised a finger to halt her, “Today you are an ignorant savage. I need to feel like I’ve traveled back in time, that I’m visiting this island before the white man inflicted his Puritanism on the natives and ruined everything worthwhile. You don’t speak my language. You may grunt or make up a tongue of your own but no English. Understood.”
She nodded with a slight smile. Infraction number three.
“Of course, I’ll need to give you orders so let’s just pretend that you can understand English, even though you can’t speak it. Poetic license, if you will.”
She fiddled with the bra. It did look unyielding. Soft, breast flesh spilled out around the hard edges of the shells. For a second I forgot what I wanted to say.
“And the safe word can always be spoken, naturally.” I hope not to hear it but she could never know that. “You’re going to go about your day, gathering coconuts, wood for a fire, weaving palm leaves to eat off of, resting if you’re tired, swimming if you’re hot, whatever you like. I’ll just observe until I want something.”
As much as I wanted her to suffer, I didn’t want her to go through the day miserable. The sooner she got into the spirit of things, the better.
“Sommer…no, you’re a native now, I’ll call you Girl, that’s the kind of thing a superior, civilized man would call someone like you. Girl, you are free from society, free from social codes and manners and restraint. You’re feral. Wild. Enjoy it. Fart, pick your nose, eat bugs, I don’t care.” Ah, a smile at last. “This is your island, you do what you want.”
All she could do for a few minutes was stare out at the water. I’d have given anything to climb inside her brain, what a battleground it must have been. Absolute freedom delivered through slavery. Holy mind fuck, Batman.
Inertia eventually succeeded to her natural restlessness. She walked away from me, away from the cottage, like someone whomo had never walked on a beach in her life. In a sense, I think she never had.
Feeling part stalker, part field researcher, I followed at a respectful distance. It was like watching one of those nature documents where they release an animal into the wild when it’s only known capacity all its life. She picked up and examined shells, drew designs in the sand with her fingers, squatted down to watch hermit crabs, played with the palm leaves that dangled from her waist.
For maybe twenty minutes, this was her shtick. Then she turned and looked at me, all question. I will an answer onto my face. Go. She sniffed the air, let out a burst of laughter and took off running. Yes!
I let her go, humming the theme song to Born Free as I made my way to the hammock.
After burning off her nervous tension, the savage returned. From the comfort of the porch, I watched her collect and husk coconuts. She was surprisingly good at it, using a rusted machete she’d found to split the hard nut in half, with well placed taps.
“Ungh?” she grunted, as she appeared at my side, offering me half.
“Thank you, girl,” I said, tilting the sweet liquid into my mouth.
As she drank from her half, trickles of juice ran down the sides of the nut, down her chin, dripped onto her chest. All of her body was coated in a light sheen of sweat. Too much wetness too soon.
Adjusting the coconut bra again, she finished her drink and skipped off down the stairs. I let her play for all of the morning, content to watch from afar and push ideas around. Sometimes I’d close my eyes and listen to the rustle of her grass skirt, imagining my hands parting those leaves, reaching between her thighs.
When she wanted to start a fire, there was a moment of frustration, as she struggled to communicate Her need for a means to light it. Once it was blazing, however, and the pieces of fish I’d given her were cooking inside the banana leaves she’d used as wrappers, her smile became a permanent fixture.
Whe she’d been all sinew and stress, now I saw hints of calm emerging. The only hindrance was the damn bra. Like most of my plans, I’d never really thought about the long-term implications. Either she was scratching underneath it or shifting the cups around, she couldn’t relax, this was a problem.
She needed help, and I was prepared to give it, but she had to ask.
An hour after she finished eating her fish, she flopped down on the porch, in front of me. By then she was using a mock Maori language to express her thoughts. She pointed at the bra and frowned, “Atu etka.”
“Yes, that’s a lovely garment you have on.”
“Etka!” she scowled and made scratching motions with her fingers.
“Oh, it’s itchy?” I asked.
She nodded vigorously. “Atu,” she repeated, lifting the edge of one of the cups to show me a red mark where it had been digging into her tender skin.
“Ow.” I inhaled through clenched teeth as I examined the abrasion. “You know, most of the native women I’ve seen, just go topless. This is a deserted island. I won’t tell anyone if you won’t.”
I expected resistance. I expected war, protests, more smiling. I didn’t expect her face to melt into a puddle of relief a nano-second before she ripped the cursed nut bra off her body.
Damn.
Now I was the one who Couldn’t speak. Luckily she was so busy itching and massaging her irritated breasts that she didn’t notice my mouth fall open. Her nipples stood pink and flawless as frangipani flowers.
I closed my mouth. I blinked three or four times. When she finally looked at me again, I was the picture of composition. But I felt the madman taking over again.
Give it a minute.
“Better?” I asked, congenially.
Self-consciousness was absent from her nod. Good.
Down the stairs she bounced, raising her hands over her head, stretching and giggling. Gazelle legs took confident strides to the water’s edge and she splashed her way to the deep water. I’d been plenty patient. Time to begin training in earnest.
#
Where there are boats, there’s usually rope. Under the raised cottage, I’d found a good length of soft poly. My slave splashed around for ages, leaving me ample time to find a suitable palm tree, one hanging almost horizontal over the beach. With a few tosses, I had the rope around the trunk. All I needed was my girl.
When she finally returned to dry land and rinsed herself in the outdoor shower, I waved her over to where I was standing — dangling rope hidden behind me.
“I need to make an offer to Tangaroa, god of the sea. Do you trust me?”
“Ika,” she said, nodding.
“Hold out your arms.”
She did. I wrapped my hands around her wrists and pulled her towards me, sidestepping half a second before our bodies touched. I let go with one hand, grabbed one end of rope and looped it over her right wrist.
“This won’t hurt,” I said, to ease the muscles in her neck, which were tensing.
Pulling her left wrist on top of her right one, I made another loop. When everything was snug, without being tight, I grabbed the loose end of the rope and hoisted her arms over her head. The remaining length of rope, I tied to the trunk of the palm.
“Are you in any pain?”
Folding her lips inward, to contain her appreciation, she shook her head from side to side.
“Good.”
I stepped back to admit the tableau. Stretched like a late afternoon shadow, vulnerable, half naked, water from her wet hair forming winding streams down her bronze body, eyes unsure where to focus, the girl was enchanting. There were so many bad things I wanted to do to her.
“You know about Tangaroa, don’t you?”
She Shook her head. I had a feeling she wasn’t going to speak anymore.
“Ancient Islanders worshipped him as their most powerful god. He controls the sea, controls the weatherer, controls the fish. When you want something from Tangaroa, you have to say a prayer and make an offer. Today I’m offering you to him.”
A smile moved into the corners of her mouth.
I stared in silence until uncertainty evil her pleasure. Something was still missing; I needed my power to be absolute.
“No, this won’t do.”
I followed the trunk of the palm to the end, plucking off a long, green frond. Returning to the girl, I gestured for her to open her mouth. She licked her lips once and obeyed. Those blue eyes widened fully as I slipped the front into her mouth and cinched it tight around her head, gagging my prey.
A slider of fear pierced her eyes. Better.
Even though I was making everything up, I began to slide out of reality. How would a human sacrifice be prepared? Paint. Yes, she should be painted. Looking around, my eyes fell on the remains of the fire the girl had made. Walking over, I took my time, letting her growing fear simmer.
With a small piece of charcoaled wood in my hand, I returned to find her breathing faster than normal, eyes fixed on what I was carrying.
“You’re too pretty,” the madman said.
First, I drew designs similar to the traditional Maori symbols. Starting high on the inside of her left wrist, I dragged the stick down her arm, and back up, around, across, defiling her luminous skin with black smudges. Her chest rose and fall and I imagined the beat of her heart to be the escalating rhythm of native war drums.
The other arm was the same but her disappoint was inspiring me. When I moved to her back, I traced the word, slut, across it in large, clumsy letters. She began to sweat, which made it harder for me to write. Annoyed, my movements became brusquer. When I moved around to her front, standing as close as possible while still allowing myself room to paint, she wriggled, trying to step away from me.
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