by MJ Brannigan
The cool water helped to temper the heat that had been building between them all afternoon. Their lips met once again, arms around each other to press flesh to flesh as close as possible. Kamea found her thigh rising between Rebecca’s legs, parting to take in her closeness, her warmth. Rebecca’s thigh followed suit, her hands reached around to grasp Kamea’s buttocks, to pull her aching warmth against her thigh, to hold her close, and rub herself against her. She let out an audible moan, a sigh. “You feel so good,” she whispered.
Holding each other in the freshness of the water, they floated their way towards the falls, feeling its mist on their faces, looking up into the spray of water.
Kamea watched Rebecca’s expression as they parted. A dreamy look still hung in her eyes as she looked to Kamea and to the wonder of the beautiful place she found herself. She was looking up towards the light, into the spray, then back to Kamea and back again, when Kamea saw a look of wonder come over Rebecca’s face.
“What is it?” Kamea asked.
Rebecca swam closer to Kamea and pulled her back to the spot she saw it. Turning her around to see, and holding her from behind, Rebecca took a finger and pointed up into the mist, raked by the low-angled sunlight skimming the treetops. “A rainbow,” she whispered into Kamea’s ear, then taking her earlobe between her lips for a gentle nibble. A rainbow hung over them as Kamea turned to take Rebecca’s mango-sweetened lips to hers once more.
CHAPTER 20 - REBECCA
Rebecca could feel the warmth of Kamea’s breath on the back of her neck, the gentle rhythm of it, pleasant and comforting. The thought of never getting out of bed again crossed her mind.
Rather than the couch they slept on last week, they were tucked into Kamea’s bed. It was only a twin-size, but comfy. And for new lovers, anything larger would be wasted space.
The palm fronds outside the window were still; silhouettes against the pre-dawn sky. The light of the sun would only be hitting the summit of Haleakala right now, Rebecca thought. She felt no need to move, to spoil this moment of pleasure in the arms of this beautiful creature, this Kamea, and squeezed herself deeper into her embrace. Her eyes felt heavy again, and she soon found herself drifting off into slumber once more.
When she awoke to find herself alone, Rebecca rolled onto her back, stretching her arms, yawning and looking around the room for any sign of Kamea. She heard the tinkling of cups and spoons coming from the kitchen, then smelling the coffee, knew where Kamea would be.
“Good morning beautiful!” Kamea beamed, walking into the room. Rebecca slid herself up to a sitting position, scooting a pillow behind her back. She looked Kamea up and down, taking in the loveliness of her as she stood at the edge of the bed, holding two cups of coffee and wearing only a white tank top and blue panties. Her tight, athletic form was a delight that prompted Rebecca to smile, and slide back down, uttering; “God, you’re gorgeous.”
“Not so bad lookin’ yourself,” Kamea replied, sliding onto the bed and handing Rebecca her cup as she sat back up to taste her lips.
“This is nice,” she said to Kamea. “I never imagined this would happen. Not ever.”
“What? Well, to be honest, neither did I,” Kamea replied. “I never intended to get hooked on anyone—especially someone from the mainland. But you... something about you sucked me in. I hate you for that, you know,” she continued, winking at Rebecca, and meeting her smile.
“Maybe you should have just left me on the rocks, called the local rescue to go by and get that crazy tourist trying to drown herself,” she laughed in response.
“Glad I didn’t,” Kamea said, her voice softer and moving closer to Rebecca for another kiss.
“Mmm, you taste like coffee,” Rebecca said with a giggle. “Good thing I like coffee,” she continued, winking. “But I think I’ve discovered this new taste for mangoes.”
Rebecca felt herself blush at the memory of yesterday by the waterfall. “God, the thought of it makes me want to... Well, I can never go to the market and see a mango without getting myself all hot and bothered—thanks for that,” she said, laughing.
Kamea raised her eyebrows, smiling; “We better not go grocery shopping together anytime soon then,” chuckling as she said it.
“I know, right?” Rebecca replied, taking her first sip of coffee, and noticing the look on Kamea’s face change a little as she continued to watch her drink. She was surprised at how comfortable she felt, sitting naked in front of Kamea, when just the other day she felt the need to hide behind a door in her underwear. The softness of Kamea’s eyes seemed to drink in her body, her heart. “What is it?” she asked.
“You’re so lovely… even the way you hold your cup and take a sip from it. You have this, I dunno... feminine grace about you. It’s hard not to watch you.”
Rebecca’s cheeks went warm with a blush once more. Sitting cross-legged on the bed; her face now looked down to the cup she held in both hands. “You’re so sweet, the things you say. I’m not too girly for you, am I?”
“God, no. You, well... I just love to look at you; watch you walk, watch the look on your face when something excites you. You have a grace about you that makes me want to look at you all the time. It makes me want to paint you even more too. It’s not just that you’re pretty—lots of women can be pretty. You have grace, and that’s a different kind of beauty,” Kamea confessed.
“That might me the nicest compliment I’ve ever heard,” Rebecca said, with a grin that seemed to light from her heart. “I’ll bet you say that to all the girls,” she winked, attempting to lighten the moment, and brush away the slight embarrassment she felt at such a compliment.
“No. Actually. No, I never have,” Kamea replied, setting the cup on the nightstand, and taking Rebecca’s cup from her hands to place it next to hers.
She leaned into Rebecca, only to have her collapse beneath her at the touch of her lips.
Rebecca pulled the weight of Kamea onto her, wrapping her legs around her to hold her close, tight to the warmth that grew between them. Melting into the kiss, the warmth, the moment, she knew this was what she wanted to have always—this lovely creature who made her feel alive for the first time in a long time.
* * *
“Okay, the water’s only about forty or fifty feet deep here before the drop-off, and you can see all the way to the bottom,” Kamea explained, as they bobbed in the water, next to JonJon and Brenda’s two-seater kayak. “I’ve got the kayak tethered to me, and this other one to you too—so you’ll always have it to hang onto or get back up on if you get tired, K?”
After a morning in bed, Kamea managed to drag Rebecca out to quiet waters to bring her along as she hunted for tonight’s dinner. Rebecca held onto the side of the kayak, glad she could put her face into the clear water and see through the dive mask for what, if anything, might be swimming beneath her. It was like being afraid of the boogie man you couldn’t see in the darkness. The waters below her were well-lit and clear—no boogie men—no sharks or anything that may be lurking below and want to make a meal of her. She soon realized her fear was somewhat irrational, and the clarity of the water helped to ease her mind.
Kamea showed her how to clear her mask, to breathe with the snorkel, to hold her breath for a short time, taking her down, face to face, holding her hands till she signaled time to go back up.
The water wasn’t bath-water warm, but felt refreshing and welcoming on Rebecca’s skin. Being closer to her size, Brenda had given Rebecca one of her long-sleeved rash guards so as not to burn her fair skin from the overhead sun.
Kamea tethered Rebecca to the kayak with a much shorter cord, allowing her to connect and release as she chose with a D-ring attached to an empty nylon weight belt. Kamea was now below her, the camouflage wetsuit she wore taking on a bluer cast as she let herself sink towards the bottom. Rebecca thought she would attempt to hold her breath as Kamea dropped down; to see how long she could hold her own while floating on top, snorkel still above water. After not even a minu
te, she realized her efforts to mimic Kamea’s breath-holding were futile and decided just to go back to regular breathing while she observed from above.
Kamea skimmed the bottom, blending into the rocks and coral, and gliding closer to a ledge—the drop-off where she said many of the fish would congregate. It seemed as though too much time had passed for Kamea to be holding her breath with ease, but after a few more minutes of stalking, gliding along the ledge, she rolled over as though to look up, and with a slow, gentle kick of her long fins, glided to the surface.
“How ya doin’?” she asked, popping above the water and sliding her mask over her head and into the kayak.
“Fine,” Rebecca replied, removing the mouthpiece and lifting the mask from her face. She moved closer to Kamea to let their foreheads touch, nose touching nose as they bobbed in the water. “You look so beautiful down there—talk about grace,” she exclaimed. “The way you move in the water, well... beautiful,” she continued, smiling.
Kamea beamed; “You’re the first person I ever brought out with me that wasn’t also spear fishing. I just realized that. No one else seemed to care much. I like that you’re here,” giving Rebecca a quick kiss, and then pulling the mask back over her eyes as she slid away from her, took a few quick breaths in and out before one long inhale and jackknifing her body back down.
Rebecca realized she had begun holding her breath at Kamea’s last, mirroring her, then uttered a laugh through her snorkel at the futility of it.
They made several passes above the drop-off, Rebecca watching from above. Kamea followed a small school of fish along the ledge, most looking too little to spear, let alone eat. That’s when she saw the larger forms appearing like shadows from the deeper blue. They were here to get the smaller fish Kamea followed, and maybe they were the ones Kamea was after, she wondered?
Everything below Rebecca along the bottom appeared only as a different shade of blue. The light passing through the moving surface cast a shimmer of light and shadow onto the bottom, where Kamea seemed to blend in so well at times she was difficult to spot. But when the moment came, she saw the arm holding her speargun rise, supported now by her free hand. And with nary a sound, other than what seemed like a quiet, squeaky thump, the spear launched towards one of the larger fish, now thrashing side to side in an attempt to escape. It happened in a blink.
Hand over hand, Kamea pulled the thrashing fish towards her. A thin dark cloud appeared around her. Blood, Rebecca thought. Then immediately—don’t sharks go after blood in the water? A little wave of panic washed over her as she lifted her head to look in every direction: nothing but blue disappearing into itself all around.
She watched Kamea rise towards her, the colors of the fish becoming a more vibrant pink and less of the blue from the depths. It looked as though it was the same kind of fish they ate on the beach the other afternoon. But this one seemed bigger.
She watched Kamea lift her head above water for one quick breath, unused snorkel hanging from her mask. Her free hand reached for the knife on her leg, and ducking her head back under the water she inserted the blade into the top of the fish’s head, ending its struggle. As the fish’s movement stilled, she saw Kamea was in no hurry to throw it into the boat, but rather ran her gloved hand along the length of its body, stroking it as though petting it one last time to say goodbye.
“What were you doing?” Rebecca asked, speaking in a hushed tone, as she hung to the side of the kayak.
Kamea reached over the side of the boat and slipped the fish into the hatch; “Thanking it,” she replied, “Honoring it in prayer for giving its life for me, for us.”
“Mmm,” Rebecca said. “It’s like saying grace, but for real,” she uttered, mimicking Kamea’s quiet, solemn tone.
“Something else to love about you,” Rebecca let slip.
“Love?” Kamea replied, a teasing smile coming to her lips as she pulled off her mask and dropped it into the boat. “C’mere you,” she continued, lifting Rebecca’s mask from her face, to find her lips already waiting for her kiss.
CHAPTER 21 - KAMEA
“See ya in a little while,” Kamea said, not wanting to let Rebecca’s body be apart from hers for long. Even if she was just going back to get clean clothes and tell Brother Ben she wouldn’t be there for the few days over the holiday, she didn’t want to let her go.
The feeling of Rebecca’s body next to hers, her hands as they held her waist; the curves, the softness, the warmth. She found herself craving her when she wasn’t there, and unable to keep her hands from her when she was.
They always had something to talk about—no awkward silences punctuated their conversations. When the silence did come, they enjoyed it together. Kamea wanted to hear about what it was like to swim in the cold waters of Michigan—and what was it like to swim in Lake Superior? “Brr!” And how can you stand the winter, or the traffic, or is the Middle Eastern food in Dearborn or the craft beer from Grand Rapids as good as they say?
Rebecca had also prodded Kamea for every detail about the island—the culture old and new. She said she felt overwhelmed by the acceptance of her family when invited to Auntie’s birthday. She told her that some words—like Ohana, and even her name—sounded like little songs that described things better than a litany of English words could. They were words that evoked feelings, even if she hadn’t understood their meanings right away.
Kamea saw Rebecca was no ordinary tourist and was coming to realize she had never felt this way about anyone before now. She never expected this to happen with some girl from the mainland. Ever. Why Rebecca? she wondered. It was too soon to think about love, wasn’t it?
It was attraction for sure. It was passion, yes. It had all the hallmarks of an affair that she never wanted to end. But isn’t this how things should be?
The months with Laura and her insistence on how ‘good they were together’ paled by comparison. There was nothing about Rebecca that, were she to have just passed her in a store or on the street, would have made her do a double-take. She, herself had even insisted on her plainness, her “I just look like any other midwestern girl, you know?”
But she didn’t—not to Kamea. To her, she had a beauty and grace all her own. Their physical loving was only a part of the bond she felt. There was something deeper that made her want Rebecca to be with her always. How was this possible after only a few days, she wondered? It didn’t make sense. Love—if that’s what it was, rarely does, she told herself.
Once Rebecca got over the initial shock of her helplessness on the rocks and the embarrassment of her rescue—the idea someone would go to all the trouble of helping her when she didn’t feel as though she deserved to be helped—she seemed to open to her worth. Kamea felt as though she were watching a flower blossom, held in a tight bud for far too long. Some damage had certainly occurred from her previous breakup. Her perceived worth had become the cause of her ongoing suffering, not the breakup itself. It seemed difficult for her to let it go. Kamea could see this—with a little insight from her Auntie, of course.
Auntie had told Rebecca, as they drank their kava that first night, that she had been keeping herself hostage, not living her life to its fullest. That was the reason Maui had appealed to her. “Your heart was crying to be open and free, to find itself loved for no other reason than your being alive and worthy. They call Hawaii the heart of the world,” she had told her, winking. “You thought you were coming here to hide from it, but instead, you find yourself in the middle of it, and getting yourself banged up too,” she had said, chuckling.
Kamea watched as Rebecca had hung her head at the words, perhaps realizing they rang true for her. She felt the need to help Rebecca from the start; as though saving her life made her somehow responsible for the rest of it. Silly, she thought. But yet something in her felt drawn to Rebecca. Rebecca was the first person she met that she—for real, wanted to share the life she enjoyed—and didn’t see her as a distraction, a burden. She felt as though she could be a partner for th
e rest of the journey.
* * *
“Watcha’ thinking’ about, Cuz?” JonJon asked, as he sat down next to Kamea and handed her another beer. “Oh, look at those eyes, you don’t have to tell me,” he said, grinning.
Kamea enjoyed the good-natured ribbing that JonJon had given her all their lives. But she wasn’t going to punch him in the arm about this one anymore. He was right—had been from the start.
“She said anything about stayin’?” JonJon asked. “I know she’s only got a few days after the holiday, but...”
“I told her she could stay here if she wanted—You guys wouldn’t mind, right?” she asked, looking at JonJon.
“No prob, Cuz. Just keep the noise down at night, K?” he said, winking, as he lifted his beer in a toast.
This one, Kamea felt like punching him in the arm for but laughed instead. “We’re not keepin’ you guys awake…?”
“No, Cuz,” JonJon cut her off. “I’m only razzin’ ya. No worries. She’s good people too, seems like.”
“Auntie also said she could stay there a little while too if she wanted to get herself started here, but... I think I want her here,” she said, smiling.
“She gotta plan? Like, work and stuff?” JonJon asked.
“She figured she could work at doing some of her stuff from here; said most of what she does, she never sees her client anyhow. Plus, all the tourist brochures and the like they print here, websites and all that too, she figures she can try and make a go of it. But she’ll have to go back to take care of the things she has on the mainland—sell her house, get rid of a lot she won’t need to bring here. Says she’s looking forward to givin’ all her winter coats away,” Kamea said with a little chuckle.
“I might go with her—for a little bit, at least. See the place she lives. She said she’d take me up north—what they call goin’ up to the part of the state that has a lot of nice scenery; the lakes, forests, and whatnot. Maybe I’ll see some snow too. It’ll be fun, I think.”