by Ash Harlow
At the northern tip of the island, part of an old wall that had remained buried for decades has revealed itself. I’d read about its existence in the old family journals Granddad has.
The wall had been built across an inlet, running out to sea for several yards, then took a sharp turn and ran parallel to the beach. In the mid-eighteen hundreds they were able to actually herd fish in there with a long net stretched across the bay. I can hardly contain my excitement that I’m going to be able to take photos of it to show Granddad something he’s only read about.
When I’m finished I turn to see Reuben on top of a small dune. His head is tipped back as he watches some gannets circling, their massive wingspan enabling them to reach extraordinary speeds and perform great aerobatic feats in this wind.
A rift opens in the cloud on the western horizon, and we’re bathed in a deep golden light. I look back towards Reuben, raise my camera, frame him, lower my camera again. I can’t break my promise, but the image would be stunning.
“Go on,” he calls to me.
“What?” I shout back.
“You can take my picture.”
I’m sure that’s what he says, but I have to be certain. I cannot betray him because I misheard over the wind. “Stay right there,” I tell him. If I am allowed to take his photo, I want him right at that spot.
I can hardly breathe by the time I reach him. Partly because of my excitement, and partly because I’ve practically sprinted in the deep sand to reach him. The light’s changing fast, and I want this moment.
“Did you say what I think you did?” I ask.
He nods. “I’d like you to take my photo. I want to remember this day. It’s for you and me and nobody else, okay?”
I totally get what he’s saying. “Just do what you were doing. Move about however you want.”
Over the next fifteen minutes I manage to capture Reuben in some incredibly powerful images. We finish with some selfies, hamming it up, being serious. For the final shots I set the camera on a timer, and capture the longest, most glorious kiss under a moody sky with a backdrop of surf crashing behind us. When I scroll through my images as we walk back along the beach, our kisses are the ones I know I’ll cherish forever. Technically, they’re not perfectly composed, but in my heart, they couldn’t be better.
We return to the house along the beach holding hands.
“How will those birds have fared, the ones we fenced off?”
“I’ve been trying not to think about them. I doubt the fence will be standing, and if they didn’t nest well above the high-tide mark, their eggs will be gone. At least it’s early in the season and they’ll get another chance. Still. Three eggs. What a waste.”
“We can get over the bluff to check on them at low tide tomorrow if the surf drops a bit, can’t we?”
I step in front of him to stop him, and tug gently on his beard to get his face down to my level. “Thank you for caring about them,” I say against his mouth. He kisses me. I knew he would. It’s what I wanted.
“I care about all the things you care about, Stella.”
My god, I want to believe that so much.
Granddad’s cottage, which is our next stop, has managed to hold itself together. Inside is dry, though structurally, something is more askew than usual because the door takes a lot of encouragement before it gives way. Reuben looks around and scowls.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, checking the bedrooms to make sure everything’s dry.
“I’m not saying a word.”
“You don’t have to. The look on your face says everything.”
Reuben shakes his head.
I point to the corner behind him. “Oh, look, a mouse.”
“Jesus, where?”
He jumped so high he almost hit the low ceiling.
“Just kidding.” I crack up laughing, watching him hurry to the open door. “It was a rat.”
“For god’s sake, Stella—”
“You look ready to bolt.”
“It’s late, I’m hungry. We’re done here, aren’t we?”
“I should do some rodent extermination…”
“We’ll call someone in. I’ll pay.”
“Comms are down.”
“You’re not searching for rats, Stella. This is insane.”
“You’re right.” I follow him out the door. “The island’s predator-free. No vermin. Checked regularly by the experts with their team of dogs, who alert to any sign of rat, stoat, weasel, anything that threatens the birdlife.”
“I don’t even know whether to believe you now.” He’s got hold of my hand, leading me down the narrow path like I’m some unstable old lady.
“I was pulling your leg back there…your rather shaky leg…the one that’s scared of mice.” I giggle and snort most of the way back to the house until Reuben kisses me to shut me up.
We have the rest of the fish for dinner. I bake it in the oven with ginger, a dash of sesame oil, and some light soy sauce. We have it on rice with vegetables Reuben stir-fried. Again, cooking together is fun and interspersed with way more sexual activity than is probably safe around the gas rings and sharp objects.
We’ve opted for candles tonight. They’re dotted all around the sitting room. I’ve downloaded my images to my laptop, and I’m enjoying going through them, making up a big collection, which I cull again and again until I’ve chosen the ones I’ll print for the exhibition.
Reuben’s back in his spot with his guitar. He’s playing me different songs, a medley, moving effortlessly through genres and different artists. Every so often he sings one of his, and, yes, they are familiar to me. I ask him to sing the one again that he was playing through the night when I found him out here.
“It’s very rough, babe. It needs a lot of work.”
“It sounded beautiful to me,” I tell him.
“That’s because it was inspired by a beautiful person,” he says quietly.
I recognise the melody as he starts to play. He spends a long time changing it around, adding pieces, and then he sings.
Oh, boy, can he sing.
His voice and his music are the perfect soundtrack to his photos I’m scrolling through. Whenever I look up, he’s got me fixed with this gaze that is meltingly deep and so emotionally charged I can’t stay with it.
I turn back to his photos, then back to him.
There’s this particular shot where his head is tipped back to the sky, his eyes closed, fingers wrapped around the necklace he wears, and he looks as though he’s in prayer.
Desperate, beseeching prayer.
I drag it into my keeper folder. One day, when he’s forgotten about me, when he’s travelling the world, onstage, performing and giving everything up for his fans, I’ll look at it and remember this night, remember the time I spent those days on Ahunui with my rock star.
“Come here, my queen. Bring your laptop and show me your pictures.”
“I’m strangely nervous about showing you these,” I tell him, settling into my familiar place between his outstretched thighs.
I don’t know what’s brought on this bout of uncertainty because I’m confident about the photographs I take. I have to believe in myself.
Is it because he called me his queen? I don’t want to go putting myself into his song, building this thing we’ve got going into something permanent. It’s not that. Maybe it’s because he was reluctant to have his picture taken in the first place, or maybe because I’m not a portrait photographer.
In seconds, Reuben puts me at ease.
“These are stunning, Stella. I want to own all of them.”
I’m filled with warmth, even if he’s simply being kind.
We flick through them, shot by shot, and Reuben makes thoughtful comments as we go.
“What about the others?” he asks. His voice sounds tight, and I know he’s talking about the photos I took of him.
“Hang on, they’re in a different folder.” I open it, and we make our way through them. He’s quieter n
ow.
“You’re beautiful, Reuben.”
“It’s not me, it’s the setting. This one, stop at this one.”
It’s the one I like, the one I want to print out for myself.
“That’s an album cover,” he says. “I plan to write enough material for my new album while I’m staying here. I’m not leaving until it’s done. I want to use your photos for the cover. Will you sell them to me?”
“Are you serious?” The opportunity is something I could only dream about.
“Completely serious. Your images have captured the entire mood of what I have going on in my head right now. They’re perfect.”
“Okay, well, we can choose the ones you want, and I’ll make sure they don’t go to the gallery. Plus, these ones of you, and of us, I’ll download and give them to you. They’re only for you and me.”
He runs his thumb down my cheek, making me shiver. “I know they are, babe. I appreciate you respect that. I’m sorry for being such a dick about your photography.”
“What changed?” I whisper.
“I put my trust in you. It’s not something I give easily.”
He takes my laptop and carefully places it on the floor. Then he pulls up my sweater, circling my nipples with his clever fingers that make beautiful music. In his presence, my body tingles. With his touch, that tingle switches to an electric current, racing along my nerves. Reuben makes everything inside me sing.
“I like that you’re not wearing a bra. In summer, I’d keep you naked so I could watch your beautiful body all day, play with these tight nipples, your hot pussy. Are you wet, Stella?” His voice is gruff, sexy.
I am wet. I tell him so, expecting him to slip a hand beneath my skirt to check, but he stays teasing my nipples. The invitation of my lifted hips is ignored.
“Lie still, you greedy girl. I want to play with your breasts, I haven’t given them nearly enough attention.”
Each tug and twist layers on my response. His movements grow rougher, more demanding, and I find I can take more and more. I’m writhing in his lap, asking, quietly first, for him to touch me, play with my pussy, but he tells me to be patient.
My patience has vanished, I need something else, but when I beg for it he only twists my nipples harder, holding on for longer until it’s almost too much. He releases them, and I moan, hard and long while the circulation returns in an exquisite pain.
He does it again. His cock is hard against my ass, but when I try to rub against it, he takes himself away.
“This is torture, Reuben,” I pant.
“It can get much worse. Tell me what you want.”
“My pussy aches. It needs your touch.”
“Take your pants off.”
Yes, at last. I rush them down my legs, kicking them to the floor.
“Open your legs and hook them over mine.”
I do as he asks, and my skirt hikes up, my pussy an abstract reflection in the window.
“I can smell you, Stella.” His fingers twist my nipple, my pussy throbs. I gasp, but he doesn’t stop, gives it a bit more, holds on tighter, longer. It’s worse like this, my legs open, my pussy ignored.
“Put your fingers in your pussy.”
I slip my hand between my legs. My clit is fat, swollen, and I circle it.
“In your pussy, Stella, I want you to fuck that needy cunt of yours. Two fingers.”
I push them inside. I’ve never felt this wet in my life. It feels depraved, touching myself like this, but it excites me, too.
“Give me that hand.”
I don’t want to. I’m close to coming, at that stage where I can’t stop.
Reuben takes my wrist, and I groan.
“Shh, I want to taste you.”
He lifts my hand to his mouth and sucks my fingers. My hips jerk. They want his mouth, too.
“You taste so sweet,” he says, taking my hand between my legs again, pushing my fingers into my pussy, fucking it, then pulling them back to his mouth. I’m taken to the edge, then pulled back, over and over as he repeats this move, until I’m a begging, whimpering mess.
He lifts me further up his body and pushes and kicks his sweatpants off. “Turn around, Stella.”
My legs are like jelly, but I’m so ready for his cock that I scramble and straddle him. His erection pokes at my ass. Reuben hands me a condom from the pocket of his shirt. “Dress me up, babe. It’s time to fuck.”
11 ~ REUBEN
Stella’s hands shake so hard she drops the condom. It nearly drives me insane, knowing that soon she’ll be rolling that thing over my cock and riding me into the sunset. Finally, she’s extracted the condom and she wriggles down my legs, sliding her soaked pussy down the length of my cock before resting on my thighs.
She takes a firm grip of my cock, and I thrust into her hand a couple of times. The way she fumbles as she rolls the condom on makes my balls throb. Every part of me is desperate to be inside her, to claim her again, to make her mine.
Inside me is this need to possess and protect her, to devote my life to her. Stella will be the inspiration for every song I write from this day.
Who am I kidding?
I’ve written two already. I’m so glad we’re on the island and there’s not another person here to take her attention, to look at her, to admire her body, her laugh, the way she screws her nose up when she’s thinking.
The condom’s finally on. “Well done, babe. It’s yours now. Take it.” I can hardly breathe.
She’s hovering over my dick, rubbing the head back and forward along her wet slit, making this sound like she’s purring. Every time I get near her entrance I thrust my hips and she lifts away.
“Stella, stop teasing,” I growl.
She leans forward, looking directly into my eyes. “See, it’s frustrating, isn’t it? Look what you put me through.”
I grab her hips and hold her still over my dick. “I was going to let you do it, Stella, but your ability to follow instructions is terrible.” I get the head of my cock inside her. “Down you go, babe.”
Stella moans. She’s as tight as ever.
“Take it slow…every inch of my love…take it slow.”
She locks eyes with me. “I presume you’re referring to your impressive cock,” she whispers.
“I don’t know,” I tell her. It’s the truth. I’ve never been in love. All I know is that what we’re doing gives me almost unbearable pleasure. It transcends the purely physical, into something deeply emotional.
Her eyes flutter closed. “Reuben…my god, I love the way you fill me.”
She takes me a couple of inches, lifts up, and takes me deeper each time. I want her to do it, to take her pleasure the way she wants to, but I don’t know if I’m going to be able to control myself much longer.
Finally, I’m all the way inside her. Stella rocks her hips, rubbing herself against me, and I’m doing my best not to blow my load. I fit into her cunt like it’s a glove a size too small. It’s so tight, but I flex and warm her up, her muscles gradually accommodating me.
In an effort to maintain control, I try long division, then I practice my scales in my head, but nothing is working.
The possessiveness I feel for Stella is completely new to me. I want to be the last person ever to be inside this fantastic pussy. I never want another man near her. I want to mark her somehow so that every man knows to stay away from her.
Stella is claimed.
And she’s claimed me.
She’s rocking and sliding on my cock, and suddenly it’s not enough. The next time she lifts, I grip her hips, pulling her down as I slam into her.
“Oh, fuck, yes,” she moans.
“You want me to fuck you hard, Stella?”
“Yes, more.”
“Tell me what you want.” I’m pushing her harder, physically and emotionally, but my needs keep growing, and she makes me greedy.
“I want all of you,” she says, grinding the words out.
I hope she means that the way I do. �
�You’ve got all of me. Every inch. Give yourself to me, Stella. Tell me this beautiful body, this clever mind, tell me it’s mine.”
“It’s yours…I’m yours…Reuben, I’m coming.”
Her back arches as she goes over, her pussy grabbing me like that’s the only way she can hold on. My balls tighten as I bury myself to the depth of her cunt and hold myself there, deep inside her as my own release comes in long, gut-wrenching spurts.
I draw Stella down so that she’s lying over me. Our hearts thump like some ancient communication, drumbeats over the divide. She means more to me than anything else in the world.
Stella is my music, my chart topper, a perpetual number one hit to my heart.
The power she has over me is complete. I’d lay down my life to protect her and keep her safe.
***
“The sea is settled enough for me to take the boat over to Waitapu.”
We brought our breakfast to eat on the beach. The wind has dropped completely, and although there’s a reasonable sea swell, there’s no chop. Still, my chest tightens for so many reasons. I wasn’t brought up around the ocean the way Stella was, and if she gets in trouble with the boat, I don’t know how much help I can be.
Again, I have to trust her, trust her judgement that it’s safe to make the trip. And I have to go with her to the mainland and risk somebody recognising me. My instinct is to convince her not to go, but she needs to check on her Granddad, and I cannot deny her that peace of mind.
“Is it worth waiting another day? The sea might drop further.”
Stella glances at the sky. “Today’s good. Can’t guarantee it will be the same tomorrow. Apart from contacting Granddad, the gallery is expecting to see some images. My deadline was yesterday, so I have to make contact with them. I need Wi-Fi, Reuben.” She kisses me. “I don’t expect you to come with me, but this is my work, it completes me, it’s who I am.”
“I know, and I’m coming with you.”