Dolphin Dreams

by Jules Jones

  Not just sexual attraction for them either, then. He wasn’t the only one who was lonely, though George’s was a different sort of loneliness. George had a partner, but few other friends of the same intellectual ability. When Martin had turned up, with his books and music and willingness to talk about local geology to anyone who’d sit still for it, he must have seemed like a gift from god.

  Would it help if he told them more about Simon?

  “Simon and I have been friends since university. We were on the same corridor in the hall of residence, and we turned out to have a lot of interests in common. Though not girls.” He smiled at the memory of the night Simon had realised that he was gay. Simon had cheerfully said, “All the more for me, then!” -- and meant it.

  “We both ended up in jobs that involved a lot of travelling, so we saw a lot of each other in the times we could both be in the same place. We understood the lifestyle; we could bitch to each other about the problems. And we were comfortable with each other. I think if we’d been the right match sexually, we’d have probably got together, but we’re not interested.”

  George thought that over for a while, then said, “But you like men.”

  “I also like monogamy.” He looked back over his shoulder at Patrick. “Well, I can probably handle the idea of having two partners. But not an open relationship.” He shrugged. “I’d be miserable with Simon screwing around, and he’d be miserable trying to be faithful, and we both know it, so there’s no temptation. There wouldn’t be even if he was bi or gay.”

  They’d actually had sex once, back at university, although he wasn’t going to tell George that. Simon had asked him, as a favour. He’d wanted to know what it felt like, because some girl he was pursuing had turned out to be in favour of strap-ons. Simon was willing to try anything once, but he preferred to try that sort of novel experience with someone he trusted, the first time at least.

  Simon had enjoyed it, but learnt that he really did prefer a girl with a strap-on to even his gay best friend; and Martin had enjoyed it, but learnt that he enjoyed fucking Simon, given the opportunity, but wasn’t terribly in lust with him. They’d both been quite happy with an affectionate but platonic relationship thereafter.

  “You’re not bothered by his behaviour?” Patrick asked.

  “No. He doesn’t lie to women about it.” Martin had never ceased to be surprised by how many women quite liked an honest offer of a night’s sex, no strings attached. “I think he’d be very happy in a long-term relationship if he could find a woman who was like him, but the only ones he’s met who’d be happy with an open relationship aren’t willing to put up with all the travelling at short notice.”

  George busied himself with the picnic basket, but asked, “So does Simon live down here? We hadn’t noticed him before.”

  “Yes, though he’s away a lot.” Anticipating the next question, he went on, “He’d just moved in the first time you met me. I came down to help him, but he ended up having to rush off again. This weekend was my first chance to get back here.”

  He decided that he’d like another sandwich as well and reached into the basket. His hand brushed against George’s, and George jerked back.

  “What’s wrong?” Martin asked.

  “One of those differences you were asking about.” George shook his head. “Never mind. Fucking can wait. I’d rather talk.”

  Something tickled Martin’s memory, but wouldn’t come clear. It was too long since he’d read that article, and at the time he’d been more struck by the discovery that male dolphins were bisexual. He just had a vague recollection that male dolphins had a very high sex drive. “You want sex more often than people like me do.”

  He felt Patrick kiss the back of his neck. “Going by previous experience.”

  “But we’ve learnt to wait,” George said. “Besides, I’d rather let my lunch go down. It’s often easier to find someone who’ll have sex than someone who’ll give me a nice lunch.”

  Now it was his turn to feel jealous. It was ridiculous. He wasn’t exactly inexperienced himself, and he had no right to expect them to be.

  “Now do you understand why I asked about Simon?” George said.

  “Yes. George ...”

  “We’re not looking for an open relationship, either.”

  Patrick snuggled up behind him and put his arms around his waist. “Look, Martin. We’ll take a quick fuck if it’s offered. Wouldn’t you? But we’d rather have a real third.”

  He looked around at the cave, the dolphin men’s secret refuge. They needn’t have brought him here the first time, during the storm; they could have just taken him to a beach that was a lot safer than the one where his boat had been stranded, and hoped that he’d be all right. And they could have pretended not to understand this morning. “You’ve been talking about this, haven’t you? Since before the day of the storm.”

  George nodded. “It wasn’t even sex, Martin.” He sounded wistful now. “You were so matter-of-fact about us, once you’d got over the surprise. You’ve no idea how rare it was, having a friend.”

  Patrick said, “We did talk about how it would be nice to turn up one day in human shape and see if you still liked us. Then the storm forced us to decide in a hurry.” Patrick gently butted the back of his neck. “I’ll admit that I was all for taking you to a beach that should be safe at high tide, and keeping an eye on you in case you needed to be pulled off. But George didn’t want to take the risk.”

  So that agitated whistling back and forth had been them arguing about what to do with him. And George had prevailed. “I’m glad you did take me in. And not just because it saved me a soaking.”

  “But you got a bang on the head instead.” George leaned over and brushed his fingertips across Martin’s temple. “You looked wonderful. Wet and naked, and it was obvious that you liked the look of us.”

  “And then I nearly threw up.” He winced at the memory. Even thinking about it was bringing back the dizziness, the queasy feeling in the pit of his stomach. He glanced down at the sandwich on the plate in front of him and decided that he wasn’t that hungry after all.

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Martin?”

  He closed his eyes for a second and sat secure in the circle of Patrick’s arms. The dizziness went away. “Sorry,” he whispered. “Little bit of flashback. Felt sick for a second.”

  “Hold still,” Patrick said. “Give it a minute and you should be all right.”

  “We can take you home if you’re really sick,” George said. “Don’t worry. The engine’s fine, so we can sit in the boat with you if you need help.”

  “I’m all right.” He opened his eyes and found George studying him. “Really.”

  He was very all right. He had just acquired two boyfriends whose reaction to him feeling unwell was to drop any thought of sex until they’d checked he was all right. They’d been rough with him the first time, but only until they’d realised that he was injured rather than playing hard to get. At least Barry had never been inconsiderate that way, but he’d had one or two whose reaction was to bitch about a waste of their time, and he’d heard similar complaints from friends.

  “Good,” George said. “Patrick, let go of him and see if he’s all right by himself.”

  Patrick did so. Martin cautiously looked around. Yes, he was in the cave again, and he could smell the sea; but today there was bright sunlight streaming in through the low opening, and only the gentle sound of the small waves lapping over the beach. It was very different to when he’d last been here, seasick and concussed, and with the heavy weight of the thunderstorm pressing in on him and making him feel even worse. “I’m fine.”

  George smiled at him. “Good. Better eat your sandwich.”

  He risked a look at his plate and found the sandwich appetising once more.

  Chapter Six

  George and Patrick seemed content to eat and chat about where Martin had been for the last two months. George paid close attention, Patrick less so. Ma
rtin suspected that Patrick wasn’t so much bored, as not all that interested in detail but glad to listen to someone talking about life on land. They obviously knew the area where he’d been working, though George said as he passed around the Thermos of tea, “It’s a bit far to go, so we haven’t been there that often.”

  “This is your home, then?”

  They seemed less on edge now when he asked them about themselves. George nodded and said, “This cave is useful. Nobody’s likely to stumble across it, and even if they do, they’ll think our stuff belongs to kids playing pirates or something.”

  “You’re a geologist, Martin,” Patrick said. “What do you think of this place?”

  He looked around. The natural light coming in wasn’t good enough to see much detail, but that jetty was suggestive. “I think it’s probably a natural cave that’s been enlarged by quarrying. There were a lot of quarries along the coast -- this might be an old one that was abandoned and lost after that rockfall blocked the main entrance.”

  “There’s another rockfall at the back of the cave,” George said. “Any chance there’s a passage behind it? More storage areas?”

  He’d bet that it wasn’t just the storage they were interested in. A passage to the surface would give them more options, but also more risk of this place being discovered. “It’s quite likely. It may even go all the way to the surface -- one or two of these old quarries had access tunnels for the workers, even though the stone was taken out by barge.”

  Patrick laughed. “Nice to have our own consultant geologist. You’re useful as well as ornamental.” To George, “And bright, too. Just ask him straight out next time.”

  “It may not help us,” George said. He stared into his mug of tea. “What if it’s blocked all the way along? Even if we could shift the stone, the passage may be too dangerous.”

  It would be easy enough to clear any passage, then reinforce it with modern materials, if you had the money to pay for the work. But even if you had the money, you couldn’t do it in secret. For secrecy you’d need to do it the old way, sweat and muscle, and without any help. “You’ve never tried clearing it?”

  “A little, just to clear the entrance to one of the side caves,” George said. “It was hard work, and there didn’t seem a lot of point in doing more. We had plenty of room by then. But that gave us the idea that it might run further back.” He picked up the bar of chocolate. “Shall we?”

  “I brought it for you two.”

  Patrick kissed him lightly on the cheek. “Thank you.”

  He ruffled Patrick’s hair. “That was one thing I was fairly sure I remembered clearly.”

  George grinned as he stripped off the wrapper. “You’d be surprised what Patrick will do for chocolate. Forgets every last shred of dignity when some kid is holding out a bar and asking him to jump in the air for it.”

  Martin was surprised and amused to see Patrick flush with embarrassment.

  “What do you expect me to do?” Patrick muttered. “Bite their hands off along with the chocolate, the little brats?” He took the piece George offered him and popped it in his mouth. “Mmm.”

  George laughed. “It would teach them a lesson, but it wouldn’t be nice.” He passed a piece of chocolate to Martin. “Ignore him if he moans about you getting some. He’s not used to sharing with someone who’ll bother to come back with more.”

  Martin remembered lunch that first day, back when he thought he’d just made friends with a couple of dolphins. “He never asked for food when I was eating my lunch, until I got the chocolate out.”

  George grinned. “And then he nearly tipped the boat over.”

  “Sorry,” Patrick said.

  Martin decided to risk a little more personal questioning. “You don’t get much chocolate?”

  “Only what we can beg, borrow, or steal,” George said. He plucked at his tee-shirt with his free hand. “What money we pick up we mostly save for things we need, like clothes. We find clothes on the beach sometimes, but not really enough.”

  They weren’t completely cut off, then. He was starting to build a picture of their life. They could live as dolphins, meet all their physical needs in dolphin form. But they were more than dolphins, and they needed more than the company of other dolphins to really satisfy their emotional and intellectual needs. And that meant taking risks; first the risk of interacting with people on the beach, and then the risks of acquiring those things that allowed them to blend in when they did so. “You walk into the shopping area from the beach at a seaside town?”

  “They’re used to strangers,” Patrick said. “People with cash. And the pawn shops don’t ask questions; they must be used to beachcombers bringing in stuff they’ve found.”

  “Or pinched,” George added. “We’ve seen them. We don’t do it. Only once or twice, when we were desperate.”

  “To get clothes good enough that you wouldn’t be arrested as tramps,” Martin guessed.

  George looked relieved, and Martin wondered if he’d been deliberately testing his reaction to the idea that the dolphin men had stolen things. George went on, “We don’t need much money, and we find a lot of lost and abandoned stuff. But you can’t go into town to buy clothes unless you’ve already got clothes.”

  Patrick started picking up the plates. “It’s okay at the naturist beach. They don’t mind us. But we like to go to other places as well. Do you want these washed?”

  “Rinsed, at least.” He started to help Patrick clear things away and realised that the discarded condoms still lay beside the blanket. He grabbed one of the empty shopping bags he’d kept for putting rubbish in, and scooped them up.

  “Thanks,” George said. “Too many of your people don’t bother, and then they get washed out on the next tide, and sometimes the kids see them and try to eat them.”

  Kids?

  Dolphin kids.

  He was jolted once again with the awareness that George and Patrick weren’t human.

  “I try not to be a thoughtless idiot.” He was glad of that now.

  “We noticed.” George picked up the empty ham packet and added it to the rubbish bag. “Did you deliberately bring proper plates?”

  The plastic picnic plates weren’t what he’d call proper tableware, but he understood what George was getting at. They weren’t disposables, but real plates made of heavy melamine, a practical compromise between robustness and attractiveness. “I thought you might like a proper picnic instead of out of a plastic bag.”

  “We do. Thank you.” George laid one hand over his. “That’s a lot of trouble to go to when you thought you’d dreamt the day of the storm.”

  “I told you. I couldn’t take the risk that I was wrong.”

  “Did you bring any books?”

  He looked at George and saw a longing there that had nothing to do with sex. “I brought books. Tell me what you want to read next, and I’ll try to bring them next time.” A thought occurred to him. “Can you read?”

  “Yes. But it’s nice to hear things read aloud.” George stood up. “You get the book. I’ll get some cushions.” He headed off towards the back of the cave.

  Martin watched him for a few seconds, marvelling at his sure-footedness without a torch. Then he turned his attention back to tidying up the remains of the picnic.

  “Where’s George off to?” Patrick asked, handing him the plates.

  “Getting cushions, he said.” Satisfied that the picnic things were tidy, Martin picked up the blanket and shook it straight again. “He wants me to read a book.”

  “I’ll go and help him. You get the book.” Patrick set off after George.

  Martin went to the boat and found his book. It was the latest Dalziel and Pascoe. As he took it back to the blanket, he wondered how much of George and Patrick’s impression of modern British society had been formed by reading the sort of books people took to the beach. It was a rather scary thought.

  “Oh, we like him,” Patrick said as he dropped several large cushions by Martin. “
Off the blanket. We want to lean against the wall.”

  “Though I hope that isn’t typical of your people,” George said, adding to the pile of cushions. They were an eclectic mix, ranging from inflatables undoubtedly found abandoned on the beach to things they might have actually bought in town, including one heavy velvet escapee from someone’s parlour, plump and plush and purple, and astonishingly bedecked with fringes and tassels at the corners.

  “No, it isn’t typical. Most people lead wonderfully boring lives.” He put down the book and picked up the blanket he’d just straightened up, dragging it over to the wall of the cave. “That’s why books like that are entertaining. Because most of us don’t have to deal with stuff like that.” The wall really was a wall, flat and vertical. Quarried for blocks of building stone, perhaps, though jointing in the rock could have produced the same effect. He’d have to take a good look at the cave with a torch some day.

  “Glad to hear it,” George said.

  They piled the cushions against the wall, making a comfortable backrest. Then George sat down and beckoned to Martin.

  He sat down, and was pleased to find George’s arm around his shoulders. Patrick sat down on the other side of him. Cushions at his back and a man either side of him, he was comfortably supported. He opened the book and began to read.

  He must have been reading aloud for a good hour before he needed to take a break. Patrick had already given him a glass of water when he’d asked for one about ten minutes in, but his throat was still starting to get dry, and he set the book down at the end of the chapter.

  “Cup of tea?” George asked. “There was some left.”

  “Mmm.”

  George poured him a cup, then poured more for Patrick and himself. Martin sipped at his, trying to moisten his throat; the other two drained theirs quickly. They waited patiently for him, and as he tipped up the cup for the last drops, George held out his hand.

  Martin handed over the cup, and as his hand brushed against George’s, he was abruptly reminded of what else he’d come here for. He was relaxed and happy, and now he very badly wanted to fuck.