by Dawn Steele
Up there, Kurt moves the body with a flurry of movements.
I hear an expletive and tense.
“What?” I call.
“I think he’s been murdered.”
My heart stops in my throat.
“Why do you say that?” I squeak.
I don’t think Kurt heard me. My mind suddenly overflows with possibilities. If the man has been murdered, it means that he has been murdered by somebody. And that somebody has been here on this island or whatever it is.
Kurt says, “There’s a knife sticking into the back of his neck. It’s awful.”
I can imagine.
“Kurt, come away from there! It isn’t safe!”
“It’s OK. Whoever did this to him has been long gone.”
Yeah, but he can still be around.
Of course, I realize this is ludicrous.
“I need the knife,” Kurt says.
“No!” I don’t want a murder weapon around us.
“We need a knife, Rebecca. He’s not going to need it anymore.”
Yeah, especially since it killed him. This murder is almost like a hit. But the presence of this man and his murderer also means something. It means that this island is easily accessible and it is not as godforsaken as we initially thought.
I hope Kurt is not going to suggest we investigate the murder, because we need all our strength to survive.
“What are you doing now, Kurt?” I call again. I must sound like a nagging mother, checking up on his every move. There’s a lot of activity going on up there.
“Removing his clothes, shoes and knife. He has a wallet in here, but it’s empty of money. He has no ID.”
Figures.
Kurt goes on, “But he has some sort of backpack that has fallen off this side of the ledge. It’s hanging from a root or something a little way down. It might contain something we can use. I’ll go get it.”
I can’t see the backpack he is referring to. It must be on the other side.
“I don’t know, Kurt. Be careful.”
“I can reach it. No problem.”
There’s some sort of scuffle up there. I have to bite my lip very hard to keep myself from yelling out.
Then Kurt cries out, and I hear a splash.
My breath stops.
“Kurt?”
There is no reply.
Oh shit shit shit. He has fallen into the sea. He might have dashed his head against the rocks. I quickly scramble to the side overlooking the sea. From where I am, the ground falls about ten feet down into the water. There is no beach at all here.
“Kurt?” My voice is practically a scream now. The blood rushes through my ears, filling my head with a roaring waterfall of sound.
I run around the bend. If Kurt has fallen in, he would be in the water right about here. But he’s an expert swimmer, so I should be seeing his bobbing head anytime soon. Thank goodness the rocks are patchy here. But he could have hit his head on an underwater rock. I don’t see any blood trailing in the water.
Oh help, I’m panicking.
“Kurt?”
There is still no sign of him.
I have no choice. I have to find him.
Without pausing to take off my natty dress, I take a flying leap into the clear water. From what I can see, there are no rocks underneath. I land inside the water with a mighty splash.
The sea is cool and almost silent underwater. The saltwater stings my eyes, but I brave myself to open them to search for Kurt. I turn my head here, there, everywhere, my long hair trailing like ghostly seaweed behind me. My dress encumbers my movements, and so I hike it up as fast as it can go to allow my legs the freedom of movement.
Here, the water is quite deep, surprisingly. Which bodes well for Kirk. I’m just so afraid he might have hit his head on some hard surface.
I’m getting frantic here. Not to mention starved for oxygen. I surface, gulping in lungfuls of air. Stars swim in my eyes.
And then I see him. Not ten feet away from me. He is struggling to surface. His arms are flailing desperately. I don’t understand why he doesn’t just tread water.
I stroke towards him. I have no training on how to save a drowning victim, though I’m sure Kurt has hit his head somehow, and that’s why he is struggling. Instinct makes me go for his back, where he is less likely to lash out and hit me. I lock my arms around his neck.
“Kurt, relax. I’m here,” I try to say.
But he struggles even further and plunges me down with him. I have to kick very hard just to get both of us to the surface. But he thrashes and whirls again, and I realize – somewhere in my impeded mind – that these are the actions of a man who doesn’t know how to swim.
With much difficulty, I manage to get my arm around his neck. His long wet hair slaps my face and throat.
“I’ve got you, Kurt, I’ve got you,” I say soothingly.
His struggles abate somewhat. Using one arm, I start to pull us back to land.
“Kurt, can you climb up?” Closer to the cliffs, there are rocky outcrops where we can place our feet.
It is a slow, laborious process to get both of us up to the ground once again, but we manage it. At the end of it all, we both sprawl on the earth, coughing and gasping. Kurt retches, and then throws up a whole lot of water. I pick myself up to go to him.
“Are you OK?” I say, distressed.
I thump his back. It is the only thing I know how to do to help him now.
He heaves a few more times on his hands and knees and empties out more seawater from his stomach. His breathing gradually steadies. He coughs a few more times and then sinks back to his haunches.
I observe him, my heart beating wildly. For a moment there, I thought he was a goner.
I gingerly touch his bare shoulder. “Kurt, are you all right?”
He nods, his face still pale.
A bobbing object near the edge catches my eye.
“Oh, look, you managed to retrieve the dead guy’s backpack after all,” I say.
He manages a wan smile, and I know that all is right again.
*
It takes a lot of effort and multiple climbs, but we manage to take everything the poor dead man has on him. So now we have a good sturdy knife, German made to boot. We have his clothes, which I absolutely refuse to touch. Kurt has no such misgivings, however, and readily washes them in the stream and hangs them out to dry.
From his backpack, we have a canteen half-filled with water, some melted Snickers bars, some underwear, another shirt and pants, a pair of sunglasses and a shaving kit. We figure everything valuable, like cash or a camera or a cellphone, has been taken by the person or people who killed him.
We soon recover our spirits. We even make a meal out of those melted Snickers bars. Chocolate and nuts have never tasted so good to me. Kurt uses the shaving kit on himself, shedding that short beard I find so sexy, revealing his chiseled jaw once again.
I can’t help staring at him when he emerges from cleaning his face.
“Don’t you dare use this on your legs,” he warns, shaking the shaver at me.
I have to stifle a laugh.
As darkness falls, we grow more pensive.
“Do you think whoever killed him is still on the island?” I ask Kurt.
He stokes the small fire we made with a stick.
“I don’t know. In which case, this fire is as good to alert them as any.”
I stare at the flames, aghast. “Oh my God, should we put it out then?”
He shakes his head. “They may have been long gone by now. And if they are still here, they might have seen our smoke. It’s no use speculating. We’d better put all our energy into surviving this.”
“Is it still a good idea then – going up by beach?”
“We have to get somewhere.” He taps the knife. “At least now we have this.”
Part of me wonders if it had been a ritualistic killing. The knife in the back of the head. The man’s posture, on the cliff facing the sea.
A shiver goes down my spine.
Kurt notices this.
“Don’t be scared,” he says in a low voice. “It isn’t over for us, not by a long shot.”
I nod, still not convinced. I hug my knees to my chest.
“At least we have new clothes,” he says jovially, trying to cheer me up. “You can have everything in the backpack. At least you won’t consider those contaminated.”
I manage a small smile.
He eyes me from beneath his long lashes. He smiles back at me, a little shyly.
“I didn’t thank you yet for pulling me out of the water.”
I blush. “And I didn’t really thank you for coming in after me when I first fell out of the ship.”
“Well, thank you,” he says simply.
“You are welcome. And thank you.”
“You’re welcome.”
An awkward silence descends between us.
I finally say, “You can’t swim, can you?”
He shakes his head.
“Figures,” I continue. A strange rushing feeling goes through my body, suffusing my chest area with a prickling sensation. A choke wells up my throat. “I . . . I didn’t realize . . . that. And you . . . you still dived in to save me. Even when you knew you couldn’t swim.”
A sob stifles the rest of my words.
Kurt looks up, concerned. I can’t help it anymore. It’s too much. Everything is too much. Meeting Kurt again, reawakening all those old suppressed feelings. Getting blown off the ship by a freak gust of wind. Being stranded here with him on this island. Seeing that dead man up on the cliff.
My shoulders quake with my sobs and the tears which have threatened for so long finally spill over my cheeks in a deluge. When it rains, it pours. And I am pouring now. My sobs rack my entire body, and I can’t seem to stop even if I want to.
Kurt is on his feet. Within moments, he has sprinted to my side.
He cradles me in his strong arms. I let it all out – all my penned-up emotions and anger at myself and my shame for treating him so badly. The words refuse to come out, and so I let my tears do the talking instead. I bury my face into the warm clean crook between his neck and bare shoulder and hold him tightly to me.
He rocks me gently. No words are needed. He understands what I’m going through. Understands everything.
When my sobs have died down some, he loosens his hold on me. His eyes gaze into mine.
“Hey, you OK?” he asks me softly.
I’m not sure who made the first move – if it was me or him – but suddenly, our lips are on each other’s. And it is as though a hunger has been unleashed within me. I can’t get enough of his mouth. I suck at his lower lip, and in turn, he opens his mouth to run the tip of his tongue over mine. Then our lips lock again, and we are tonguing each other deeply. Exploring the landscapes of each other’s mouths.
I lick the contours of his teeth, his inner cheeks, and twine my tongue around his. My pussy clenches. I want him, I realize. I desperately want him. I have wanted him since I first saw him all those years ago when we were all juniors in high school. He was the bad boy I could never have – who would never look twice at girls like me.
His hands – those hands I have often dreamed about – are now all over me. Roaming down my body. Groping for my flesh beneath my tattered green dress, or what is left of it. He feels for my breasts, my waist, my buttocks.
“Oh God, Rebeccca,” he moans into my mouth, “how I’ve wanted this. I’ve wanted you for so long . . . you have no idea.”
Hearing this only makes my heart beat faster. And it is already beating so fast and loudly I feel sure we both must be vibrating from the drum of it. His hands go between my legs and part them.
“Do you want me to?” he murmurs. His eyes arrest mine. They are molten liquid and very dark with desire.
“Yes.” I am too far gone to give anything but my assent.
“There wasn’t a condom in the backpack.”
“Damn.”
“Do you still want to?”
Making love out here in the wild without condoms can lead to complications. Pregnant ones. Besides, I don’t really know how many women he has been with. But oh, I do want him so badly. I need to feel him inside me, to have my vaginal muscles clench tightly around that cock that I glimpsed previously.
He says, “Contrary to what you think, I haven’t been with all that many women after Adeline. And I have always used a condom whenever I’m with someone.”
I gaze at his face, so beautiful in the flickering yellow flames.
I say in a hoarse voice, “I want you to. And you can pull out before . . . ”
He smiles.
“Then let’s take off your clothes. I want to see you naked.”
I sit up to help him pull off my dress. I have kept (and washed) the same brassiere and panties for several days now. He tugs these off my shoulders, arms and legs. Then he sits back on his haunches and revels in the sight of me, as though he is drinking in from the font of desire itself. He is in his usual underwear, and his cock tents its crotch like an incredible flagpole.
“You’re so beautiful,” he says in a choked voice.
And I really believe him. I’ve always had trouble believing I was beautiful, especially since I have always been a bit bigger than most girls, but Kurt says it with reverence, as though I am the most beautiful thing he has ever seen.
I lie back and lick my lips. Because he seems to enjoy the sight of me so much, my embarrassment at my own body sheds away like all my pounds during the protracted starvation of the last few days. Indeed, I feel thinner, more in charge of my own body and better than I have ever felt in years.
So I part my legs, even as the flush spreads from my cheeks down to my breasts.
“I need you, Kurt.” My tone is not wanton, or suggestive, but quiet. Because it’s a realization I have arrived to. I do really need him.
He drops his underwear, and that marvelous cock springs up to greet me. It is uncircumcised and thick. The word that comes instantly to my mind is ‘succulent’, and I realize that I desperately long to taste it in my mouth, to suck at it and lick that fleshy tip with its inviting slit.
A hollowness blossoms in my throat as he comes towards me. He takes me in his arms again.
“I want you, Rebecca. I want you so bad.”
He presses his body down against mine, and arranges my thighs so that I am open to him. So open. Then he positions the head of his cock against my naked pussy, and pushes it in.
I gasp. It has been so long since I’ve had sex. I don’t even remember the last time, but it was when I was drunk and in college. And I have never had sex before without my lover wearing a condom. It feels so different – the texture of it. Like it’s more real. More substantial. Pure erotic flesh against erotic flesh.
“Do you trust me?” he says, his eyes holding mine. His eyes are so beautiful. They are pools upon pools of deep wells. I can look into their depths forever and sink in.
“Yes.”
He pushes into me further, and I cry out. There is a flare of pain as my vagina walls expand to accommodate his girth. But he feels so good. There is a sensation of very satisfactory fullness within me – the sensation of connection. Of being one with another human being. Of being desired and cared for and wanted as a woman should be wanted. I’ve been called a feminist by plenty of people who dislike me, but I have never felt more feminine than the way I feel now.
I cling onto his shoulders and his back as he starts to move inside me. Ohhhh, but he feels so good. So fuckingly, perfectly good.
“You OK?” he asks.
I have never expected him to be so tender and gentle, so solicitous and so caring as a lover. I guess I’ve always had this impression of him as a bad boy – the kind of guy who fucks women and leaves them high and dry. But he isn’t like that. He isn’t like that at all. He isn’t anything I expect a rock star of his stature to be.
I nod, smiling through my tears.
He smi
les at me too. It is a genuinely loving smile, and his eyes are burning as he looks down at me.
As he moves within me, he lowers his mouth to mine and kisses me with passion. His lips are warm and contoured and oh-so-nuanced. I lose myself in him as he slowly pumps into me. My pussy is a hot, snug tunnel and he is a perfect fit. The silky feel of his hot, thick piece of man flesh within my collapsible pouch is a restlessly churning cocoon of ecstasy.
As he escalates his bucking, I raise my hips to meet each thrust – elevating myself further and further into pleasurable delirium. I grind my loins into his, coring into his writhing flesh as if I am a mortar to his pestle.
I arch my back. Ohhhhh. And as the orgasm crashes through me, my mind explodes with it. White sparks dance within the fevered cavern of my brain, sending paroxysms and paroxysms of relentless pleasure through me, as if I am a conduit of fiery tingles and explosive shudders.
I am such a molten smorgasbord of sensations and delights that I almost fail to register the fact that he is pulling his cock out of me.
He cries out. I open my eyes. His face is contorted in ecstasy, a most beatific sight, and I feel a hot spurt of fluid spatter the inside of my right thigh. He groans heavily as his semen continues to mark me.
I am hot and sticky and sweaty, but I have never felt so right in my life.
“Sorry,” he says sheepishly once we both have recovered. He rubs his sap into the flesh of my thigh.
“No, it was amazing.”
“You thought so?” He is pleased. A smile is plastered on his flushed face.
“Yes, it was.” I stroke his cheek with the palm of my hand. “Kiss me, Kurt.”
He obliges, and we descend into another long, loving kiss.
KURT
I never thought making love to Rebecca would affect me so profoundly, but it did. As we lie sleeping next to each other by the fire, I gaze at her. OK, I am pretending to be asleep, but she is soundly in dreamland. She has always snored mildly, and I enjoy watching her pretty mouth open and close as her eyeballs twitch beneath their lids in the rapid eye movement of dreams.