by Emme Rollins
What was she thinking of?
“Rebecca!” The wind snatches the cry from my lips and hurls it into the great beyond.
She looks up, and her face contorts. She turns from me and hurries away.
“Rebecca! Don’t be stupid! Come in!”
But she vanishes into the darkness. I curse and almost slip on the wet deck. What is she wearing? High heels? How can she totter around on a slippery deck like this? The whole ship is quaking and listing from one side to the other, and I feel like I’m stuck in a ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ reel.
“Rebecca!”
I dash after her, but I think I have lost her in the dark now. I step over a pile of rope and almost trip myself up. A particularly furious gust of wind howls on the surface.
I hear a scream all the way towards the railing.
“Rebecca!”
I blink against the rain and wind. I rush to the railing. I can make out a flailing figure in the dark churning waters.
“Rebecca!”
Another scream tears from the figure. At this rate, she will drown or be crushed under the ship’s propellers!
Frantic, I scan my immediate environs for a lifebuoy. There are a couple of buoys tethered to a triangular stop in the railing. I quickly pull them from the railing and fling them into the sea.
“Rebecca! I just threw a buoy!”
I doubt she heard me.
Shit. I’ve got to do something.
Without stopping to think too deeply about this, I wrench my shoes and socks off, as well as Manny’s dinner jacket. Then I clamber over the railing and dive into the furiously churning waters.
Oh shit.
I forgot I can’t swim.
KURT
I bob in the water, gasping for breath and flailing with my hands.
“Rebecca!” I try to cry out, but water rushes into my mouth.
Waves crash into my face, sending salty water into my mouth and nostrils. Every time I try to gulp for more air, water slams into my face.
And then something else.
The lifebuoy lifts on the crest of the waves and delivers itself to me in what can only be described as an act of God. My cold and wet hands cling on to it and I hook two grateful arms around its ring.
“Rebecca!”
Both my stomach and lungs are sloshing with seawater. Why is the sea so damned choppy? (Oh right, there’s a storm.) I can’t see where she is in the dark and the only light we have – from the ship – is getting dimmer and dimmer.
I swing my head to the ship. Alas! It’s moving away from us, oblivious to our plight.
“Hey!” I call after it. “Don’t leave us!”
But the waves are sweeping us from it and the ship’s engine and turbines are determinedly going against the current.
Rebecca!
I swing my head wildly again to look for her. There she is! Clinging to the lifebuoy I threw her. She seems to be coping better than me, it appears. Maybe she can actually swim.
“Kurt?” she cries.
“Rebecca, I’m here!”
I don’t know how to swim properly, but I can actually paddle with my legs on a lifebuoy. I kick my legs to propel my body in her direction, and she seems to be doing the same. Her hair is plastered over her face, and occasionally, her form is lit up by lightning.
Strange that we are unable to hear the thunder for the roaring of blood and water in our ears.
“Rebecca, are you all right?” I say as I come closer.
We finally come close enough for me to reach my hand out and hook my right wrist around her buoy. Our clammy skins brush against each other’s. There is so much water splashing around that we can hardly make each other out.
“Just tide this over, OK?” I say to her.
Breathless, she nods. Our hands clasp each other’s between our bobbing buoys. Thank goodness we are in the tropics. The water could be a lot colder than it really is.
Not having the energy to do or say anything more besides cling to our buoys and to each other, we let the waves carry us to wherever they are going.
Which might be nowhere.
KURT
Blackness.
My dreams are filled with seawater. There’s water, water everywhere. Water in my eyes, water in my ears, water in my soaked pants which are weighing my down, water in my mouth, and water in every other orifice that I have.
Fuck.
I don’t think I’ll ever have a bath for the rest of my life.
REBECCA
I open my eyes and see the clear blue sky.
That is the first thing I see.
A bird wheels against this sky, its black silhouette stark against the pale blue bowl. White clouds scud across, obscuring higher clouds which are like feathers far, far above.
The ground beneath my body is hard. I blink several times, trying to gauge if this is a dream.
What happened?
I turn to my right, and I can see a wide expanse of beach. The sand is white and fine and very, very warm. My hands grasp fistfuls of it, more for the reassuring contact with Mother Earth than to test out how fine it is. My hair is sticky against my cheek, and a couple of sand particles stick to my eyelashes.
Is it true that no two grains of sand are alike? Or is that reserved for snowflakes?
Palm and coconut trees fringe the lush, green growth that borders the beach. Beyond this is higher ground bedecked with dense trees taller than anything I have ever seen in my life. The air is balmy and very humid. It is also extremely fresh, and the salt sea tang carries itself on the breeze.
I remember being blown by that freaky gust of wind off the deck and into the sea. I remember being majorly freaked out. It was as if a giant hand of air had plucked me off my feet and thrown me into the sky
Naturally, I landed.
I can swim like a fish, ironically, which is what kept me afloat – my ability to tread water for hours on end. But the sea was extremely choppy and there was no way anyone could swim for long in those waters. That is, until the life buoy came sailing into the air and struck me in the side of my head like a well-aimed shoe.
I’m saved, I thought.
Except that I wasn’t.
But what surprised me was the sight of Kurt Taylor diving in after me. Of all the stupid, dumbass things to do.
I mean . . . what would you do if someone goes overboard, right? You’d yell for the crew immediately. Yes, you’d throw out lifebuoys, but then you’d yell for the crew first. That way, someone other than yourself actually knows that a victim has gone overboard. You don’t dive in after the hapless victim, because then NO ONE will know that you are BOTH overboard.
You get it, right?
I get it. I’m a strategic planner. A thinker.
Obviously, Kurt Taylor hadn’t got the memo on what to do if people pitched overboard from a luxury cruise liner.
Of course he wouldn’t get it. He is a convicted felon, sentenced to hard labor with a mop and a wash rag on a ship on which he should be the nightly star attraction.
Kurt!
I sit up.
Where the fuck is Kurt?
Panic suddenly seizes me. My back protests something awful as I clamber to my feet. My feet are bare, naturally. I remember my heels coming off the moment I struck the surface of the water. My green dress – the one that was so expensive and in which I had looked so good in the night before – is mostly dry now and encrusted with the grime of salt.
Salt-baked dress. Haha. Take that, Prada.
If you think I’m being cavalier about all this, I am not. I’m terrified as hell. And when I’m terrified, my mind goes into an endless chatter of consciousness, where it makes – out of its subconscious volition, I swear – lame jokes and word associations and anagrams and everything that has been explored in ‘The Da Vinci Code’.
My legs are wobbly, but I make myself walk down the beach, looking for anything that can be construed as a body. I realize that the specter of Kurt Taylor actually dying fills
my head with more horror than actually encountering the dead drowned body of Kurt Taylor himself.
He can’t die!
He just can’t!
We have unfinished business!
“Kurt?” I try to call, but my voice comes out in a squeak.
The life buoy has also washed ashore, and it lies there, covered with sand. I’m not sure if it is my life buoy or Kurt’s. They don’t exactly come in ‘His’ and ‘Hers’ matching rings.
You see what I mean when I say that my mind babbles when I’m scared out of my wits?
“Kurt?” My voice comes out stronger now.
Where the hell is he?
Of course, there’s a possibility he could have drowned at sea. I remember both of us clinging to our life buoys, and I remember his arm forming a link around mine so that we wouldn’t be parted.
I remember him telling me, “Just close your eyes and rest. I’ve got you.”
I remember being so tired that I actually obeyed him in spite of my initial instinct to say, “Don’t tell me what to do!”
I remember closing my eyes, and feeling his hand – still warm despite the wetness that pervaded us – and drifting off.
Until I woke up here.
Only I have no idea where ‘here’ is and where Kurt Taylor is. Theoretically, he would never let me go and we should both end up on the same beach.
My heart skips several awful beats. I still can’t locate Kurt Taylor.
I continue to trawl the shore. I’m not sure if we are on an island, or if we have washed up to mainland. But one thing is certain. We are in the tropics. The sun is too high and the weather is too humid. I have only been walking for a bit, and already the sweat is clinging to my salted and tattered green dress.
“Kurt?” I call again.
And then I see him.
A body. Lying in the sand behind some boulders.
My heart literally stops.
My feet pick up speed and then they are literally flying to where he is. As I round the boulders, I see that he is half submerged in seawater. A trail of blood lends a red cast to the water around his right leg.
He’s hurt! Oh shit!
“Kurt!” The panic is very obvious in my voice.
I quickly place my hands under his armpits and tug him out of the water. His body is heavy and very limp. He is passed out, and his wet face is tranquil in repose. He is still breathing, thank God. I pull him up the shore until his feet are completely cleared of the water.
I don’t know the first thing about treating a wound. I need help. I need reinforcements.
I look around frantically. But there is no one. We are marooned in the middle of nowhere. Kurt has only me to tend to him.
I have to be strong for the both of us. I can do this. I really can.
Taking a deep breath, I inspect Kurt’s prone body. He still has all his clothes on, although his feet are bare, like mine. Sand covers the skin of his hands and feet.
I have to take off his pants to see where he is bleeding from.
The thought of taking off Kurt’s black pants fills me with a strange feeling.
Oh, come on. It’s not as if you’re taking his pants off for that thing.
Mustering my courage, I kneel by his body and start to undo the zipper of his pants. His pants are soaked through, and my fingers fumble as I finally manage to wriggle his waistband beneath his hipbones. He wears Calvin Klein underwear, and I can’t help noticing the nice bulge in his crotch. And he isn’t even hard.
Stop it.
I pull down his pants gingerly. I can’t help observing his thighs. They are muscular and very, very taut. He must do cardiovascular exercises fairly often. Dancing, I’ll bet. I read somewhere (OK, I didn’t really read it but merely skimmed through the article) that he worked diligently at improving his chosen craft. He took singing and dancing lessons in addition to songwriting.
I must admit I was impressed when I read . . . I mean skimmed through those factoids.
I work his pants over his knees, and that is when I notice the bleeding gash on his left shin. It is a linear cut, and I think he must have dashed it against some rocks or coral when he was washed ashore.
I have to stop the bleeding.
His shirt is made of a material which looks as if it can be easily torn. Now I have to take his shirt off as well. Undoing his buttons, I shrug it off his shoulders and arms. Not an easy feat, I can tell you, especially since I’m caught by the sight of his marvelously formed chest and his brown, enticing nipples.
His nipples are the particularly protuberant sort. Very erotic.
Stop it this instance!
His arms are nicely muscular as well. But I already knew that. When he was a high school jock, he already had a spectacular body. It only serves that he would grow into that body when he became a man. How old is he now? Twenty-three? He is in the prime of his physicality, and it shows in every magnificent part of his body.
Too bad he’s such a prick.
Still, he did dive in to try to save me. That has to count for something. Stupidity, perhaps, but it was still something.
I rip a large swath of his shirt with a cracking sound which seems too loud for the quiet atmosphere of distant chirping birds and rustling trees and washing waves. Then I fashion a sort of tourniquet and bind it around his shin. His leg is heavy as I lift it. I make several rounds and ensure the wound is covered tightly.
I can only hope he doesn’t get an infection.
Kurt stirs. I tense.
His eyes flutter open.
“Rebecca?” he says weakly.
“I’m here. You’ve been hurt and I think you’ve had a concussion.” My words spill over. I am aware that he is now mostly undressed except for his underwear. “I had to bind your wound. Look at it. Neat, huh? Are you all right?”
I’m babbling again. I am indirectly apologizing for taking almost all his clothes off.
I’m sorry for looking at you. And we still have that unresolved issue between us, so I don’t find you attractive.
His eyebrows crinkle as he frowns. Then he groans. His hand goes to the back of his head as he tries to sit up.
“Maybe you should just lie down until you feel better,” I suggest.
He looks me up and down as if I have a ripe pimple on my nose. His expression is dazed and confused.
“Are you OK?” he asks.
“No worse for the wear.”
He manages to balance himself on his buttocks. He glances at my makeshift bandage.
“Can I look at it?”
“No,” I say quickly. “It’s bleeding and I’ve just gotten it to stop.”
Indeed, the blood is seeping through the absorbent material of his shirt. That fabric is not made to be gauze, I can tell you.
“The bandage will need to be changed later on,” I say. “Here, let’s get out of the sun.”
I help him stand up. He smells of sea and salt and his own peculiar brand of man smell as he leans gingerly on my shoulders and hobbles into the shade of the trees. I am very aware of his masculinity.
“I’m OK,” he finally says as we both plunk our bodies down into the shade.
The ground is strewn with pebbles and patchy grass and dried leaves. The sun dapples in between the leaves. Out there, the waves are roaring as they flow and ebb, flow and ebb.
“Where are we?” he asks.
“Hell if I know.”
He licks his lips. “I think we should explore.”
“With your leg like that?”
“I’m not a baby.” He gets up again.
“Sit down. Rest a bit. Let’s think of what we should do next.”
“You’re always the one who has to be in control, isn’t that the case, Rebecca?” he shoots.
“What do you mean by that?”
“I mean you always have to boss people around. Here we are, shipwrecked, and you still have to be the one in charge,” he says with a touch of bitterness.
My jaw drops in surprise
. Oh, of all the nerve!
And to think I thought I found him attractive.
I quickly close my mouth before a mosquito can decide to go in.
“I’d just suggested that we should sit down and plan what we should do next instead of barging into the tropical forest like a Neanderthal. Besides, you are in no shape to walk around, Mr. ‘I Jump, You Jump’.”
It is his turn to drop his jaw in amazement.
“Excuse me, but didn’t I just rescue you from certain death by drowning?” he says acidly.
I’m a little abashed, but I’m on a roll.
“Yeah, but look at us now. Maybe you should just have called for someone and they would have hauled us both onboard. Instead, thanks to your bullheadedness, we’re both stranded here instead of being on the ship.”
OK, I’m awful. I’m really, really awful.
But I can’t help it. Kurt Taylor brings out the worst in me. And I can’t help it if I find him so damned attractive when he is half-naked and oozing sensuality without even trying. I can’t help it if we had that disastrous past together connected by a tenuous thread called Adeline Frost.
I can’t help it if I always push the people I’m most uncomfortable with away.
His face flinches, and I know I’ve hit home.
Ouch.
“Maybe I should just leave you in there to drown next time,” he says.
“Yeah, maybe you should.”
We both turn away from each other to sulk like petulant little children.
And to think we might be stuck here with each other for a very long time.
KURT
Rebecca is right, of course. I should have alerted one of the ship’s crew before blindly hurling myself into the vortex. But it’s too late now to rue what I should have or should not have done, because we are both now marooned on a deserted island.
Or is it really an island?
My throat is parched and my stomach rumbles something rude. I uncurl my long legs and get up.
“I don’t know about you, but I’m thirsty,” I say to her. She has her back to me, of course. “I’m going to see about getting us some fresh water.”