The Gift of Shame

by Sophie Hope-Walker

  Helen threw back the covers and hurried to one of the long narrow windows to draw up the slatted blind that covered it. She could see nothing but the endless ocean. ‘Where is it?’ she asked.

  ‘On the port side, madame. We are looking to starboard from here.’

  ‘Well, what sort of place is it?’

  ‘Deserted, madame. No one lives there. Mr Qito has chosen this place for you and he to work on.’

  ‘And there’s nobody else on it?’

  ‘No, madame.’

  Helen turned away with a great deal to ponder. When Carla had said she would be alone with Qito she had taken that as a figure of speech. Had it really meant they were to be little more than castaways? Finding her appetite for breakfast gone Helen went directly to the bathroom where she turned on the shower full blast.

  Tsai was waiting for her with warmed towels as she stepped from the shower, seemingly willing to dry her back and legs as Helen caressed her front. Her breasts seemed rudely aroused by this double assault, and Helen’s mind took her to the massage bench which still stood erected in the bathroom.

  Without a further word she lay face down on it. With equally tacit silence Tsai Lo’s hands started to stroke oils into her skin.

  Lying there, Helen contemplated what the next five days might bring. She felt that she had most certainly paid the admission price but wondered precisely how the performance might play. She vaguely remembered seeing a film about a girl stranded on an island with a man she came to hate and the memory of it brought her little comfort. These thoughts, combined with Tsai’s expert hands, led her to dreamily remember the last occasion she had lain on this bench. Times had since changed!

  Languorously, she turned her awakened body onto its back and looked up into Tsai’s beautiful face. She awaited the girl’s reaction with a feeling of voluptuous abandonment. Tsai allowed herself only the tiniest smile of satisfaction at this overt gesture as her hands began spreading their fiery message across Helen’s stomach and breasts. Tsai said nothing until her hands were gently massaging Helen’s throat. ‘Madame would like?’ she asked.

  ‘Madame would like very much,’ said Helen and, closing her eyes, passively gave herself over to the now openly arousing caress.

  Using only her soft hands Tsai gently stroked Helen’s most sensitive flesh, her oiled fingers stimulating and stinging her openness to a convulsing climax.

  Opening her eyes she saw that Tsai, duty done, had turned away and was once more the purposeful maid, picking up the dampened bath towels and turning back with them in her arms. ‘Has madame decided what she wishes to wear today?’ asked the girl, as if nothing untoward had occurred between them.

  Picking up on the workaday mood, Helen shook her head. ‘What is the usual dress for morning?’ she asked.

  Tsai smiled. ‘Perhaps a simple sarong, madame?’

  ‘Sounds perfect, except I haven’t got one.’

  ‘Oh no!’ cried Tsai. ‘We have plenty!’

  Curious, Helen followed Tsai out into the stateroom where she watched as drawer after drawer was opened to reveal neatly folded ranks of the soft silken garments. Called upon to choose, Helen arbitrarily pointed out one decorated with oversized red flowers, which seemed to please Tsai who insisted on showing her how to wind it under her arms to tuck in above the left breast. Tsai insisted this was the way it was worn in the Polynesian islands. From the breakfast tray Tsai took a fresh flower which was almost the twin of those on the material, and hesitated over which side of the head Helen would prefer to wear it.

  ‘What difference does it make?’ Helen asked.

  ‘Is very important,’ cautioned Tsai Lo. ‘For the unmarried woman it is worn on the right, but a married woman wears it on the left side.’

  ‘What do you mean by “unmarried”?’

  Tsai glanced coyly away. ‘Virgin,’ she whispered.

  Helen laughed. ‘Let’s not push our luck,’ she said, taking the flower and carefully pushing it into her hair above her left ear.

  Coming up onto the main deck gave Helen the first sight of the island on which Qito apparently intended they should spend some days alone. The yacht was moored in a pristine bay, some hundred yards offshore.

  At first sight it seemed as if a careless deity had dropped a handful of greenery in the middle of the ocean. From behind the edge of the white sand beach, dotted with clumps of elegant palms, rose the steep sides of a volcanic hill covered in a verdant carpet of shrubs and trees.

  Looking at it Helen thought that it, at least, was not the desert island of legend. On the contrary, it looked quite cool and inviting.

  An approaching steward interrupted her reverie and offered her breakfast, which she refused. Since there seemed to be no other guests about, Helen took the opportunity to have her first real look at this amazingly huge boat. From the dining salon there was a view forward over an immaculately clean deck of polished mahogany to the elegantly shaped bows.

  Stepping out of the salon Helen was overwhelmed by the scents being wafted seawards from the island. Looking to the source of Nature’s perfume she caught a flash of reflected light and, guarding her eyes against the gleaming sea, saw that one of the yacht’s motored tenders was dragged up on the beach and manned by two of the white-uniformed crew.

  ‘Good morning, madame,’ said a quietly accented voice beside her. Turning, she saw an officer in a white duck shirt and shorts. He was shorter than herself and looked vaguely Latin. ‘I am the Captain,’ the man was saying. ‘Captain Miguel de Soledad. Most of the guests have gone ashore. May I show you the ship?’

  Accepting, Helen was led up a flight of steep chrome-railed stairs to a quarter-deck which spread the full width of the ship and seemed filled with a confusing array of instruments and television monitors.

  ‘The boat is equipped with most of the very latest navigating and guidance systems.’ Fearing that her technological blindness would afflict her she tried to look intelligent as it was explained to her that satellite positioning made it possible for the crew to know the yacht’s position to within a metre or two, anywhere in the world. Of more interest was the array of communications equipment, by which they could send or receive fax or telephone communications. It occurred to Helen that she might try calling her mother to tell her where she was, but then decided against it as her mother would surely consider it ‘extravagant’.

  Although she had no knowledge of such things, it was still impressive to learn that the yacht had a displacement of 750 tons, was nearly four hundred feet in length, and carried a crew of twenty-nine.

  ‘It must cost of fortune to run a boat like this,’ she said.

  ‘More money in a year than most people would expect to see in a lifetime,’ the Captain smiled.

  One of the crew came into the wheelhouse to report something to the Captain in what sounded like Portuguese.

  The Captain turned to her. ‘The others have started back from the island,’ he told her.

  Looking down from the wing of the bridge Helen saw that the launch was fast coming back towards the boat. On board she could see Martinez and Jimmy but no sign of Carla or Qito. Leaving the bridge she moved down the steps to the main deck, ready to greet them as they came aboard.

  Martinez was the first to come on board. From the warmth of his smile and his bear hug of a greeting, Helen judged that he must have enjoyed the previous night’s events. ‘It’s going to be fantastic!’ he told her. ‘Qito is like a crazy man waiting for you.’

  ‘He’s already ashore?’

  ‘Ashore and raring to get to work. The tender will take you to him.’

  ‘Now? But I haven’t prepared anything … I’ve no idea what I’ll need.’

  Martinez smiled expansively. ‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘You’ll want for nothing. It’s like a paradise on there.’

  ‘But what about food and …? I presume we are going to eat?’

  ‘My crew have been working since daylight,’ said Martinez. ‘What you have on there is a mini
Hilton,’ adding, with an encouraging shoo-ing motion, ‘Go. The tender is waiting just for you.’

  Still confused by the pace of events, Helen suddenly saw Carla on an upper deck looking at her with an expression that threatened thunder.

  ‘Go!’ said Martinez urging her forward to the gangway with a gentle nudge.

  One more glance in Carla’s direction made the possibility of getting away onto the island more appealing. Still feeling that this was completely unreal she stepped onto the gangway and into the assisting hands of the two crewmen.

  The launch started away from the yacht the moment she was on board and, looking back, Helen suddenly realised a sense of just how isolated she was going to be.

  Turning away from the impressive lines of the yacht and looking to the island, she couldn’t shake off the feeling that she was being transported as some form of ritual sacrifice. Rapidly she tried to remember what she knew of Qito. That first meeting with Jeffrey … the reception in Paris and then his visit to the hotel. Their encounters on the yacht added very little, and she might, for all she knew, be about to be delivered to an ogre to do with as he wished. One thought, above all others, seethed in her disordered mind – that whatever he might do to her, Qito, secure within his international prestige, would not be held to account. Throughout her sexually aware life she had always sought to pass the responsibility for her actions to others, secure in the knowledge that the man would behave to a set of principles. Now she was being offered, almost literally naked, to the mercies of a man who would not likely be held accountable, in a place from which she had no escape.

  She tried desperately, as the launch nudged up into the soft sand of the beach, to take refuge in her masochism and be thrilled by her jeopardy, but somehow the call went unanswered and, as she stepped from the boat onto the beach, she felt only a cold dread of what might be to come mingled with the feel of warm water and soft sand.

  Seeing no sign of Qito, and so having no idea of what she might be expected to do next, she hesitated. One of the crewmen called out to her. ‘Lady?’ Turning back to the man she saw him pointing into the palms which fringed the beach area. ‘You go there,’ the man added as she still hesitated.

  Seeing little alternative, Helen started blindly up the gently shelving beach to the line of sighing palms. As she began to peer into the shadowed gloom under the trees she heard the murmuring of the launch’s motor and, turning, saw that it was already backing away from the beach.

  Fighting off an impulse to run after it, she heard a sound in the shrubs to her front and, turning, saw a smiling Qito, his compact but powerful body completely naked, coming towards her. ‘It’s perfect!’ he cried. ‘At least we won’t have those cretins –’ he waved a hand at the yacht ‘– disturbing us. Come.’

  When Qito turned, Helen followed him across some grass which bit coarsely at her bare feet. Within a few yards the colourful undergrowth opened up to a sandy-based clearing in which stood a very substantial-looking tent around which were piled crates and boxes. A little way off from the tent stood a propane-fuelled cooking range that would have looked well in her kitchen. At least they weren’t going to starve to death.

  Qito had momentarily disappeared into the tent, only to emerge carrying a large plastic bottle. ‘Get that off,’ he said, indicating the sarong she had wound about herself that morning.

  Defensively she asked, ‘What for?’

  ‘So I can spread this on you,’ he told her, indicating the plastic bottle. ‘Sun shield. You’re going to need it on your white skin. It’s factor thirty so you should come to no harm.’

  Somewhat reassured, she reached for the bottle. ‘I can do it for myself,’ she told him warily.

  ‘Nonsense!’ cried Qito, ‘besides, I want to feel the contours of your body. If I’m to paint you I must feel the plasticity of you.’

  Not at all sure that his statement had any validity, Helen felt curiously shy as she unwound the sarong and, not for the first time, stood naked before him. Qito came forward and, humming an unfamiliar tune through closed teeth, set about coating her body with the sunscreen. As he worked, he talked. ‘After we get you protected we can walk up to the spring. Fantastic! You’ll love it as I do. God is a wonderful set decorator.’

  Helen stood submissively as Qito, the infuriatingly repetitive tune endlessly repeated, liberally coated her body, actually going on his knees before her to stroke the oil into her legs. ‘You’ll have to do this every morning and, again, after you swim,’ he told her.

  Filled with a sudden sense of the absurdity of the situation, Helen felt brave enough to quip, ‘Aren’t you going to do it for me, then?’

  ‘No time,’ said Qito as he stood up and looked critically at her to seek out any spots he might have missed. ‘You trimmed your pubic hair and shaved your armpits,’ he told her, as if noticing for the first time.

  ‘I usually do,’ she told him.

  ‘Ridiculous habit,’ muttered Qito. ‘Hair is grown for a purpose and you’re supposed to be my wild creature of the forest.’ With a deep sigh he turned away to return the sunscreen to the tent.

  ‘Now,’ he said, ‘I’ll take you up to the spring and afterwards I’ll make us some lunch. After lunch I like to sleep a little and then this afternoon we’ll start work. That suit you?’

  Helen shrugged. ‘I could cook if you like,’ she offered.

  Qito let out an exasperated gasp. ‘Women can’t cook!’ he told her and then turned away, obviously expecting her to follow.

  Helen picked up the discarded sarong and was about to wind it about herself when Qito, already some yards off, called back, ‘You don’t need that. There’s nobody here but us. Come on.’

  Unwilling to so immediately assume the status of naked savage, but neither wishing to dispute with Qito – already out of sight in the trackless bush – she compromised, and, bunching the strip of material in her hand, started after him.

  Qito may have been thirty years older than her but his legs seemed to carry him up the hillside with the ability of a mountain goat. Helen found her heart and lungs protesting as she ground up after him, so it was with some relief that she saw him halt at the top of a rise.

  Puffing up to stand beside him, Helen looked down into a rocky depression. From half way up a sheer rock face came a shimmering but sparse column of water which, sparkling in the sunlight, looked like so many diamonds. The sun’s heat seemed focused on the water and, before it struck the smooth, saucer-like depression in the rock beneath, it almost completely petered out so that what fell was no more than a mist which drifted airily away on the breeze. It was magical. A fairy-tale place where legends could be played out.

  ‘Isn’t it wondrous?’ asked Qito.

  ‘Fabulous,’ breathed Helen.

  ‘Imagine how long that water must have been falling. It must have taken millions of years for that drizzle to have worn away the rocks. It’s inspiring,’ he told her. ‘Civilisations, worlds even, have been created and lost while that steady drip waited for our eyes to find it.’

  Looking to Qito’s absorbed profile, his eyes fired with delight, she felt a surge of privilege. This was a truly magical place – the kind she might have wanted to share with a lover, and for one passing moment she all but promoted Qito into that role.

  ‘Is this where you mean to paint me?’ she asked.

  ‘Down there!’ cried Qito. ‘Exactly where the water strikes the ground. I mean that you should look as if the water had carved you out of the rocks.’

  His enthused tone fired her so that she could see what the finished picture might be. Suddenly everything – the flight to Guadeloupe, the yacht and being stranded on the island with Qito – made sense. The chain of events which had brought her here, ragged and unplanned, now seemed like an intricately stitched tapestry. In that moment there was no other world and, it was almost possible to imagine, no other people. In such a place, she decided, anything was possible.

  It was Qito who broke the mood. ‘Let’s go
and eat,’ he said, and started back down the path they had so recently created through the coarse undergrowth. Helen hesitated and gave one more lingering look into the magical dell. No matter what was to come, she decided, it was going to be worth it.

  While Qito monopolised the cooking range Helen wandered through the thin screen of shrubbery to the gently lapping water’s edge. Tiny fish were being driven up onto the beach with every eddy. Looking further out into the translucent waters of the lagoon she saw the flash of other bodies as they teemed, seemingly fighting for sea room, in their crowded world. Impulsively she waded knee deep into the water and laughed out loud when she saw how her legs appeared to bend in the mirrored clarity. Fish eagerly approached her intrusive legs and she yelped with delight as they fearlessly nudged against her in the hope she might present them with a meal.

  Lifting her eyes to look beyond the white water breaking on the reef, she saw an endless placidity and imagined this to be a friendly place that had opened its arms in welcome and granted her peace.

  A half-heard yell from Qito brought her wading back from the busy ocean to find him already greedily scooping up forkfuls of a creamy pasta and drinking deep into a glass of blood-red wine. She felt an intense sadness for the workers who, she imagined, sweated in the dark noisy factories to produce durable goods which had been brought to a paradise they would never see.

  Qito indicated her plate set down on a table. The sauce was delicious – tangy enough to soften her conscience at enjoying the rich creamy indulgence. Qito, who seemed to wolf his food, was almost finished. She had barely had time to savour hers, and compliment him on it, before he was on his feet, stretching, belching delicately, and turning to go into the tent. ‘I’ll sleep for an hour then we’ll make a start,’ he told her.

  Grateful not to have been invited to join his siesta Helen, after eating, walked down to the water’s edge to sluice the plates and watch the fish excitedly nudge at the dregs of the meal. She idly wondered how they might react to this new taste sensation before having a pang of conscience about how it might also damage their digestive systems.