Let Them Eat Tea

by Coleman Maskell

Chapter 14 - The Waterfall

  A symphony of jungle sounds welcomes dawn on the island.

  Eyes still closed, Baldwin comes to awareness of the cooking smells in the village, something unidentifiable but Creole. His mind conjures an image of Jumbalaya or some sort of Creole influenced stew. He becomes aware of the hardness of the floor beneath him through the thick cotton blankets, and the warmth of Annetka next to him.

  His mind wakens to a quick memory of the night before, and where he is now. He's spent the night -- They've spent the night -- on the island where they went to collect the samples. Annetka and the cooking smells compete for his attention. His stomach reminds him that he hasn't eaten since the previous morning back in St. Lucy.

  As Annetka takes a deep breath and shifts position, he feels his arm go out and wrap around her, draw her close. With a snuggling up body movement, she settles her head on his shoulder and one hand on his chest, eyes still closed. They lie together quietly for a while, listening to the jungle, breathing the air, until their breathing synchronizes and Annetka opens her eyes. She takes a deep breath and exhales, like a sigh.

  Baldwin opens his eyes reluctantly and sighs similarly. "Good morning," he says.

  "Is it safe to eat here?" she asks. "I ate some of the food last night."

  "Mmm. I noticed," he answers, turning on his side to look at her. "With Azacca on hand to supervise the village health plan I'm willing to bet it's okay."

  "Azacca? Is that the shaman's name?" she asks, lifting herself up on one shoulder and turning her face to meet his eyes.

  "Yeah, I met him last night. We talked a long time while you were dancing. He's going to take us out today to get plant samples. Well, take me out, anyway. I'm not sure if you and the others want to stay."

  At that she makes a pouting face. "I want to stay with you," she says, wiggling her body in a slow undulating way next to his. "Anyway," she adds, "What about the stuff we collected yesterday? You can't just leave that sitting around for long, can you?"

  "Would you believe he has a refrigerator here?" Baldwin answers.

  "Hmmh," she mutters, and settles her head back down on his shoulder, snuggling close, stroking his chest.

  Pulling her closer again, he brings his other hand up to stroke her hair gently.

  Just then Jomo appears, outlined in the light of the open door. It occurs to Baldwin that the door has probably stood open all night. He wonders vaguely if the doors here can be closed.

  Probably a curtain or something could have been dropped over the door, he reflects. For all he knows there was a curtain over the door all night, and Jomo just opened it. He wasn't exactly paying attention.

  Okay, I'm awake now, Baldwin realizes, and sits up.

  "You sleep pretty late," Jomo observes in good humor. "Azacca want to be going now pretty soon. You want breakfast you better be getting yourself up now." So saying he smiles a broad friendly smile and departs.

  "I think I liked it better being asleep," Annetka comments, sitting up next to him, turning to look at his face again. "But I am hungry," she adds, tilting her head and glancing at him upward and sideways, in a cajoling way, batting her eyelashes slightly and then looking down at the floor.

  What he wants at that moment is neither food nor sleep, but he knows that the day is upon them and they have to face it head on. "To breakfast, and beyond!" he announces in his best Buzz Lightyear voice, stiffening his torso to mock military attention and thrusting his right arm to point up towards the door.

  She gives him a blank look.

  "Buzz Lightyear. It's a kid's toy, from a movie. He's a toy space ranger or something. He says 'To Infinity And Beyond', in a very impressive way. More impressive than me. Okay. Let's go get breakfast," Baldwin tries to explain and then tries to move on. He stands up, reaches out his right hand to Annetka.

  "Okay, Space Ranger," she says, taking his hand, and stands up with him.

  They do what they can to make themselves presentable, then step out from their quarters into the bright nearly tropical light that bathes the village. Women dressed in brightly patterned red, yellow, and turquoise cotton are stirring big cooking pots over open fires. A multi-colored parrot flies by, almost too fast to be noticed. The colors are so bright and the environment so rich with stimulus that just having one's eyes open is like exercise.

  Baldwin looks forward to being back in the shadowy cover of the jungle trees, looking for samples again. More proximately, he looks forward to eating something.

  The two of them walk over to the nearest cooking fire and stand quietly, alternately staring at the food in the pot and glancing at the woman stirring it. The woman looks up and smiles. Annetka says something, and the woman laughs and points to their right. Baldwin follows the direction with his eyes, and sees Jomo, Zeph and the others sitting in front of the shaman's place, eating breakfast from handheld bowls.

  They join their friends, and soon a woman hands Annetka a bowl of food and a spoon. Baldwin recognizes it as very like his dream image of Jumbalaya Creole stew. He looks up at the woman and nods, smiling. Annetka says something, and the woman soon hands him a similar bowl. He smiles again and accepts it.

  "Tell her I said thanks," Baldwin asks Annetka, who does so. Smiles all around.

  "Caution to the winds, hey?" Zeph teases, taking another spoonful of the pot luck concoction himself. "It's good stuff, you know," he adds.

  "These people don't seem to be suffering from eating the food," Baldwin answers, with a sweeping nod meant to encompass the entire village. "Anyway, I trust Azacca. He knows what he's doing here."

  "You remembered his name," Zeph feigns being impressed by his friend's intellectual prowess. In truth he often is impressed, even a little intimidated sometimes, but not this time. Out here he feels like they have a level playing field. Well, except for Snake. Snake shines in this environment. And Jack and the girls have the advantage of being multilingual. Still, outside the lab and away from the books and computers, he feels that he's on an even footing with his intellectual giant of a friend.

  "Hard man to forget," Baldwin answers. The shaman isn't present in the group, so they feel free to talk about him. "He went to medical school for a while in Grenada, you know," he adds. "Can you believe that? He's an amazing guy."

  "Coming from you that says something," Zeph allows. "I saw you talking. What else did you learn? And what's the plan for today?"

  "Ah. I'm going out with Azacca to get plant samples. I guess anybody who wants to come along can," he adds, glancing over at Annetka, who smiles sweetly in acknowledgement.

  "Then," Baldwin continues, "in the afternoon anybody who wants to can spend some time pedaling the exercise bike on the generator that feeds the refrigerator."

  "I'll do it," Snake and Jack both respond in unison, then look at each other and utter little reserved laughs of embarrassment.

  "You go ahead," Jack offers. "I know you've been doing bicycling for training anyway, so this is a chance to get in some of your gym work."

  The other man nods acceptance of his friend's deference.

  "But I want one of us to go out with Annie and Baldy," Jack continues with the pragmatics of the situation. "The other can stay here with Zoe and Zeph, if they want to stay in the village." He ends by looking enquiringly at Zeph, who shrugs and looks at Zoe. Zoe also shrugs.

  "Is there any reason we shouldn't come along?" she asks, looking back at Baldwin.

  "Not as far as I know. Let's all go, if that's okay with our host," he answers her. "I was just thinking you might want to get back to St. Lucy."

  "No, it's nice here. We're having a good time. It seems safe enough now," she responds definitively. Obviously she feels comfortable and at home. "The old man seems to keep the village safe," she adds, "and the people. We're okay here."

  "Eventually we'll need to get the samples back," Zeph observes. "But if we've got refrigeration, that gives u
s a window of a couple of days."

  "Actually," Baldwin breaks the news, looking straight at Zeph, "I was thinking I might stay here for a few more days, maybe a week, to learn more. I was thinking you might go back to St. Lucy with the samples."

  "Alternate plan," his friend suggests. "We stay here another day or two. You learn what you can. We all go back together with whatever we've got. You start analyzing those samples we risked our lives to get. If and when you need more information, you come back, or we come back. First order of business is to get back to the lab with those samples, and you know as well as I do that you're the man to carry the ball from there."

  Baldwin goes back to eating the breakfast. Whatever it is, it's hot, it tastes good, and it makes his stomach stop growling at him. "This is good," he says out loud, changing the topic away from the future back to the present.

  "The plan is good? Yes, okay then," Zeph deliberately reinterprets the comment.

  "The food," Baldwin answers, giving the other man a look; but he knows he's lost the game and they'll all be staying together for the duration.

  The shaman walks over, returning from early morning rounds of the village, carrying a shoulder bag that looks like a cross between an oversized water canteen and a hippie chick's handbag. He nods at the group and disappears into his home. A minute later he reappears, carrying an actual canteen and some other bags that are probably for collecting plant samples. He asks

  Jomo to go get a couple of men to help carry, speaking English in deference to his guests.

  "No, we'll do it," Jack offers, and Snake nods. The other men present, including Jomo, all nod in suit.

  "Let me come along with you, Azacca," Jomo asks.

  The other man sighs and agrees to the arrangement. "So you're all coming along this morning?" he asks, looking around the assembled group for dissenters. There are none. This is still an adventure and they want to stick together. "Come along, then," the old man says acceptingly, then turns and walks away toward the path into the jungle, not looking back.

  Setting down their breakfast bowls, the group follows. Jomo takes the canteen and fills it as they pass a water barrel on the way out of the village. Jack then takes the sample bags from the old man, who does not resist the assistance.

  They enter the welcome shadow of the jungle and are soon surrounded by the now familiar overgrown houseplants, the bright birds flitting past, the pleasantly moist still air scented with orchids and spice. It feels and smells like an extravagant version of a big arboretum or aviary at a big city zoo, but here, as far as the ear can hear, there are no distant echoes from trams or distant traffic, no dimly overheard fragments of human conversation, just an endless medley of varied birdcalls backed by intermittent howler monkey cries and other animal sounds that Baldwin will probably never learn to identify individually.

  They walk quietly in single file through the serene environment, following the shaman, Snake just behind the old man, Jack and Jomo taking up the rear. Time seems suspended as they follow on through the jungle, off the main path but not in dense overgrowth. The shaman certainly seems to know his way around.

  "Here, see this," Azacca eventually says, stooping to point to a small plant growing parasitically like an orchid on a piece of rotting wood.

  Of course, it hits Baldwin. Orchids prey on fungus. Cordyceps is a fungus. The second part of the one-two punch hits him: Orchids are notoriously difficult to cultivate. Wow. Okay. He stoops down to look where his new mentor is pointing. Zeph crouches to join them.

  The shaman gives an impromptu lesson on the biology of the plant in front of them, how to grow it, how it reproduces, when and how to harvest it. He gives precise information on timing and temperatures.

  Baldwin feels grateful for whatever random luck or divine intervention had caused this indigenous traditional healer to choose to attend modern schools. It might or might not make him a better shaman, but it certainly had made him a good teacher.

  "This is one of three plants we need," he concludes, holding his hand out towards Jack to reclaim a sample bag. "This is the main one actually," he adds, taking up the entire plant and a generous section of the rotting log under it, placing them carefully into the bag and then handing it to Zeph. He takes two more sample bags from Jack.

  Baldwin looks around and notices that there are a few more of the plants on similar pieces of deadwood nearby, spread out about ten feet apart. It occurs to him that the shaman is cultivating the plants. This is a medicinal farm. "How long have you been cultivating these?"

  He asks. "Was it hard to get them established?"

  The old man laughs quietly. "It was before my time," he answers, standing upright and facing his student. "Back when the French were around. Maybe my great grandfather's time. I inherited all this and learned to take care of it, but never needed to use this particular plant until recently."

  Baldwin continues to look at him.

  "L'Isle Barjot," Jack supplies the old French name. Madman's Island.

  Azacca nods. "Yes, there was an outbreak of Cordyceps in humans then. It was different from the strain we're seeing now, but it was bad. People who were infected went crazy, including a few Frenchmen. The French started calling it L'Isle Barjot, and avoided the island." He pauses to laugh.

  "So it was a blessing in disguise, as your saying goes," he adds. "The French left us alone. All the tourists and colonizers left us alone. My ancestor eliminated the parasite here, cured any people who weren't too far gone yet to save. After that we lived in peace. Well, until recently."

  He chuckles again.

  "But I had done my homework as a young man," he continues. "I remembered the stories. First thing I did was to try using this plant as my great grandfather had. You can imagine how disappointed I was when it didn't work right away," he ends.

  He takes up two more of the plants and places them into sample bags of their own, then turns to walk off past the little garden of cultivated Magnoliophyta, into another section of jungle.

  The others fall into line and follow the medicine man, Snake near the front, Baldwin behind him spinning mentally through ideas for setting up a greenhouse that will work, Annetka close behind thinking mostly about her boyfriend, followed by the equally love struck Zeph thinking about Zoe Jalissa, who follows next and happens to be thinking about orchids, with her brother Jack and their rescuer Jomo again bringing up the rear of the column, thinking, like Snake, mostly about guarding against any possible dangers.

  "Are the flowers nice?" Jalissa asks as they walk. When she gets no response, she adds, "the plants back there. Are they orchids? Do they make nice flowers?"

  "Yes, nice flowers," the shaman answers, "but not often, and this is the wrong time of year for them."

  They walk on quietly, with time once again seemingly suspended in the stillness. Birds flit by as other birds have, brief explosions of color against the dark variegated green surroundings.

  Occasional lizards skitter out of their way as they pass. Baldwin spots a tiny red-eyed three-toed tree frog hopping quickly out of sight near eye level. The dawn chorus of birdsong has abated unnoticed into the more subdued daytime movements of the jungle symphony by the time they stop again.

  Standing a few yards from the top of a cliff, Baldwin hears water rushing nearby. It sounds like a waterfall. He judges they must be about thirty feet above the crashing sound where the falling water can be heard splashing into the water below.

  "Here," Azacca says, pointing to the next plant they'll collect. "This one grows wild near riverbanks, but it isn't delicate, though it looks delicate. It's related to Diffenbachia, Dumbcane.

  Be careful not to handle it too much without gloves."

  So saying he begins the next lecture in their botany seminar, pointing for illustration as he talks at the thin delicate leaves, the roots, and the surroundings. By the time he finishes, Baldwin feels confident in his understanding of
the plant.

  Azacca digs up a few samples with a small hand spade, not touching them directly. He hands

  off the sample bag, then points to a small strange scrub tree nearby.

  "Euphorbiaceae," he announces and chuckles. "It's a small tree. You won't be able to carry back a full grown sample today I'm afraid, but we'll find you some young shoots to take. And you'll want some of the flowers of course, and the sap, maybe some bark to analyze. Look at these tiny flowers here," he says, pointing out the bizarre tiny flowers growing like a cluster of misshapen sequins covering the thick stem.

  With that he launches into the final plant lecture of the morning.

  After about twenty minutes he ends by saying, "Luckily plants grow quickly around here. If you take back some of the shoots, you should have mature plants within the year."

  Taking his medicine bag, he pulls out a pocket knife and excises the base of the stem whose flowers had been used to introduce the lecture, including a half inch circle around the base, pulling it off at an angle that brings along a swathe of attached bark. When a drop of sap oozes out of the cut, he carefully scrapes it off into a tiny glass vial and seals the vial. He places the vial into a second specimen bag. Then he takes a roll of tape from his medicine bag, cuts off a strip with the pocket knife, and bandages the cut. He seals the specimen bag containing the flower cutting, but keeps the other one open.

  Handing off the filled specimen bag to Jomo this time, he looks around on the ground near the base to find young shoots. He spots some near the edge of the cliff, growing scattered a few feet apart, each only a few inches in height. With the hand spade he works one loose from the ground, leaving a small cone of dirt attached at the base. He puts the specimen into the bag with the vial. After repeating the exercise with six more young plants nearby he seals off the final bag and hands it to Jomo for safekeeping.

  Standing to face the group, Azacca points in a direction that Baldwin supposes, from the sounds, must be upriver of the waterfall.

  "The water comes from up there," the shaman says. Waving his arm in a wide arc down past the waterfall, he describes the course of the river. "It goes over a series of waterfalls here," he pauses his arm in the direction of the waterfall sound. "Then it continues on. The waterfalls here are very pretty. Your girlfriends might like to see them," he adds, glancing first at Zeph, then pausing to stare into Baldwin's eyes for a few seconds. "It's late morning. We'll take a break here for about an hour, maybe longer."

  Baldwin blinks.

  "There be a rainbow sometimes," Jomo adds to the description of the falls below.

  "A rainbow? Oh, I'd like to see that," Zoe Jalissa responds excitedly, coming up very close to Zeph. He doesn't need further convincing.

  "Here, I show you the rainbow," Jomo offers, smiling a broad friendly smile. He grabs Zeph's share of the sample bags out of his hand and gives the lot of the bags to Jack to look after. "I be right back," he promises Jack, with a friendly smile.

  Jomo darts along the edge of the cliff in a slightly downhill direction, pausing twenty yards away to see if the others are following. Zeph and Jalissa are behind him, moving more slowly and carefully. Annetka is just then touching Baldwin's arm and looking up into his eyes. He takes her hand and they join the procession making its way toward the hidden path to the river.

  Jomo continues more slowly, pausing again after another twenty yards. He stands at the top of a sloping stairstep-like natural arrangement of rocks leading down the side of the cliff to the riverbank below.

  After exchanging a few words with Jack, Snake follows the group, leaving Jack behind to protect the shaman and the samples.

  The path is fairly steep, but most of the rocks are wide. Baldwin speculates that the formation might have been the result of a landslide in the past. He wonders how long the path has been here like this, but Jomo is fairly far ahead of them, so he doesn't ask. It isn't overgrown, so it couldn't have been here terribly long. Maybe that means landslides are frequent.

  "Probably happened in a hurricane," Snake offers, as if reading Baldwin's mind.

  Baldwin grunts and nods in acknowledgement and glances at the other, who grins fleetingly in response.

  Baldwin takes each downward step just ahead of Annetka, to be in a position to catch her if she falls. A few of the boulders that form the path are over a yard in height, and he helps her down from each, reaching back up to hold her waist and lower her gently onto the next level.

  Sometimes she leans forward and wraps her arms around his neck as he brings her down. He supposes she can't weigh much more than a hundred pounds, it seems so effortless.

  Occasionally she loses her balance slightly and her entire body presses against his completely, sliding against him as he lowers her slowly to touch her feet to the rock below.

  He begins to imagine various possibilities for how they will later make the ascent back to the top. Perhaps he can lift her up ahead of him piggyback on his shoulders. The thought arouses him. He goes on to other creative solutions, but they all arouse him. Indeed they give rise to creative ideas that aren't solutions at all, just interesting and arousing. He tries to focus his attention back onto the task of getting down in the first place. He is partially successful, partially not.

  The jungle, the river, everything seems to fade into a blurred backdrop for the little bubble world of holding Annetka and guiding her down. Holding her for a moment, letting her go again so he can climb down over the next rock, reaching back up to hold her again. That becomes his whole world as they glide further and further down toward the riverbank.

  Near the end he finds himself deliberately holding her close at each opportunity, prolonging the contact, making no attempt to pretend it isn't erotic. She returns every hug, looking happily at him sideways as he releases her, looking down quickly in embarrassment when he returns her glance.

  They come to the last rock in the path. The world begins to intrude on his awareness. He lowers Annetka down, holds her close for just an instant more than is needed, and releases her onto the damp earth of the riverbank at the base. Jomo is nearby, waiting. Zeph and Zoe stand with him, arms around each other's waists.

  "Glad you could make it," Zeph says ironically, alluding to their slow progress.

  "I take the time to do it right," Baldwin answers as Snake lands on the riverbank beside him.

  "Hey, look, Snake's even slower," he adds. Snake laughs just slightly, shaking his head and maintaining the grin for a while, intermittently shaking his head again as he re-contemplates the humor of the remark. The two seem to be developing into friends, a little to the surprise of both.

  "Waterfall back up this way," Jomo says and points upriver to his left. "Rainbow up here too. Sometimes. Usually. This way," he adds and takes off walking slowly upriver along the riverbank, the river on his right.

  Snake says something to Jomo in Creole and the girls laugh.

  "Okay, what did he say?" Baldwin asks. Though Annetka knows him well enough to have predicted he would want a translation, he doesn't yet realize that.

  "That he doesn't need to slow down here, the tourists can keep up with him on flat dry land that isn't at the top of a cliff."

  "That's kind of funny, actually," Baldwin admits, though he doesn't laugh at it.

  "Do you speak any languages most people wouldn't know?" his girlfriend inquires. "They have you at a disadvantage here."

  "A little Norwegian?"

  "Too close to English," she responds. "Also I don't speak Norwegian. I'd learn it for you, though, if it wasn't so close to English. How about we take a Japanese class together, or something like that? Something very foreign."

  "Sure," he answers, surprised but game. "You find a class nearby and let me know in time to sign up. It'd be fun."

  "Can I come too?" Snake asks, mostly as a jibe.

  "Rather defeats the purpose," Annetka points out.

  "Tha
t's unfriendly," Snake pretends disappointment.

  "Snake is welcome to join us," Baldwin vetoes Annetka's isolationism.

  Annetka shrugs.

  "Maybe I think about it," Snake ends the discussion.

  Ordinarily this would send Baldwin into introspection about the other man's psychology and temperament, but at present he's more interested in Annetka. Feeling images press into his mind, recalling the sensation of her body sliding against his as he was lowering her down from rock to rock on the path down from the cliff.

  He reaches out and puts his hand on her shoulder, slides it halfway to her neck, draws her close to him as they walk. He kisses the top of her head gently, and she wraps an arm loosely around his waist, leaning on him. The path is straight and flat. The water gurgles along beside them, bouncing over small rocks, jaunting merrily along on its lively trip down to the ocean.

  Occasional overgrown houseplants stand scattered intermittently along the way, some reaching roots out into the little river, some having taken root halfway up the cliff, reaching feathery green arms upward toward the light or arching down like willow branches. The smell of the fresh water is all around them, mixed with the omnipresent smell of cardamom and nutmeg and the jungle. As they approach the first waterfall, a trace of ozone is added, like the smell in the air after a thunderstorm.

  "Oh!" Jalissa exclaims as the path curves gently toward the right and she gets the first view of the big waterfall. The others soon catch up and stop where she stands. A pastel section of prismatic color arches across half the base of the waterfall, as if a pie slice had been taken out of a rainbow and placed there in the mist.

  "Wow," Annetka agrees.

  "Rainbow," Jomo beams, and gestures in the direction everyone is looking.

  After a minute he adds, "We break here. Hey, Mr Snake, you want to stay with these tourists and I go back up, check on that other guy Jack?"

  "You stay or go. No matter. Jack okay on his own. Azacca safe with Jack too," Snake assures him. "Hey, Jomo, it be safe here for these guys? No margay cats, none of them bad rats here?"

  "No problems here. This be safe place. These tourists be okay for a while. Why, you wanta take a nap here, Mr Snake?"

  "Might be I do take a rest. And don't be calling me Mr Snake, or I going to call you Mr Jomo."

  Jomo laughs and says, "I go back up now. You call out you want some help or something. I come down quick. Anyway I come back check on you if you not back in some little while. When Azacca say time to go now."

  The two men look at each other, apparently agreed on the course. Jomo flashes away back down the riverbank and up the rocks on the side of the cliff.

  To Baldwin and Zeph, Snake says, "I'm going to scout around a little. It's safe to wander around if you want to sightsee. Don't go too far."

  "Snake," Annetka stops him. "Do you think it's safe to go in the water here?"

  Snake turns to face toward the top of the cliff and calls out a question loudly. Jomo's voice answers from above.

  "Sure," Snake tells Annetka. "Safe to swim."

  "Swim?"

  "Big pool at the base of waterfall. Four feet deep, maybe five."

  She looks at her boyfriend. "I want to swim," she says plainly.

  "You don't have a bathing suit."

  "I don't care."

  He sighs. He takes her hand and says, "Let's look around a little, like they suggested. See what else is here."

  "More waterfalls," Snake announces. "Might be more rainbows too. Sometimes."

  Baldwin and Annetka both shrug. They walk off hand in hand, approaching the near side of the waterfall. Glancing back as the path turns to the right, they see Zeph and Zoe preparing to go skinny dipping. Snake is lying on his back on a broad flat rock, arms folded behind his neck, looking up at the sky.

  "He might really be going to take a nap," Annetka observes.

  "Might be at that. Hey, look. The path goes in under the waterfall. Look," he gestures toward a shadow in front of them. "It's a bit like a cave," he observes as they continue to approach. The path forks, and they continue toward the waterfall.

  They follow the path as it continues to curve to the right, in behind a curtain of water dropping from an overhang far above. It acts like a frosted window, letting them see the world beyond in a blurred and out of focus way. Time seems suspended for that instant when they first stand under the waterfall together, breathing in the waterfall smell, feeling the mist on their skin, looking back to see the vague figures of Zeph and Zoe swimming and playing in the water, and the indistinct jungle valley beyond.

  Zeph makes a splashing sound lunging up out of the water at Zoe, and Zoe giggles a tinkling musical stanza of delight. Baldwin smiles and looks at Annetka.

  "I want to swim," she says, and starts removing her clothes.

  He watches, reaching one arm out into the curtain of water beside them to test its temperature. It certainly isn't melting snow, he quickly realizes. Runoff from rainwater, in a land that never sees winter, it seems pleasant enough.

  "Okay," he agrees, and takes off his shirt and shoes as she takes off her jeans. Rather than jumping straight into the water, she comes closer to him.

  "Want help with those?" she suggests, glancing down at his trousers, then up into his eyes. He says nothing, but takes them off. Both stand there dressed to go skinny dipping. She stands very close. She doesn't see that he is well prepared for something else besides skinny dipping.

  "You want to go swimming," he says, and caresses her shoulders very lightly, barely touching the skin.

  She shivers involuntarily and her breathing changes, becomes a little faster, a little shallower. The black circles at the center of her eyes expand and she starts to flush. Without deciding to do so, he finds himself kissing her, first gently, then passionately, holding her close. Her arms wrap around him as she returns his embrace. Soon he realizes he is kissing her neck and she is making little soft low moaning sounds.

  "Swimming," she agrees, pulling away, and slips through the curtain into the pool of water. He follows.

  He catches up with her and they pause again at a secluded edge, out of sight of the others. Again they kiss. Time melts away as they embrace in the warm water, enveloped in the misty spray from the waterfall, their senses washed by the sounds and scents of the nearby jungle.

  He cannot say how much time passes before he hears Jomo's voice calling out to them.

  "We should go," Baldwin tells Annetka reluctantly. "We need to be getting back to the others."

  She blinks.

  They kiss one last time, and begin to gather themselves for the ascent.