Ocean's Gift

by Carlton, Demelza

“Fuck, I wouldn’t want you to be a prostitute. I’d never be able to afford even five minutes with you, if you were. I’d have to rob a bank to get anywhere near you.” I looked at her in stunned awe. “And when I think of what we’ve done together...shit, I must be the luckiest man alive.”

  Vanessa looked puzzled for a moment before she laughed, sounding relieved. “I can think of something we haven’t done yet.” She bit her lip. “Would you like to join me in the shower? Unlike the one on the boat, the one in the house is big enough for two.”

  I followed her out of the kitchen as she started to shed her clothes.

  She adjusted the showerhead so that the spray hit the wall. Then she stood with her back to that same wall, her knees apart. “Ready, Joe?”

  I stepped into the shower with her. Oh God, this is a dream I don’t want to wake up from.

  When the hot water ran out and the shower turned icy cold, I knew I was awake. But I was still inside her and we weren’t stopping for the world. I let the shower freeze my arse off, because it didn’t matter. The rest of my body was on fire with love for Vanessa.

  65. Belinda

  “Ensure the vessel is stored and meet me at the airport with the vehicle. We will hide our clothes on board the vehicle and take to the water from a nearby beach. By this time tomorrow, we will be swimming home.” Vanessa sounded wistful at the prospect.

  “You could still accompany us,” Maria suggested. “You need not fly in a small human aircraft.”

  Vanessa smiled. “I do not like the aircraft, but I would like one more day on land at these islands before I return home. I will risk a flight for the additional time, to ensure the house here is properly packed up to remain unoccupied until it is next required.”

  I said the words as I thought them. “And also to spend time with the young human fisherman.”

  Vanessa’s voice held a warning. “I enjoy the human’s company and we still owe him for the favours he has done for us. The least I can offer is a proper farewell.”

  I tried to explain. “You have permitted the human to use your body without restraint. Surely this is payment enough for any services he has rendered to us?”

  Vanessa’s laughter rang out across the anchorage. “Belinda, I make far freer use of his body than he does of mine. It is more likely that I owe him a personal favour for the joy he gives to me. I wish you a good voyage and I will see you at the airport tomorrow.”

  She stepped from the vessel to the jetty and assisted us in casting off the ropes. She waved as we moved the Siren into the anchorage channel.

  “And he does have a damn fine arse!” she called across the water. The sound of her laughter followed us as she proceeded back down the jetty to her house.

  Despite myself, I smiled. She was an elder among our people, but today she sounded as silly as the sixteen-year-old child who dared to defy the entire Elder Council.

  66. Joe

  “Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.” I heard Vanessa’s voice and felt her lips start to kiss mine. I wasn’t sure if I was awake or dreaming, but I knew I wanted her.

  I felt her slide down onto me, hotter and wetter than ever before. Oh God, this dream’s good. It had to be a dream, because it felt like I wasn’t wearing a condom...Oh shit.

  I opened my eyes, to see her rapturous face over her bouncing boobs.

  “Vanessa, wait, wait,” I begged her. “We have to stop.” I tried to lift her off me.

  She let me succeed a little way, before sliding right back down onto me, pushing her weight down on me so I drove deeper inside her. God, she feels good.

  “Don’t ask me to stop now. Neither of us has come yet, and it feels so good,” she murmured.

  If she wouldn’t get off of me, I had to check. I hesitated, then tried to slide my hand underneath her, pushing my fingers up inside her, too. She moaned, rocking her hips against me. I felt around desperately for the condom that wasn’t there. Skin on skin on skin, hot and wet and hard...

  I felt her shuddering orgasm, as she squeezed me hard inside her and moved her hips faster. I pulled my fingers out of her – quite an effort. So hot and tight and wet...oh my God...I felt like I’d exploded inside her, it was that incredible. I groaned when she lifted her hips to slide up off me. She quickly moved down and started licking me clean.

  “Oh God, Vanessa, we had sex without a condom. What if you get pregnant?” I gasped.

  Lick, lick, lick...She took a deep breath, put my whole dick in her mouth and sucked on me while she pulled me out slowly, leaving me limp. She licked her lips and smiled.

  “Please, I didn’t want you to have any regrets,” I begged.

  “I won’t get pregnant for sleeping with you this morning. I can’t,” she said.

  “But it only takes the once to put you at risk...” I started to say.

  She slid up my body, skin to skin, until we were face to face. “If we spent the rest of the day having sex, without using a single condom, I couldn’t conceive a child. No matter how many times you came inside me, you can’t get me pregnant.” Her eyes bored into mine, as if they were trying to convey a message even if her words didn’t get through to me.

  After a moment, she moved off me and stood up, walking in the direction of the bathroom. As I watched her go, my head spinning from the most heavenly awakening ever, I found myself wishing she was wrong.

  If I could pick the perfect woman to carry my child, Vanessa, I’d want it to be you.

  Now I knew I had to be dreaming.

  Yeah, what woman would want the father of her child to be a sparky who still lives with his folks and has no assets to speak of? You’re still dreaming, mate.

  67. Belinda

  Maria and I watched the vessel being secured for storage until the next fishing season. Both of us fervently hoped that we would not be required to crew the Siren for another season. We wished to remain with our families, she with her partner and I with my daughter.

  We shared our last human-cooked meal, chilli mussels in the restaurant with the curious human. He was not working this time, his duties undertaken by a human woman instead. She permitted us to eat in peace.

  We drove to the car park at the airport and shared a beer as we waited for the small plane to arrive. We finished the beer and I wished I had thought to bring a bottle of whiskey, for one last fiery burn before all was cool water once more.

  The sun was sinking in the sky when Vanessa’s plane landed. She walked slowly to the car, opened the rear door and sat behind me.

  I made a polite enquiry. “Did you farewell the human properly?”

  She replied in the affirmative, her smile dreamy.

  I noticed a patch of white on her otherwise immaculate shirt. “You have some white fluid on your clothing,” I told her.

  She looked at her clothing and shrugged. “Soon we will not need human clothing. Within the hour, we will be swimming home. Our people are calling.”

  68. Joe

  “Looks like the plane’s early,” Vanessa said, annoyed, as the sound of the aircraft engine came closer. “Oh well, I guess I’m ready.” She picked up one bag and I grabbed the other before she could reach for it. She smiled at me. “Let’s head out to the airstrip, then.”

  It was a long walk down the coral shingle track, but today of all days, when I wanted to draw it out, it seemed to take no time at all.

  The six-seater plane was down by the time we reached it, already loading up. Some of the passengers were seated inside, looking at us through the windows. They didn’t look like anyone I’d met – maybe they were fishers from North Island or the Wallabis.

  “You’re early,” Vanessa called to the pilot. “I didn’t think you were going to be here before four.”

  “Oh, this isn’t your flight,” the pilot replied. “This is a tourist flight, but we’re just picking up some gear the Fisheries guys needed to take urgently back to the mainland.” He lifted up a foam esky and loaded it onto the plane. “Your plane is due to take off in about ten minute
s. We’ll probably cross in the air.”

  “Oh,” she huffed, dropping her bag on the gravel. Her shoulders slumped.

  It was roughly a half-hour flight out here and it took at least fifteen minutes to walk the track back to camp. “Let’s go wait in the departure lounge,” I suggested.

  Vanessa looked where I was pointing. “You mean the shelter shed? Sure, let’s go sit down and wait.”

  We crossed the airstrip and crunched back to the shed. Three walls and a roof in cream-painted steel, with a couple of aluminium benches. I’d heard from some of the old-timers that it was luxury compared to the old rusted rainwater tank that used to be here, but it was still pretty basic.

  I lifted her bags onto one aluminium bench and sat beside her on the other.

  “It’s funny, but I never thought I’d be sad to leave this place,” she said quietly.

  It was my turn to laugh. “You’ll miss the rocks, the wind, the wailing birds and the endless sound of the waves?”

  “Yeah, some of that. Probably not the sound of the waves, though.” She shook herself. “It probably doesn’t help that I don’t like flying.”

  I look at her, incredulous. “You don’t like flying? Why didn’t you go back in the Siren yesterday with your crew, then?”

  “I get seasick, remember.” She took a breath and let it out slowly. “And I wanted one more night here.”

  I struggled not to think about what we’d done in that one more night. Instead, I tried to summon the courage to ask her the one thing I hadn’t been able to figure out. We both watched the tourist plane take off to the south, before I opened my mouth.

  “Why did you pick me? Of all the people out here, out of everyone you know, why did you choose to spend so much time with me?” I stumbled over the words. Even now, there were some I just couldn’t say.

  She looked at me and smiled. “You have a good sense of humour. You’re brave when someone needs your assistance, even if it puts your own safety at risk.” I was willing to bet she was remembering the night with the hammer. “You enjoy life and you’re seldom sad for long. You are sweet, honest, polite, kind and helpful. You are a genius with all things electrical, and with my dodgy house, it’s always a good idea to have tradesmen nearby. You are thoughtful, careful to think before you do something, so you won’t hurt someone.” Her smile turned mischievous. “And you have a damn fine arse, which I noticed the first time I saw you.”

  I knew the right answer to this was to go into paeans of praise about her, but I could do that till her plane arrived and I’d still have more to say. And she still hadn’t really answered my question. I tried again.

  “But why did you choose to...sleep with me?” I stammered out.

  She bit her lip. “Well, after we’d had such vigorous sex, I was too exhausted to sleep anywhere else, and it was convenient to have you nearby when I woke up so we could do it again...” Her smile was wicked now.

  I opened my mouth to try to articulate what I really wanted to know. It was hard to find the words and I knew I only had a short time left to do it. The pressure didn’t make it any easier.

  I realised she’d been teasing me when she continued, a little more seriously. “I think it was the way you adored me with your eyes, with such passion and intensity, but you were too polite to say anything about it.”

  She’s forgotten about the time I told her I wanted to bend her over a bench and fuck her from behind...

  Her cheeks reddened. “I was curious to find out what that passion and intensity would feel like if you used the rest of your body.” She closed her eyes and bit her lip again.

  I jumped to my feet, disappointed and angry and not entirely sure why. “You slept with me to satisfy your curiosity?” It sounded so clinical, so cold, when the reality had been anything but.

  She stood up, too, and met my eyes. “The first time, yes. After that, I was more interested in satisfying a number of other desires.” She smiled ruefully. “Including the desire to see your fine arse in the flesh and get my hands on it...”

  She pressed up against me and kissed me, pushing me up against the shed wall. I kissed her back and held her close. There was nothing cold about this. I seriously considered laying her down on one of the benches, so we could do it one last time...in broad daylight, in public, with a plane coming at any moment...and I realised I didn’t care, I wanted her that much.

  It was like she could read my mind when she pulled away from me, sinking down so I thought she was moving toward the bench. I froze in panic.

  “That looks uncomfortable. Let me help you with that,” she murmured. I realised she was on her knees in front of me, unzipping my jeans so I stuck out in a poor imitation of the windsock behind her. Her hands were on the back of my jeans...and then I was inside her mouth. I didn’t care what I looked like anymore, it felt so good.

  My knees went weak and I tangled my fingers in her hair, unable to think as she sucked the whole length of me in and out of her mouth. She didn’t stop until she’d sucked me dry. My head was spinning as she zipped my jeans up again, before she stood up, wiping a hand across her mouth. The buzzing in my head resolved into the loud engine of a plane, as it sped by, landing on the runway.

  Vanessa had a bag in each hand, now. She kissed my cheek and pulled away. “Goodbye,” she called as she ran out of the shed, across the airstrip to her plane. I was too stunned to move while she was still within reach, and by the time I reached my arms out to hold her one last time, she was under the wing of the plane, loading up her bags.

  She turned and waved, blowing me a kiss as she climbed into the seat beside the pilot of the two-seater plane, hidden from my sight. The pilot checked her plane, then got in and started back down the runway, taking Vanessa away from me.

  69. Sirena

  “Welcome home, Sirena.”

  I breathed deep at the sound of my name again, cool water flooding my gills. “Thank you Maria, Apalala. It’s wonderful to be back. Girls, within the year you will have a new sister. Once we have reported to the other elders, we must go to the Nursery Grounds and prepare for her arrival.”

  “And what of the fisherman, the human we saved?” Apalala asked the question as only a healer would.

  I was complacent. “He will not remember, for he does not know.”

  We swam in silence between the mainland and the islands.

  When we reached the islands, I slowed for a moment, permitting my daughters to continue without me. I assured them I would not linger long.

  I surfaced to look at the island, to see once more the man and the home it was time to leave behind. For a moment, I felt the ghost of heat between my legs at the memory. But I no longer had legs, my flesh shaped once again into a tail.

  I found the word in the language that would soon fade from my tongue again, along with my human habits, thoughts and name. “Goodbye.”

  I turned my tail, arced high over the water and dove deep.

  70. Joe

  In the dark, I sat on the cliffs, looking out toward the reefs I could only hear as the breakers crashed unceasingly. Will she be back next season? Will I come back next season?

  I looked down at my phone again. Skipper had sent me a message from Geraldton, asking me to come back next year as his deckie, not anyone else’s. Apparently some of the other fishers had been talking about hiring me. Because I was lucky. Of course I’d agree, just for the chance to see Vanessa again.

  I heard a splash nearby and saw a flash of reflected moonlight on wet skin, a tail breaking the water before going under. It looked too big to be a sea lion. Again, I heard the sound like dolphins. I couldn’t see, but pressed the button for my phone camera, pointing it at the noise. I could look at it on a computer later, to see if I could lighten the picture up enough to make out what the dolphins were doing.

  Goodbye.

  I heard the word in her voice, as if it were drifting in the wind and not just an echo in my own head.

  Another splash and the dolphin sounds f
inished. I switched the camera off and trudged back to camp for a beer.

  I sat down at my wonky kitchen table. I had a beer and chased it with another. I’m going to look her up as soon as I get to Perth. I’ll look in the phone book, Google her…Oh fuck. I don’t even know her last name. What if I never see her again? A big black pit opened up under my ribs.

  I stumbled to the fridge for another beer. How many beers does it take to fill a gaping black hole of despair?

  By dawn, I’d finished all the beer in the fridge and my head wasn’t getting any brighter. I put a case of warm beer from the veranda in the fridge and passed out while I was waiting for it to chill.

  Skipper woke me up to help him pull the pots in a dim haze. I moved like a zombie on autopilot, winching them up, unloading the catch, baiting the pots and setting them again. When we were done, I stumbled back to my shack and found I had a fridge full of cold beer. I cracked one open.

  I sat on my veranda with a six-pack, looking out over the anchorage, like the night I’d first met Vanessa, and drank. When the beer was gone, I went back in for more. I sat in the kitchen, not wanting to look at the empty jetty where the Siren wasn’t. I looked out the back window instead.

  I saw her generator shed, where she’d threatened me with a rusty hammer. I reached for another beer and didn’t stop drinking until it was too dark to see the shed. At some point, I passed out again. In a soggy dream, Skipper dragged me out of my shack to go pull the pots. Maybe it really happened, I don’t know. This time we kept them on deck, not baiting them up again. He said something about meeting his quota, time to go home.

  When I got home to my shack, I loaded up every last beer from the veranda into the fridge. Then I started drinking again.

  Some time after dark, I woke up with a warm beer still half full in my hand. I could smell fish.

  “Oi,” said Skipper.

  I mumbled some sort of reply. I meant to say Fuck off and leave me alone, but even in my beer haze I remembered this bloke was my boss.