Ocean's Gift

by Carlton, Demelza

  “Put your stuff downstairs, in the sleeping quarters,” she told me, nodding her head toward the stairs. She leaned over to put her water bottle in the fridge.

  I tore my eyes from her shorts to watch where I was going. The metal stairs were steep, but the accommodations were surprisingly comfortable. Tiered bunks to sleep twelve, full-length lockers with mirrors and soft carpet on the floor.

  “The girls use the bunks at the far end, so dump your gear on any of the bunks closest to the stairs,” Vanessa called down.

  I dropped my backpack on the nearest and ran back up the stairs, two at a time.

  She smiled impishly. “Help me get the boat out of the anchorage and then you can help yourself to anything you like in the fridge. You can watch the satellite TV, if you like, or come up top with me.”

  She said it like there was a choice.

  Where else would I be, but up top with you?

  Together, we cast off and she manoeuvred the boat into the anchorage channel. She said little, her expression tense and watchful until we were in the open water of Middle Channel, between the Easter Group and the Wallabis.

  When the multicoloured water of the Easter Group had shifted to the solid blue of the channel, she breathed a sigh of relief and turned to me, a little hesitantly. “Could you go down to the kitchen and get me a Pepsi from the fridge? Please get a drink for yourself, too.”

  “Sure,” I replied, climbing down the ladder to the deck. When I looked in the fridge, I saw diet soft drinks, beer and very little else to drink. Definitely a girl’s fridge. I pulled out her Pepsi and behind it was a carton of iced coffee. I hadn’t had an iced coffee since I landed on the islands. Brilliant. I shoved them into the pockets of my shorts and headed back up the ladder to Vanessa.

  Up on the fly bridge, she bumped her can against my milk carton. “To a fun weekend off!” Her eyes shone, she was so transparently happy.

  I returned her smile. “To a fun weekend off,” I echoed fervently, hoping she was right.

  45. Belinda

  On our swim between the islands and Geraldton, we met a humpback whale. She told us of sharks who had followed her and we drove them away. Unless a shark is determined on a meal, our people have always been able to make them obey. It was part of the ocean’s gift, the ability to sing up all the creatures in the water and to sing them away, too.

  In thanks, the whale cow told us of the changes she had seen, to ice in the south and the sea bed to the south and the north. She spoke of the humans in boats who still hunted her kind, though these were less now than in the past we all remembered. She described humans in vessels who came to her simply to watch her swim.

  We agreed with her that human behaviour seemed very strange, with some hunters and some admirers. We told her that the humans did not know of the changes to the sea bed, though some knew of changes to the ice.

  “Perhaps this will mean the end of the humans. It is sad to lose a species, but life is fleeting.” With these parting words, she turned north, heading for warmer waters. She sought a male of her kind, so that she could do her duty. This would be the first year in many that I would not be assisting with the birthing of whale calves in the north. Perhaps next year I would assist in the birth of her calf.

  We wished her a safe journey and a strong child.

  Her words lingered in my mind as we swam east, toward the mainland. If changing oceans meant the end of humans, what would become of us? There are no males of our kind, which is why we are dependent on humans for our children. Without human males, our people could die out.

  I understood in part what drove Vanessa to protect the humans. Without them, even our own people were lost.

  46. Joe

  When we sighted the Wallabis, I went downstairs to change into my board shorts. I left my clothes on the bunk beside my backpack.

  We moored the boat near one of the dive trails.

  “Okay, I’ll get changed and then we’ll go see some fish!” she called as she climbed down the ladder.

  As she hit the deck, she peeled off her shorts and pulled off her t-shirt, to reveal a light blue bikini and plenty of bare skin. My God. My mouth must have hung open for a full minute, or long enough for her to take her clothes to the bunkroom and reappear in front of me on the main deck. Her perfect boobs bounced with every step, clearly visible in the skimpy bikini that barely restrained them.

  She put on her mask, snorkel and fins and balanced on the edge. She turned to me, winked, and said, “Let’s get wet!” Then she vanished over the side.

  I struggled into my gear and followed her, more clumsily.

  We swam around reefs, rocks and wrecks that all seemed to blend into one another. There were lobsters, coral, seaweed, fish and plenty of other things I didn’t know the names of. But Vanessa did – each time she surfaced, she told me more names than I could remember. When I got sick of looking at marine life, there was always Vanessa, gliding through the water almost like a fish herself.

  “Did you see the clownfish?” she asked excitedly, as she surfaced for what felt like the hundredth time.

  I had no idea. I’d seen lots of fish. Rather than show my ignorance, I asked her the burning question. “How do you know so much about fish? You know the names of everything!”

  She laughed. “I studied marine biology in Perth. I finished my degree around six years ago.”

  She has a perfect body, so of course she’s smart, too. She doesn’t need anything else to make her utterly unattainable, but she has it anyway. As if I need to be reminded she’s so far out of my reach, just being beautiful.

  “C’mon, I’ll show you the clownfish.” She put her snorkel back in her mouth, waiting for me to do the same. Her cool fingers wrapped around my arm, pulling me through the water to the anemones.

  After she had pointed out the clownfish, we climbed back aboard to shift the boat to one of the fishing spots. We tied the boat up at the new mooring and she was already in the water before I’d even picked up my mask and snorkel.

  I hadn’t been in the water very long before she announced it was time to start fishing. It was evening by then and the sun was approaching the western horizon. She climbed out of the water, but when I started to follow her, she shook her head.

  “Can you scout around and find me a good place to drop my hook in?” she asked. “See if you can find a nice fish for dinner?”

  “Sure.” I shrugged and started circling the boat. I quickly found a good section of reef, with some big fish that looked suitable. I surfaced and pointed it out.

  Whilst I’d been swimming, she’d been baiting up. I got out of the way as she cast the line out, swimming around to the other side of the boat. We were near a beach, where some seals were lying. I was reaching for the boat ladder again, when I saw a seal leap out of the water, not far from me. Another smaller one did the same on my other side. Swimming with seals was something else I’d never done before.

  “Hey, do you want me to come help you catch dinner, or can I swim with the seals for a bit?” I asked her.

  She looked over at me. “They’re sea lions, not seals, but go for it. I’m sure I can catch dinner while you swim.”

  I was entranced by the sea lions, which were so agile in the water and in the air it was hard to believe they were the same animals as the comatose ones on the beach. They swam, turned and leaped faster than I could have believed possible. They swam close enough to touch, but they darted away before I could stretch out a hand to make contact. I lost track of the time, I was having so much fun.

  All of a sudden the sea lions disappeared. One second they were there, then they were gone. The sun had set and it was starting to get dark, so I headed back to the boat. “Hey, Vanessa,” I called. “The sea lions just vanished. Did you see where they went?”

  She was standing at the filleting table at the side of the boat, a big industrial plastic apron tied over her bikini, cleaning her catch. She lifted the big filleting knife from the fish as she turned to me.
<
br />   All of a sudden, she ripped off the apron and leaped into the water, the filleting knife still in her hand.

  “No, don’t!” I shouted as I saw the fin on top of the water, right beneath her. I swam for the boat as fast as I could. When I reached the ladder, I saw blood in the water, but she was nowhere in sight. I couldn’t see the shark, either.

  The seagulls chose that moment to claim the fish she’d left on the filleting board, fighting over it on the deck. I scrambled up the ladder in record time, whacking at the gulls with my fins. They left the remains of the fish on the deck, but most of it was gone.

  I heard dolphin sounds and a splash, so I went to the side, but I couldn’t see her, or the source of the blood. Just that there was a hell of a lot of it.

  47. Belinda

  In the shopping centre, I saw many human children with their parents, reminding me of my own daughter. The human children carried bags strapped to their backs. One particularly small child had a bag almost as big as her body.

  A flash of pink caught my eye. On the side of the child’s bag was a piece of pink plastic, perhaps the size of the child’s hand. It was cut in the shape of a stylised mermaid, a human image of one of our people. The human images covered the creature’s chest with clothing. Our people do not like the feeling of fabric between our skin and the water.

  The thought of fabric in the water reminded me of the pink ribbons on Vanessa’s crates.

  “Excuse me!” I called after the child and the human woman I presumed was her mother.

  Both turned to look at me. I hurried toward them.

  “Please,” I addressed the woman, “could you tell me where you bought the pink tag on her bag?”

  I pointed at the mermaid, my voice breathless.

  The child smiled at me. “You like my mermaid?” she asked in her chirpy voice.

  I missed Zerafina so much my heart ached. “My little girl would love it,” I replied.

  Her mother cleared her throat. “I ordered it online, with some labels for her school things. Search for school labels, bag tags or name labels. There’s lots of companies that do it, plus they deliver to your house.”

  “Thank you!” I smiled at the mother and child.

  They walked off. The child waved and smiled at me over her shoulder.

  I resolved to tell this to Vanessa on our return. We would attach mermaids to her crates, a far better idea than her pink fabric strips.

  I wondered about the strips, which brought my thoughts to the fisherman. I wondered if his taste for water sports was as great as hers.

  48. Joe

  I waited for what felt like forever before Vanessa surfaced near the ladder, throwing the knife back on the deck. I rushed to the side, reaching down to help her up. She felt like a dead weight, I could barely pull her up at all.

  Yet she laboriously climbed the ladder, almost reaching the top before I saw she had a sizeable tail clenched in one hand.

  “Quick, get the winch around this. I want it out of the water before the blood attracts any more,” she panted.

  Together, we got a rope tied around the tail and winched its owner aboard. As the bastard came up, my jaw dropped again. It was a tiger shark, maybe three or four metres long, with its head half hacked off, presumably with the filleting knife.

  I looked at her in amazement and noticed that her pale bikini top was covered in blood. “Shit, are you okay?” I asked, checking her for bite marks. It took a few seconds before I realised that I had my hands on those amazing boobs and there wasn’t a bite or scratch mark on them.

  “I’m fine,” she reassured me, stepping away to the side, out of reach.

  I looked down at the deck, red-faced. “I’m sorry, the sea gulls got your groper.” I nudged the remains of the fish with my foot.

  She picked up the fish by its tail and sighed. “Damn, I was really looking forward to dinner with the groper.” She threw the fish back into the ocean. The head fell off before it hit the water, sinking beneath the waves.

  She looked like she was trying not to laugh. “It’ll be ok. I think we’ll have enough fish for dinner without him.” She looked at the shark, then down at herself. There was gore in her hair, too. “Could you cut some fillets for dinner while I have a shower? Dinner here made a mess of my new swimsuit.” She aimed a kick at the shark with her bare foot. “Throw what you don’t want back over the side. With the blood in the water, the carcass will probably be gone by morning.”

  Great, sharks having a dinner party next to the boat, where I was swimming only a few minutes ago. “I guess so,” I replied, trying to keep my voice steady.

  She smiled, grabbed her towel off the deck and shut herself in the shower.

  It took me a minute to work out what to do with a fish that wouldn’t fit on the filleting board, but I got it winched up so the shark hung vertical enough to start slicing it up. The fillets were huge, but I cut them into smaller pieces, before dumping them in a big box from the kitchen. I threw the rest of the shark over the side, then hosed down the deck and the filleting board, before turning the hose on myself for a few seconds. I looked longingly at the shower, but she was still in there, so after one more squirt of cold water I wrapped my towel around my waist, over my dripping shorts, and headed down to my clothes in the bunkroom. I stripped off and wiped myself down with the wet towel, before piling my wet clothes and wet towel together on the floor. I pulled the dry towel out of my backpack and used it to dry myself off.

  I picked up my boxer shorts, wishing I’d had the foresight to buy and wear some in black silk, as opposed to the blue cotton ones I was holding. Like she’ll want to see me in them, anyway.

  A sound behind me made me turn around. She was at the bottom of the stairs, her back to me, leaning over to open the drawer under the bunk across from me. She picked a couple of items from the drawer and laid them on the bed. She was close enough to touch, but she hadn’t seen me yet. That wasn’t what made me freeze, unable to move or speak.

  She was naked, her perfectly curved body on full display. Her hair hung down in damp ribbons like seaweed, almost to her luscious arse. Her perfect boobs stood out from her chest above her slightly curved belly, her nipples erect. Every inch of her skin looked smooth and flawless. I itched to reach out and touch her, perhaps a metre from me.

  I forced myself to look away, but that didn’t help. I could see her amazing body from all angles in the mirrors on the locker doors.

  Something blue and lacy in her hands, she moved to stand in front of one of the locker mirrors. She was looking down at first, but she lifted her eyes slowly until it looked like she was scrutinising her own reflected face in the mirror. From where I stood, it looked like her reflection had her eyes on me.

  She smiled. “I take it you like what you see.” She turned around to face me, looking down. “Impressive.”

  I looked down and dropped my arms to hold my shorts over where they needed to be. I had the biggest, most painful boner in history from looking at her naked and I’d forgotten that I was starkers, too.

  FUCKfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuckfuck...

  I stared down at my feet, wishing I could sink through the floor.

  Then my feet were obscured, by a pair of dark nipples on the end of two perfect breasts. Cool hands tugged my boxer shorts out of my grasp and tossed them aside. She cupped my hands in hers and placed them around her boobs.

  “Fuck,” I whispered.

  She laughed, her boobs bouncing in my hands. “I’d love to.” She touched her lips to mine.

  Without knowing how it happened, I was kissing her. Her boobs were soft up against my chest whilst I was hard against her belly. She was pushing me closer to the bunk where I’d left my clothes, sweeping them onto the floor.

  I took one hand off her to fumble for the shorts I’d been wearing this morning. I had two fingers in the right pocket, touching the edge of the plastic packaging, before she tried to pull my shorts away.

  “I don’t think you’
ll be needing your clothes for a while,” she said softly.

  I pulled the condoms out of my pocket and threw the shorts on the floor myself. I held the packets up. “I don’t want there to be any regrets afterwards.” I eased away from her enough to put one of them on, tossing the empty packet and the unused ones onto the highest bunk, within easy reach.

  She threw herself at me, tipping us both across the lowest bunk, with her on top of me. She sat up on her knees and teased me for what felt like an interminable amount of time, rubbing against me until I felt her shudder with pleasure more than once.

  When I finally slid inside her, it felt incredible, like I never wanted to be out. Time and time again, just before I came, she’d shift and change position, letting the climax build and build until she shifted again. She was driving me insane with want for her.

  When she shifted to kneel on top of me again, I fastened my hands over her hips, grinding her against me with each thrust so that she was so focused on her own orgasm she wouldn’t shift and delay mine. I heard her breath stutter into short gasps and I increased the pace, so close I could almost taste it. I heard her cry out before I felt her back arch and her body shudder again. In those precious few moments, I came with her, my shout blending with hers. It was mind-blowingly good.

  “Damn, that was good,” she gasped, her breasts heaving as she tried to catch her breath.

  This is too good to be true. It has to be a dream, my most vivid, X-rated, perfect dream ever. I’d better make the most of it before I wake up.

  I sat up, feeling her shift as if she were going to move off me. I stuck my arms around her back, crushing her boobs against my chest as I kissed her. I was still hard inside her and I wondered if the second time would be as good as the first. Still panting from Round 1, I wondered if this dream would last long enough to include Round 2. I was definitely up for it.

  She disengaged from me gently, rolling off me to flop onto the bunk beside me, still breathing hard. I rolled onto my side, leaning over her to kiss her again.