Wreckers Island

by L K Harcourt

  As the boys headed off, Emma announced she was going up to the bedroom to get dressed. Tactfully, Louise waited until she came back down a few minutes later before doing the same. She returned to find Emma in the living room, her head buried in her new Kindle e-book reader.

  ‘Are they any good those Kindles?’ asked Louise, still worried she had upset her.

  ‘Yes,’ replied Emma, ‘you can store loads of books on them.’ She said nothing more and Louise, realising that she didn’t want to talk, sipped her tea quietly, hoping that a perfectly good friendship had not just been wrecked on Wreckers’ Island, within hours of them arriving.

  That evening, as the setting sun sent forth a golden finger rippling across darkening, purplish waters surrounding Wreckers Island, a fire blazed in the hearth and the four undergraduates, glasses of wine in their hands, chatted as they dined on a meal cooked by Emma. Despite the fairly primitive surroundings, she was pleased to find that she could actually knock up quite a creditable plateful of pan-fried chicken in a creamy, white wine sauce, served with some surprisingly good croutons.

  If she was still worried about being stuck on this island, and the bizarre encounter with Louise earlier, she didn’t show it. The four of them had a great time, with plenty of good wine to wash down Emma’s excellent food.

  ‘I would love to know,’ said John, sprawling out over the sofa after they had finished eating, and slurring his words very slightly, ‘I would love to know more about the history of this stretch of coast. I wonder what happened to all the wreckers’ loot, all their ill-gotten gains. I suppose they turned it into hard cash and got drunk on the proceeds.’

  ‘I only wish I knew more,’ said Louise quietly. She had been rather subdued that night by her standards, but the boys at least had failed to notice. ‘There was some talk of some of the goods being hoarded in the underground caves you get round here but no-one ever knew for sure where. No doubt if any of the wreckers did leave any loot behind, someone will already have been along to lay their hands on it – some other villain probably.’

  ‘All the same,’ said John, ‘it would be fun to go and search the caves in our little boat.’

  ‘Sounds good to me if the weather holds,’ replied Louise.

  CHAPTER 3

  Emma went to bed earlier than the others that night – she wasn’t one for late nights and excessive drinking anyway. And she wanted a chance to get undressed and under the duvet first. Louise in any case was happy to stay drinking with the boys. In some ways, Louise was more of a ‘lad’ than the likes of Dan and she and John bantered and joked in front of the flickering light of the fire and a couple of oil lamps until well past midnight. Dan had headed to bed long before.

  When tiredness did finally catch up with her, Louise tiptoed up the spiral staircase and into the bedroom anxious not to wake her roommate. There were no actual beds but both had a mattress, duvet, a couple of sheets and several blankets each. It could get quite nippy in the lighthouse at night.

  A little ghostly moonlight filtering through the oblong window revealed that Emma had dragged her mattress into the far corner – as far away from me as possible, guessed Louise, rather hurt. She slipped out of her clothes and put on some thick pyjamas. No-one could accuse of being flirtatious wearing those! They would be nice and warm anyway.

  As she crawled under her duvet and pulled the blankets tight around her, she heard what she at first thought were the cries of a seagull above the roar of the sea. And then she realised there was sobbing coming from the other end of the room – it was Emma.

  Louise got up and went over to her and, speaking softly, said: ‘Emma, please don’t cry. I really didn’t mean to upset you. It will never happen again.’

  ‘You weren’t just washing yourself down, you were touching yourself and looking at me and I saw the lust in your eyes,’ whispered Emma. ‘I saw it, and it’s sinful. I was brought up a good Christian girl. To me that is a sin. Is this why you invited me here, to prey on me within a couple of hours of us getting here?’

  ‘Of course not,’ replied Louise. ‘And if it is sinful then it is I who have sinned, not you. Be angry with me but there’s no need to be angry with yourself. Why are you angry with yourself?’

  ‘I’m not angry with myself,’ snapped back Emma.

  ‘I think you are, that’s why, when I said ‘don’t be mad with me’ earlier, you replied: ‘it’s not just you I’m mad with. And then you seemed to realise you’d slipped up.’

  Emma said nothing and then, sensing weakness, Louise carried on: ‘if my nakedness offended you then can I ask you something: why did you look at me? You did, didn’t you? I could tell. You watched, although you pretended not to, as I soaped myself. I felt we connected at that moment, isn’t that so, Emma? Did I misread that?’

  There was no reply, but the sobbing had stopped. Aware that this could be a holiday-ruining moment, but deciding to take the risk, Louise slipped herself beneath Emma’s duvet and pressed her body against hers. ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘Feel the horrible thick pyjamas I’ve got on.’ She took Emma’s hand and with it, made her grab a handful of her coarse, unisex pyjama top. ‘Not exactly seduction wear is it?’

  To Louise’s surprise, Emma clasped her hand tightly.

  ‘We connected earlier, didn’t we Emma?’ repeated Louise. ‘That’s why you’re so cross and upset – you’re cross and upset with yourself.’

  ‘I am cross that you tried to tempt me, putting thoughts and feelings into my head that I’ve never had before,’ whispered Emma’s quavering voice. ‘You were playing mind games with me.’

  ‘Ok then let’s stop the games,’ said Louise and, barely able to believe what she was now doing, reached down to Emma’s ankles and began to gently run her fingers slowly over them and then up beneath her nightie and on to Emma’s shins.

  ‘No!’ hissed Emma. ‘Get out of my bed, go away.’

  ‘Then push me away,’ hissed Louise back, and her fingers continued their journey up Emma’s legs, reaching her knees, then on to her thighs.

  Emma said nothing more and so Louise, her heart in her mouth, ran her fingers up further.

  CHAPTER 4

  The following morning, the girls were awoken by a knock on the bedroom door. It was John who, without waiting for an answer, walked in with two steaming mugs of tea. He looked a little taken aback to find them both curled up together.

  ‘Girls can do that sort of thing,’ he chuckled. ‘If you’d walked in on Dan and me under the same duvet you’d be thinking there was something going on! I’ve got you some tea and we’ve got some sausages and bacon already frying. It looks like it’s going to be another nice day.’

  ‘Right!’ mumbled John, his mouth half full of breakfast a few minutes later. ‘What are we going to do today? Why don’t we go out in the boat and explore the coast? I feel like achieving something after a lazy afternoon yesterday. Plus the fact that I think the weather is not going to be so great tomorrow.’

  ‘Also, we could do with getting to the mainland and buying some more supplies,’ pointed out Dan, ‘especially if the weather is on the turn.’

  ‘Ok, well let’s get our shopping done, get ourselves a sort of picnic lunch and then motor along the coast a bit and go and explore some of the wreckers’ caves,’ said Emma.

  ‘You never know, we might even find long-lost treasure,’ chimed in Louise, her vivid green eyes sparkling. ‘Now that really would be like something out of a book, wouldn’t it? No, I’m joking! We won’t really find treasure,’ she said. ‘We’re at least two centuries too late. But we’ll have a lot of fun looking!’

  A full English breakfast was rounded off with coffee and toast and marmalade after which the four students felt very satisfied.

  ‘Oh you know, I could almost just loll here all day, reading my Kindle and staring out at that awesome view,’ said Emma chirpily. Dan noticed that she seemed surprisingly bright and self confident that morning.

  ‘Well, we’ll have plent
y of time for staring at the view and reading books – or Kindles – tomorrow when our little island is lashed with rain,’ he pointed out.

  ‘Oi, less of the ‘our’, remarked Louise, feigning a scowl. ‘This island and its worldly goods belongs to me, remember!’ a mischievous look in her eyes. ‘Well, my mum and dad anyway. Mind you, it is nice to share it with you and to have someone to cuddle up with at night, rather than being on my own.’

  She too, seemed strangely elated that morning, concluded Dan, a perceptive, intelligent young man. And he observed also how she reddened slightly and looked a little awkward after making that remark – as indeed did Emma, who looked away.

  ~~~~~

  ‘All aboard!’ cried Louise a few minutes later when her three guests finally heaved themselves from the breakfast table and out the front door.

  ‘For a minute,’ gasped Emma, ‘you feel like you’re coming out of an ordinary door and stepping onto a pavement with houses all around don’t you, and then it hits you that you’re actually in a lighthouse on a little island and there is nothing but sea in all directions. It’s just mind blowing.’

  Louise smiled at her. That is exactly how she felt about this place and she was pleased Emma shared that sense of awe and delight. She felt a warm glow inside her that this woman for whom she had felt an increasing attraction at university was with her in this special place and that together, after an initial awkwardness, they had enjoyed an intimacy about which she had so often fantasised.

  Louise’s boat was a sailing dinghy with a small outboard motor attached. For the purposes of getting the fairly short distance to the shore, it was easier to use the motor, although usually she preferred to rig up the sails. The others watched in admiration as she deftly weaved her way round the rocky outcrops poking out in the bay – rocks which could cause so much misery to sailors less experienced. Louise cut the engine as they came into shallow water and then rowed herself to the jetty.

  Beyond the beach was Porthlevnack, the sort of timeless Cornish fishing village that you might have thought had disappeared long ago. It was nice to see that such places still existed. On a hillside above were the ruins of an old castle, which added very much to its old-fashioned ambience.

  Louise, John, Dan and Emma spent the morning contentedly ambling around. Louise knew every inch of the place, of course, but for the others it was somewhere they had never been before. They enjoyed strolling along the narrow, winding lanes overlooked by quaint, whitewashed cottages perched on steep slopes which overhung a harbour dotted with colourful fishing boats.

  ‘You know,’ said John to Louise. ‘This is a simply enchanting place to come for a holiday. To have an island to call your own, with its own lighthouse and this wonderful little village on your doorstep, you are very lucky.’

  Louise’s face lit up. It was wonderful, but it was a thousand times more so with friends there to share it. The others didn’t know it but before she had been to university, she had actually been rather a lonely youngster, growing up in very rural mid Cornwall, with few people her own age to mix with.

  John’s existing strong feelings for Louise were deepening in these surroundings and the smiles she gave him encouraged him to hope that possibly, just possibly, there might be a chance of them getting together. So often during the academic year he had planned to ask her out but he rarely got to spend any time with her alone.

  Meanwhile, Dan was seizing the chance for a one-to-one chat with Emma. Yet Emma, despite her ebullient spirits that day, kept flicking her blonde hair in a distracted sort of way while shooting rather a lot of glances towards John and Louise.

  The four of them finished up in a small 17th century café for coffee and cakes. From their seats in the huge bay window set in a thick stone wall, they could look out at the harbour and just about see, in the far distance, their little island and lighthouse. Afterwards, they took some fresh food and milk back to the boat to reinforce supplies at the lighthouse and some snacks for a picnic.

  ‘Right off we go, bound for the Wrecker’s Caves,’ declared Louise as she pulled the starting cable on the engine and the little boat roared away from the shore of Gunwalloe Cove. She swung to the right and round a promontory. The coastline was extraordinarily jagged here. No sooner did you go round one jutting out headland, than you found yourself turning hard back on yourself, heading into natural inlets and mini-harbours, often sheltered from the fresh sea breeze and where the sea was as calm and flat as pond water.

  ‘There’s a type of lagoon here in between those two sandbanks,’ said Louise, pointing, where the water is almost as warm as the rock pools on my island. Why don’t we anchor and do a spot of swimming, and then have our picnic lunch?’

  That sounded a good idea and the four had all taken the precaution of putting on their swimwear that morning before setting out. Louise cut the engine and let down the anchor. They stripped off their clothes and leaped overboard.

  ‘It’s amazingly warm,’ enthused Emma as she sank into the water, a delightful turquoise under the summer sun. John and Dan swam to the sandbank and hauled themselves out onto it. The pair of them stood on the bar of sand protruding from the water and pretended to be shipwrecked sailors.

  ‘Get back in, you wusses,’ Louise bawled at them.

  Emma lay paddling on her back, gazing at John and Dan prancing about under the bright sun. She had never seen them clad only in swimming trunks before. They both had good physiques although Dan was a slighter build than John – yet in a way his slender, ever so slightly feminine features drew her. With their lean, muscular frames, narrow hips and tight stomachs they would both be a good catch. Neither had a girlfriend but there must be many females who would be happy to fall into their arms and, indeed, their beds.

  Did she come into that category? Her bizarre encounter with Louise the night before had got her wondering. Nothing like that had ever happened to her before. It was almost as if she had dreamed it. She felt ashamed in a way and yet somehow, fulfilled and more of a woman, less of a girl. Yesterday night, when she undressed for bed she’d somehow found herself putting on her skimpiest nightie. Why? Was she hoping Louise might join her? Is that why she began to sob as she opened the door? What, after all, was there to be upset about? Nothing really.

  And when Louise had got in alongside her she’d been disappointed to feel those coarse, thick pyjamas brushing against her. But when Louise’s hand, her gentle soft hand, started to stroke its way up her legs her resistance had melted away like an ice cream in the sun.

  Yet there, in front of her, were two young men in nothing but trunks. Did her loins burn at the sight? Did it make her ache to imagine those muscular arms around her shoulders and a semi-erect penis nuzzling her thigh, desperate to burst free from tight lycra trunks?

  To her relief, the answer to that was Yes. Thank goodness, she couldn’t help thinking. But then Louise got out on the sandbank as well, dripping wet in a pale yellow costume that clung to her every curve and she realised that she was not entirely straight either. At least, not any more.

  She tore her gaze away and forced herself to look instead at another impressive sight – the rocky coastline and those strange, cavernous openings in the cliffs. What perfect hiding places they must have made to stash some loot – smuggled goods or salvage from a wrecked ship.

  Emma swam back to the boat and got in. ‘Come on,’ she cried, ‘let’s have our picnic!’

  The others by now were sprawled on the edge of the sandbank, half submerged.

  ‘I could lie here all day,’ said John, reluctant to move. But Dan and Louise were hungry and they pushed him into the water before swimming off.

  ‘Hey, that’s not fair,’ he cried and tore after them.

  Once they had all clambered on board, they grabbed some crusty bread and made rather clumsy cheese and tomato sandwiches. Washed down with a can of lager each in that beautifully sheltered spot, the boat rocking gently, it was possibly the most perfect meal they’d had in ages.

>   ‘Now for some serious exploration,’ announced Louise, wiping the crumbs off her mouth when the last of the sandwiches had been devoured. She stood up in the boat and scrutinised the coast.

  As she did so, she became vaguely aware of being scrutinised herself – by John and Emma, both of whom seemed intent on removing her swimming costume with their eyes. Louise turned a little in their direction and brought her heels together. Posing in front of the mirror had taught her that doing so accentuated the contours and curves running between her legs. How Louise would love to push that part of herself into Emma’s sweet-featured face. Maybe later, she thought.

  It intrigued Louise that John also seemed rather taken with her. Clearly Dan was yet to be won over. In fact, she thought, uneasily, he seemed quite interested in Emma.

  Oh get a grip, she told herself. This holiday was about the four of them, all good friends, spending a nice, relaxing time together, free from the stress of their university course and their growing financial problems.

  Louise was worried because although her parents gave her ample cash to see her through if she was careful, she was a party girl who easily let money slip through her fingers. As for Emma, she barely had a penny to rub together. John and Dan, with regular work in the students union bar, were solvent for now – but only just.

  But that was the beauty of coming to stay in the lighthouse because it would be both immense fun and above all, cheap. They could all do with chilling out a bit after the increasing rigours of their BA degree course in French and fretting about who fancied whom was only going to create stress of a different kind. Louise pulled her jumper and jeans back on and advised the others to do the same. ‘It will be chilly where we’re going,’ she said.