Gillian's Island

by Natalie Vivien

  But normal life on the island involves so much more than falling in love, so much more than hot sex behind a waterfall. We've divided up the daily responsibilities—foraging, fishing, fire-tending—and I haven't done my chores for the day, as busy as I've been...

  I also haven't taken enough pictures yet. Charity keeps urging me, reminding me to take pictures, saying that, shipwreck or not, we still need photos to show to the board when (or, you know, if) we get off of this island. But not only do things like jobs and office work seem impossibly distant and unreal here, where we live in tepees made of sticks and dinner is fish cooked over an open fire with bananas for dessert...but I find myself focusing less on “the big picture” when I'm behind the lens these past few days. Focusing less on that big picture, and, instead, more and more on the tiny, lovely details—like a raindrop glistening on a curled leaf, or a fuzzy caterpillar inching over a stone.

  Or the smile of a beautiful sea captain.

  Over these past few days, in an effort to ignore my feelings for Ivy, I've tried to pay attention to the tasks at hand, like gathering fruit or adding wood to the signal fire, or strengthening the tepees with more dry sticks. And when I take pictures, I've found that the glorious beaches and the coastline don't catch my eye as much as the details that they contain. Besides, I see things everywhere that remind me of Ivy, like the curving line of a palm tree, or the green of a palm frond overhead, as vivid and electric as Ivy's eyes.

  She's inspired me more than anyone has ever inspired me in my life. She's made me want to be better, to take better pictures, to rise above the rotten circumstances of my life—like being employed by a woman-hating jerk, and being too afraid to follow my dreams and become the photographer I have always, always wanted to be.

  She's inspired me to try harder.

  Ivy inspires me with her smile, with her confidence, with her sea-green gaze.

  Ivy inspires me in every way.

  I have been so changed by my time on the island.

  I think I've been changed for good.

  As we climb out of the waterfall cave now, as Ivy helps me down the incline, back to the stream's pool where I learned the breast stroke, I consider the length of her, consider her soft, triumphant smile as she glances my way, the flash in her eyes full of passion and fire and deep, sweet happiness that undoes me in a single glance.

  God, she's beautiful, and she's always been beautiful, but I see all of the other tiny things about her in this light, after making love, that I never noticed before. I notice the slope between her shoulder blades, the way her body curves, the rise of muscles in her shoulders, where I pressed my fingers. We're naked, Ivy and me, and I can see all of her, and, my God, she's glorious.

  And her heart is even more glorious than her body.

  Wow.

  I've fallen so quickly, so deeply, that there's no way that I can pull myself back from this, from the connection that I feel between Ivy and me. And, even if there was a way to disconnect, I don't want to. Ivy is everything I've ever wanted, is wild and carefree when I am not, knows exactly what she's meant to do in life and has gone after it. Her surety and confidence are like a drug to me; they wake me up, set me on fire.

  I love her. I love her smile, her laugh, the way her lips quirk up at the corners when she's trying to think of something less cutting to say to Brendan and Brian. I love the way that she looks at her brother, with such unabashed affection, and I love the way she took control when we first shipwrecked and turned our camp into a home.

  I love her.

  Ivy glances up at the sunshine, and she grimaces a little now, raking a hand back through her drying hair, making the blonde strands go off in every direction.

  “We've got to start collecting fruit,” she tells me with a small smile, and I grimace in return, worrying about all of the chores that we haven't finished—the most important one being dinner. Because dinner tonight is on us...

  But then, when I look at Ivy, at her broad smile as she glances at me with bright affection, her eyes warm and gentle, my anxieties seem to disappear inside of me, fluttering away into the mists of the waterfall as she holds out her hands to me. I take them, pressing my palms into hers.

  And Ivy draws me to her slowly, surely, and she wraps her arms around me and kisses me deeply.

  Her mouth is hot and soft, gentle and strong all at once, and the surety of her mouth over mine makes me relax against her, makes all of my clenched muscles slowly soften until my mind isn't thinking about the future or the past, isn't thinking about anything but this moment: Ivy and me standing beside the pool, wrapped up in one another.

  Together.

  We're standing in the forest, and we're still naked. We made love in that cave above us just a few moments ago. And as I kiss her deeply, as these moments in time slowly settle into the halls of my memory...I feel the last tendrils of anxiety flee from me.

  Is this what it's like to love someone? I wonder, as Ivy holds me out at arm's length, her eyes traveling over my body and shining with pleasure.

  Is this what it's like when things are good?

  Because it's been a very long time for me since things were good. I've been living a half-life for so long that I'd begun to believe that that was how life was supposed to be. You work, you try to do good work, and then you come home, eat dinner, fall asleep exhausted in bed...and then you wake up the next morning and do it all over again. Not that there's anything wrong with that way of life, but I thought that was all there was to life. Work and eating and sleeping, nothing else.

  But as Ivy holds me tightly against her, as I feel her heartbeat, I relax.

  Everything, right at this moment, is all right.

  Kind of a funny thought, considering the fact that we're shipwrecked on a deserted island.

  But it's the truth.

  Ivy makes me breathless as she holds my gaze with her twinkling eyes, as her mouth slants into a smile.

  “Best get dressed,” she tells me then, a low, velvety laugh making her shoulders shake as she glances at me with a wry grin. She shrugs a little, lifting her brows. “I think we'd cause quite a stir, walking into camp like this. Don't you?” She gestures down at herself, and my eyes can't help but follow the curves of her body, her breasts, the swell of her hips and center.

  Ivy steps close again and kisses my cheek gently. It's a kiss of promise, and a shiver pulses through me as I watch her turn, watch her begin to gather her cast-off clothes, and mine, too.

  I want to capture this moment forever: the cavern, the kisses, the swimming, the way her eyes looked when she glanced in my direction, the way her fingers felt gliding over my skin and inside of me. I know that the moment we leave the waterfall, it'll be over, this afternoon, and everything that happened between us will only be a memory.

  I'm not afraid. I know that this experience is coming to an end. I know that the first time we made love is past, that we'll never be able to recreate it together again. But I'm leaving this perfect place with Ivy. And we can go forward and make new memories together.

  Yeah. I like the sound of that.

  I begin to dress and glance at the sun, lowering itself into the western sky. “What about dinner?” I ask her, and Ivy shakes her head, smiling.

  “Don't worry about it. I told Rusty that we might be...uh...busy today. And he told me he'd take care of it,” she tells me with a practiced nonchalance as she lifts her chin, folding her arms in front of her.

  I gape at her, shaking my head. “You mean... Did you plan for this?” I ask, smiling, my heart beating erratically behind the cage of my ribs as I watch her.

  “What if I did?” she asks me solemnly, her head tilted to the side.

  Electricity races through me as we watch one another, the long shadows from the palm trees painting the both of us in a cool green.

  “I really like you, Gillian,” she says solemnly, her voice dropping to an almost-whisper. “After the kiss a few days ago...well...” She rakes her fingers back through her dryi
ng hair, and again the blonde strands stick up every which way, aided by the humidity. “I haven't been able to get you out of my mind,” she says simply, with a small shrug. “There was something to it, to the connection that I felt between us—from the first moment I saw you...” My heart leaps up into my throat as I gaze at her. “I couldn't let it go,” Ivy whispers, watching me.

  “Oh,” I breathe, unable to summon coherent thought as my heart beats erratically inside of me. She felt the connection, too. Maybe there really is something between us if we both feel it, have both felt it from the beginning.

  She smiles, reaching out into the space between us, and gathers one of my curls around her index finger. She executes this motion slowly, almost meditatively, as she tugs down gently on my curl, her hand so close to my face that I turn into her palm, closing my eyes as she presses her hand to my cheek.

  “I think you put a spell on me,” she tells me, her voice low and tight with emotion. My eyes snap open and find hers, and my breath catches in my throat as I see the wonder reflected in her cool-green gaze. “With that red hair, you might be a witch,” she says, her eyes soft, her smile slanted, teasing. “And I like that,” she says then, letting her fingers drop away from my face, even as my skin comes alive again, comes alive from her words, from her closeness, from the low, gravelly growl in her voice.

  We stare at one another for a long moment as I try to think of the best way to bring up the thing that's worrying me, the only thing that's standing between Ivy, me, and happiness. But now isn't the time to bring up her stance against relationships, to bring up the fact that she said she doesn't do relationships, to ask her whether this, what she feels between us, the connection, makes any difference...

  Because as much as all of my other anxieties have fled, as much as I'm warmed by her admission that she planned to do this with me this afternoon, that her seduction of me was something she longed for from the very start...I'm still worried about her telling me that there is no future for us. I'm trying to live in the moment, focus on the here and now, but the worry needles at me, no matter how much I consciously ignore it. It's small and sharp, pricking my insides with painful insistence.

  I clear my throat, grip her hand tightly.

  We walk back together through the woods. It's so humid, so hot, that the water droplets from the waterfall still cling to our hair and skin, and our sweat, too, is beading in tiny, gleaming drops. But despite the heat, I don't let go of her hand. I like the feel of her hot palm against my own, love the weight of her fingers. Occasionally, she squeezes my hand as we walk among the trees silently, casting me small, secretive smiles.

  I keep my attention on Ivy, beautiful Ivy beside me, on the memory of our bodies merging together. But I'm a worrier by nature. And by the time we reach the campsite, I'm more worried than ever before.

  Rusty is standing beside the fire, already roasting the fish for dinner. The pile of fruit beside the fire will probably be our second course. When he glances up at us, his mouth is twitching at the corners, and he greets me with a wide smile, and nods to Ivy.

  “How are you guys? How was your day?” he asks us, with a exaggerated amount of nonchalance, one brow raised.

  “Wonderful,” says Ivy, winking at him, grinning widely. “Yours?”

  “Oh, you know. I fished. I gathered fruit. My day probably wasn't as, ahem, wonderful as yours.” He bats his eyes innocently at Ivy, who whacks him gently on the shoulder with a laugh.

  But when Ivy moves past him, toward the beach, Rusty glances at me from his position beside the fire.

  Something flickers over his eyes, something I can't quite place. Concern? Unrest? I'm about to open my mouth, about to ask him if he's okay, but then he turns and grabs one of the fish, speared on a stick over the fire, and he removes it from the flames, blowing gently on it with his back facing me.

  He clearly doesn't want to discuss whatever is bothering him, so I move on.

  Later that night, after a dinner of flounder and persimmons (what I'd do for a veggie burger slathered in ketchup, mustard and relish right now, I'd be ashamed to admit), I lie restlessly in the tepee I share with Ivy while she tends the signal fire, the flame roaring hotly just beyond the tepee's entrance. I can see her form silhouetted against the fire, and my eyes keep being drawn to her shadow, to her, as she adds logs in a practiced way, her face turned to the blaze, her profile in sharp contrast to the illuminated flames. My heart flutters inside of me as I lie on my side and watch Ivy work.

  The beach is cast in a hazy orange glow as the fire dances upward. The stars are out in full force tonight, and there isn't a cloud in the sky. Thanks to the lack of artificial lighting here, it's easy to pick out the Milky Way and a million, million stars scattered overhead. The immensity of the night sky makes my heart rise in my chest, absorbing all of that beauty. Sometimes I see planes fly past, and I can't help but think that there are so many people up there, so many people traveling over the vast ocean; surely someone will notice our pinprick fire against the darkness of the surrounding sea. That person might not think anything of the flicker of light, but knowing that they see us, proof of our existence, assures me that, eventually, we're going to be rescued.

  Probably soon.

  And when we get rescued, everything's going to change.

  Everything.

  I rub my hand over my face, stare up at the peak in the roof of the tepee, at the stars beyond it, visible and dazzlingly bright through the slits in the wood.

  Don't borrow trouble, my father always used to tell me. And I try not to. I think about today and how good Ivy made me feel. I think about her beneath me, above me, and I think about the scent of her, the taste of her. But those thoughts always lead to the inevitable question: What happens next?

  We aren't in a relationship. We certainly haven't talked about being in one, or whether we're going to stay in contact once we leave the island.

  Why can't things stay as simple as they are here? Here, on this island, everything is easy. Or, at least...easier.

  Charity was right: I'm a different person here; I'm becoming the person that I always wanted to be. I'm genuine, my true self with Ivy, and I love that. I love who I am now, and I especially love who I am when I'm with her.

  Will everything revert once we're back in Florida? When it's no longer easy for the two of us to be together? I don't know where Ivy lives or what her life is like. If she doesn't do relationships, does she have friends with benefits? She strikes me as a very sexual person...

  My stomach turns as my imagination begins to run away with me, spiraling out of control. After what seems like hours (but probably wasn't; the sky is still orange along the horizon), I can't lie still anymore.

  Everyone else has retired to their tepees and, presumably, gone to sleep, and that means that Ivy is alone out there with the fire and the soothing shush sounds of the beach at night, the slowly rising tide.

  I rise quietly, and I crawl outside, stretching as I consider Ivy's long, lean length bent over the fire, her blonde hair bound over her shoulder, her profile so beautiful that, for half of a heartbeat, I can't breathe.

  I pad closer, and then I kneel down next to Ivy, crouching beside the blaze, and I wrap her in my arms from behind. I reach around her shoulder and press my mouth to her earlobe, to the nape of her neck, breathing in the scent of her, the delicious salt of her skin, the wildness of the sea breeze in her hair as I kiss her. She leans back toward me with a slanted smile to meet my lips. We kiss deeply.

  She tastes sweet, and mingling with salt in her hair is the wild, green scent that is entirely Ivy...

  She smiles against my mouth then, and when I pull back a little, searching her eyes, she holds me in place with her flashing green gaze. We remain together for a long moment, holding one another tightly, unspeaking. The fire snaps and crackles in front of us, the insects sing in the woods, and the tide rises against the shore with a soft, constant sigh.

  It's so fragile, this moment; it's already sl
ipping through my fingers.

  “You should be sleeping,” Ivy whispers against me, bending her head so that her lips brush against my bare shoulder, just beside my tank top's strap. Her loose ponytail falls over her shoulder, and then her hair grazes my skin, the satin of it soft and sensual. I shiver a little, breathing out.

  “I just... I can't sleep,” I tell her simply, searching her face. I take a deep breath. “All I can think about is you,” I whisper. After I say those words, after they slip out of my mouth, a tremor races through me, and I wonder if I shouldn't have said anything at all. Honestly, what if she thinks I'm trying to tie her down?

  But all of my fears evaporate like the smoke drifting up toward the star-spangled sky, because Ivy pulls me close, and then she's kissing me softly, sensuously, kissing me as deeply as a thirsty woman drinks in water. It lasts for such a long time, the heat of her mouth, the velvety sensation of her tongue against mine... I can't remember a time when we weren't kissing like this.

  And it isn't an uncommitted kiss. There is passion, and there is fire here, and it's slow burning, patient. When we finally draw apart, breathless, the two of us simply sit together, my head pillowed comfortably on Ivy's shoulder; she holds me close, wrapped tightly in her arms. We watch the fire until I fall asleep.

  I wake in the tepee, curled up against Ivy, my back to her front. She's holding me close, tight against her, spooning me, and the strength of her arm wrapped around my middle calms me instantly, a gravity that holds me in place. I breathe out, relaxed...but then my heartbeat increases as I realize that something external caused me to wake up.

  Or, you know, someone.

  Charity is looming in the opening of our tepee, her silhouetted hands-on-hips gleefulness stark against the bright blue of the morning sky. Behind her, the relentless and still-roaring signal fire burns on the beach.