by Anthology
“Good morning,” was all I could think to say. My cheeks reddened at the thought of what I’d seen in the night.
“Does sex embarrass you, Hope?” he asked.
I thought about his question. “I suppose it does.”
“We’ve long since let all that go.” He stroked my neck with the cloth. “Are you well enough to bathe?”
“Yes,” I answered, suddenly aware of how long it had been since I’d brushed my teeth, or since my skin had touched a bar of soap.
“Come, Fisher is out getting lunch, but I warmed some water for you.”
I rose from my makeshift bed, the pain nearly gone, and followed him outside. “Did you build this shelter?” I asked, looking around for the first time.
“No, it was here.” He pointed to an old metal tub. “Get in.”
Jake stood there staring at me, showing no sign that he was going to leave.
“Could you, um, maybe,” I felt the blush rise from my chest to my scalp. “I mean, can you go while I get undressed?”
“No,” he said flatly.
“Oh,” was all I could think of to say.
We stood there in a standoff until he finally turned his back to me. “Listen, Hope, the sooner you stop acting like you’re back home, the easier this will be.”
“How long have you been here? On the island?” I asked, peeling my dirty clothes from my body.
“I’ll make you a deal,” he said. “I’ll answer your questions while you clean up or I can let you have some privacy. Your choice.”
I stepped into the warm, sudsy water and slid down up to my shoulders. It was heaven. With a surge of bravery, and a desperate desire to get some answers, I decided the modesty offered by the bubbles was enough.
“It’s a deal. How long have you been on this island?”
He turned around and walked over to an ancient metal chair next to the tub. “That’s hard to answer. Time sort of, well, time gets weird here.”
“How old are you then? Can I ask that?” In the back of my mind, I worried about the back-home legalities of them being underage. Flashes of kissing Fisher ran through my thoughts.
“Twenty-three.”
“And Fisher?” I asked, trying to disguise the nervousness in my voice.
Jake smiled wide and chuckled. “He looks young, but he’s not jail-bait, don’t worry. Not that it would matter here.”
“I didn’t, I mean, I didn’t plan on…”
“Yes, you did, and yes, you will. He was twenty-two, I think.”
“Was?”
“Uh, is, I guess.”
“Yeah, well, I’m much older,” I said, reaching for a sponge.
“That really doesn’t matter here, either.”
I nodded as if I understood what he was talking about. Age mattered everywhere. “And you got here how?”
“Shipwreck. We’re all that’s left.”
My mind raced to any recent shipwrecks, but I couldn’t think of anything that had made news recently. “Well, I’m sure you’ll get rescued—”
“No, Hope,” he interrupted. “We are never leaving this island. It’s our home.”
“Oh, I see,” I said, shocked. How was I going to get back home then?
“You don’t, you couldn’t. But you will, because it’s now your home, too.”
“Am I dead?” I blurted out. The thought had nagged at me since I heard the sirens sing in the ocean. None of this is real, and is it heaven or hell?
He laughed out loud. “No, you’re very much alive. Maybe for the first time.”
My hand drifted across my stubbly leg in the soapy water.
“Do you have a razor I could use?”
Jake’s face was covered in dark stubble, but Fisher was shaved smooth.
“Yeah,” he said and from a wooden box brought out what looked to me to be a switchblade. He held the object out to me.
“Oh, no, I mean like a Gillette or whatever. You know, a safety razor.”
He stared at me, confused. “You wanted to shave?” he finally asked.
“Yes, my legs. I’ve never used anything like that before. Is that a straight razor, like they use in barber shops?”
He nodded. “Works great. I sharpen it myself over on the rocks.”
I rubbed my leg one more time under the soapy water. “I think I’d end up cutting myself to pieces with that.”
Jake opened the blade and gestured for me to put my leg up on the side of the tub.
“Oh, uh, I don’t know…”
He pulled the old metal chair to the edge of the tub and again patted for me to put my leg up. “Okay, why not,” I said.
I couldn’t look away as he took his shirt off and tossed it to the ground. He was physical perfection, muscled and bronzed, and unlike the unmarked skin of Fisher, Jake’s skin was covered in ink. Even more intriguing, underneath the tattoos, there were scars.
He leaned down and looked at my skin for a long moment, and then he began. The cold blade scraped down my calf with the precision of a craftsman, leaving a smooth path of hairless skin in its wake.
“You’re good at that. Are you a barber?”
“No, I was a thug.”
“A thug? Like a gang?”
He nodded. “But not like you know, it was different.”
“So you were on a ship headed where when you wrecked?”
My lower leg finished, he moved his chair next to me and began to shave my thigh. “How high do you want me to go?” he asked, running his hand up my inner thigh.
I froze, the surge of arousal overwhelming me.
“I could shave this.” His hand went higher, cupping between my legs.
“No,” I said, pushing his fingers away.
“You want me. Why the games, Hope?”
“I’m married.”
“Not anymore.” His words caused a knot in my stomach at the thought of Daniel and what he’d done to me.
I craved his touch again; I wanted him more than anything at that moment. It can’t happen, he won’t want me if he sees all of me, I thought. “You are far younger than me,” I argued.
“So. Who cares?”
“That doesn’t matter here, I know you said that. But we’ll eventually go back and—”
“It doesn’t matter anywhere. And we’re never going back.”
“They’ll be looking for me, we’ll get rescued now that I’m here.”
He sighed. “No one is looking for you.”
Jake finished shaving my legs in silence, then gestured for me to raise my arms. With precision, he raked the sharp blade along the curves under my arms. My skin was smoother than the best wax I’d ever had.
“So you were on a ship going where? Why? Like a cruise?”
He laughed, his lips forming a sneer. “That’s funny. Bath time is over, so that means question time is, too.”
Jake stood up and reached for my hand. “Oh, will you turn around again?”
“You are ridiculous,” he snapped, reaching for a worn towel.
“Is all this stuff from the wreck?” I imagined all the Titanic artifacts I’d seen when I visited the museum last summer.
“I said question time is done. But, for your information, there was a settlement here on this island of some sort. They left quite a bit of shit.”
“What happened to them?”
He shrugged, clearly done answering me.
The tub water was growing cold, and I decided to do something that would stop his flirtation. I stood up, and took a deep breath as I waited to see the inevitable look of repulsion on his face. Instead, all I saw was lust. Lust and a growing bulge in his jeans.
My loose belly, from years of gaining and losing weight on every diet I could find, was there on display. The too-large breasts that I should have had lifted years ago hung low. Thick thighs stood there, the part I hated the most. I’d been battling an extra fifteen pounds that year, and Daniel reminded me constantly to get to the gym.
But that day, on that island, t
hings were different. Something changed, and my view of reality shifted forever.
Jake held the towel open, but just out of my reach. “Very nice, very nice indeed,” he said with a wink.
He wrapped the towel around me and held me tightly. “I want you, we want you. Don’t make us wait too long.”
*****
That night, I heard them again.
Women singing, the most angelic sound I’ve ever known. Like a puppet on a string, I rose and walked into the night.
“Hello!” I screamed. Was it a radio? A signal? Others on the island?
The heavenly sounds continued, but not from the island. The song was coming from the crashing ocean waves themselves.
“I’m going crazy,” I said aloud.
“No, Hope, you are finally sane.”
Fisher stood behind me, his naked body glorious in the silvery moonlight.
“How long have you been on this island?” I wanted answers.
“I think about fifty years.”
I fell into the sand. Either I was crazy or he was.
“You never age?” Why was I arguing with a madman?
“We did at first, and then it just kind of, um, stopped.”
“There were others with you? Survivors?”
Fisher sat in the dense sand behind me, his legs hugging mine. I took a breath as his arms wrapped around my waist and he laid his cheek against my back.
“There were three of us that washed ashore alive, as well as one of the captors. Jake slayed that vile monster immediately.”
My heart pounded. “Captor?”
“We were taken in New York City long ago. Kidnapped, stolen, whatever you want to call it. Well, Jake was anyway.”
“Captured for what?”
“To be sold to men.”
I leaned back into him as I tried to absorb his words.
“Like slaves?”
“I think so. The ship was full of young men and even teenagers. All beautiful, all perfect physically.”
“You said Jake was abducted. You weren’t?”
“My father sold me to them.”
“Oh my God. Why?”
“He hated me. My mother died giving birth.”
My hands wrapped around his and pulled him even closer.
The bond I’d felt with Fisher had been immediate, but now, it grew stronger.
“What happened to the other castaway? Did he age, die?”
“Within the first month, he went mad. One night he attacked me with a knife. Jake saved my life, but the other kid was mortally wounded in the process. As I lay dying in the sand, the sirens sang.”
“Did Jake take you to the stream? The one that healed me?”
Fisher nuzzled into the back of my neck. “Yes, the sirens sang of it. They wanted me to live. Jake carried me there in his arms.”
“Why doesn’t he believe in its power, then?”
“It doesn’t always work, so he thinks it’s a coincidence. But I know better—it works when the island wants it to work.”
“The island?”
“This place is magic. It’s not just the sirens, there’s more.”
“Tell me,” I begged as the singing faded into the wind.
“I’m tired, not tonight.” His lips grazed the back of my neck.
I wiggled back into him, unable to quell my desire any longer. I needed him more than I needed air. “I hoped for you, and they brought you to me,” he whispered into my ear.
“You have Jake,” I said, pushing back against his erection.
“Yes, we love each other, but we were incomplete. Before the island, we were only with women. We only wanted women.”
I reached back, caressing his hardness. His lips moved to my earlobe, nibbling.
“God, Fisher, do you really want me?”
“Desperately,” he groaned.
“Because I’m the only woman you’ve seen in forever?” My confidence flew away like the song of the sirens.
“No, you don’t understand. You are the one that I wanted. I didn’t hope for a female, I hoped for you.”
I turned to face him, my body on top of his. Our lips fell together in a kiss so perfect I knew I’d never be the same.
“I can’t wait anymore.” He pulled at my clothes, stripping me naked. “I need you.”
“Fisher,” I said into the night as he entered me, filling me as his tongue stroked mine. We made love as the waves washed around us and when we were finished, he carried me back to the shelter, to our home, in his arms.
Almost too softly to be heard, the sirens began to sing again as we drifted off to sleep next to Jake.
***
Daniel left me for dead that day. I knew how easy it would be for him to return to the resort, distraught that he couldn’t save his poor drowning wife. They’d search, of course, and never find my floating carcass in the vast Pacific. Eventually they’d give up and the cause of death would be as Daniel said: I’d simply ventured too far out and drowned.
Daniel would be free, after a respectful mourning period, to re-marry and have the perfect wife and beautiful heir he’d always wanted. Yes, his plan was savage, but I had to give him credit—it was a good one.
Except he never made it back to the resort.
That night, lying between Jake and Fisher in their bed, I had a dream.
In my dream I saw him. Daniel was smiling as he navigated back to shore, probably congratulating himself on getting rid of the baggage he’d carried for years. And then it happened—in my dream I heard them sing.
Daniel heard them, too. His smugness turned to fear as the song got louder, angrier. It wasn’t the sublime sound that I heard, but a horrific din. His hands flew to his ears, desperate to make it stop when the waves rose high, higher than his boat.
My murderer was consumed by the ocean; swallowed by it. The song of the sirens told of a couple drowned in the sea: one reborn to a new life, and one forever condemned to wallow in his own evilness.
I woke the next morning as the sunshine streamed in. The three of us lay naked, our bodies entwined as if we were perfectly joined puzzle pieces.
“My husband is dead.”
Fisher leaned in and kissed my forehead before wrapping me in his arms.
Jake simply rolled over and said, “Good.”
***
After a breakfast of salted fish and bird eggs, Jake informed that I was going hunting with him.
“Oh, me? No, I could never kill anything.”
Fisher looked at him, his eyebrows raised.
“What?” he said to Fisher. “If she’s going to stay, she needs to be useful.”
“I’ll teach her to fish today,” Fisher said with a nod toward me.
“Fishing I’ll try,” I chimed in.
Jake stood up and looked us. “I said,” he snapped, “she’s going hunting with me today.” He walked off, leaving it clear who was in charge on their little island.
Fisher took me in his arms after Jake was out of earshot.
“I don’t know anything about hunting,” I whined. Despite my attraction to Jake, his intensity frightened me.
“That’s why you need to learn.”
“But I don’t want to hunt. I couldn’t even dissect the frog in biology class.”
“Here, we fish and we hunt. That’s how we eat, Hope.”
“What if I grow things? Vegetables?”
“So you’ll stay with us?”
I never wanted to leave Fisher’s arms. I was falling in love with him. “I mean, until they rescue us, I guess I meant.”
“We’ve already been rescued, Hope. The three of us are to be together. The island wants us to make more.”
“Whoa,” I said, pulling away from him. “Make more?”
Fisher smiled. “We will have a family. The island told me.”
I felt thrilled and horrified at the same time. “So that’s why you wanted a female? To breed me?”
He cringed. “Oh God, no. We wanted you to love, and to
love us.”
“Good,” I said sadly. “Because, Fisher, I can’t have children. Daniel and I tried everything. And it was my body that wouldn’t cooperate—the fertility clinic confirmed that.”
Fisher reached for me and I let him envelop me in his arms. I listened to his heart beat as he said, “I have hope, my love.”
***
“You’ll need shoes,” Jake said, holding up a pair of canvas sneakers.
Fisher was off doing what earned him his nickname, fishing. I was left alone with Jake, and despite my protests and vegetable garden idea, I was still going hunting. As much as I hated the idea, I did feel a flutter of excitement at being alone with him again.
I put the slightly big sneakers on, not wanting to think of the feet they’d once probably belonged to.
“Come, and be quiet,” he said.
Jake and Fisher had been naked all morning, which no longer shocked me. Now, however, he was fully dressed in ripped jeans and worn leather boots. I followed behind him, doing my best to stay quiet.
But my resolve to not speak only lasted ten minutes. “What are we hunting for?”
“Boar,” he barked. “Wild boar that your chatter just alerted to our presence.”
“Sorry,” I said to his back.
We walked for what seemed like forever, and I forgot my vow of silence once again. “How do we kill these boar?”
He stopped and spun around, his face inches from mine. “Shut the fuck up!”
The old Margaret, back home, would have cowered. But this was the new me, this was Hope, and I felt bolder. Maybe Fisher was right; maybe I was re-born.
“How dare you talk to me like that? Fuck you.”
I turned to leave, but his strong hands grabbed my shoulders and held me still.
I yelled at him. “Don’t you fucking dare! If you hurt me, you’ll regret it.” I was shaking, not in fear, but in anger.
His hands left my shoulders as I spun around to face him. Jake threw his hands in the air. “Okay, okay. No one’s going to hurt you. You’re going to flush out the boar, and I’ll finish him off with my knife.”
“I don’t have to kill it?” I felt relief; both that Jake was being kinder since I stood up to him, and that I didn’t have to slay an animal.
“No, but you do eat meat, right? Pork?”
“Oh yeah, I love bacon.”