The Dark Atoll

by Marilyn Foxworthy

  I pulled Ariel close against me as we walked, now beyond the sight of any of the others. She leaned against my shoulder and I figured that it was time to ask questions. A few days ago, I had been willing to let her actions answer my unspoken queries but that had been in the heat of arousal. In this calm and relaxed peace, I felt like talking would be better. Just to make sure.

  I didn’t remember how much Ariel had already learned or knew about me and the girls and what our lives were together.

  I said, “Ariel, I love you.”

  She hugged herself against me but didn’t say anything.

  I said, “Um, I want you to join us. To stay with us. Um, with me and Allie and Christie and Bebe. As my um, wife, just like they are now.”

  Ariel said cheerfully, “Babe, I told you already. I belong with you. Florin plus Pahu plus Ariel. Pahu is Allie and Christie and Bebe and the others. I know that. That’s not how things were before but now, they are what you are. We have a tribe. One man and all his women. And we already said that we wanted to have sex and love each other. You love Pahu and now you love me too.”

  I said, “You think that’s OK? That we are all together?”

  She said, “I think it’s perfect. Or at least it will be soon. Isn’t the sky beautiful? It scares me.”

  I asked, “Why? Because there aren’t many clouds?”

  She said, “No. Because I want it so bad and it has been so long, and now it’s here, and I’m going to do it.”

  I said, “Do what?”

  She said, “Make love. It’s awkward, isn’t it? We don’t know how to get started. And we don’t want to make a mistake. You haven’t established a pattern with Pahu yet, have you? You don’t know what to do. The sky is blue and love is scary and we all have to learn to listen to a different sky now. We have a good tribe. But it isn’t really Florin plus Pahu plus me. Just Florin and Pahu and soon I will be Pahu, like the rest. All of us.”

  I stopped suddenly, and said, “Wait! Ariel. You don’t mean Toni and Scout and all of them, right?”

  Ariel looked at me and said, “What about Toni and Scout and all of them?”

  I said, “The Nomads. They aren’t planning to stay, right? They don’t think that they’ll all be my…um, they don’t all want to join us, do they? As wives?”

  Ariel smiled and said, “No. The Nomads have their own lives. You are a pretty spectacular husband, but they have their own patterns that they have learned and those won’t change. Some of their patterns will change but not who they sleep with. Oh, but Bebe did, didn’t she? Well, I think that was a one-time deal. But who am I to say? In the game, they did want to hug you and touch your penis.”

  I said, “No! Ariel, no.”

  Ariel looked at me deeply and said seriously, “Florin, what if they did? What if Zena and the rest of them, or even some of them, wanted to be with you? With us? What if they decided that so much was new now that they had new choices that were never there before and they wanted to choose differently? That they wanted you to love them. And what if Allie told all of them to come to you if they wanted to and that she would make you make them happy? What would you do? If Bebe told Scout that of course she could come be in your bed as your lover if she wanted to, as long as she was sure that she would be happy and it had to be that way for her? What would you do?”

  Still staring into my eyes, she said, “Ah, you know but you don’t know. Before you met Allie and Christie, before you got to know them, and now me, you would have left and went off on your own. Florin, I see your past. You were a wild animal, weren’t you? You were raised to be a leader, but you were still wild. I know something about you. You don’t aspire to be King. You don’t want to take over and run an empire. You want to survive. But who you are is Florin. Florin plus Pahu. And now, now that you know Pahu and have been tamed by us, you’re scared too. Scared that you are trapped and snared.”

  I protested, saying, “Not exactly. No, Ariel, I love you girls. It’s just that well, 19. I can’t even remember their names yet.”

  She said, “No but you can’t be wild now. Tell me. Did you try to run away when you met Allie?”

  I thought for a minute and said, “Well, not exactly. Kind of, maybe. I didn’t try to run away but I did plan to leave if she became a burden. Or if she kept trying to kill me every morning.”

  Ariel laughed and said, “Tried to kill you every morning?”

  I said, “Yeah. At first, every morning when we woke up, she didn’t know who I was and one day I opened my eyes just in time to keep her from stomping my face in.”

  Ariel said, “But you tamed her. We were all wild. Even you. Did you think that you were the civilized one?”

  I said, “I guess I did.”

  She said, “Because you knew about laws and civics and science? But you were alone. And would have been fine being alone. If you had come here and…um, how did you come here?”

  I quickly retold the story and she smiled slyly.

  She said, “You set out on a two to three-year journey across the ocean on a boat by yourself. You got stuck with two other people but would have been happier to be alone. You were more wild than anyone but me. Even the vegetables wanted to talk to someone sometimes. So, when you got here, the girls could have thrown themselves at your feet and begged, and you could have walked away. What about now? You won’t ever leave us. Your true nature is growing. So what about it? What about Gigi? You rescued her from under the canoe. If she loves you, what will you do? Or if Allie says that Gigi belongs?”

  I just looked at her and she said, “I’m not going to answer for you.”

  I cleared my throat and said, “I suppose that she will be with us if she belongs.”

  Ariel said, “You suppose?”

  I said more confidently, “Well, actually, Allie and I already had this discussion, and yes, anyone who belongs with us will be part of our family and I will love all of you. But Ariel, 19?”

  Ariel started walking again as she said, “I like swimming. I like playing with the fish. I liked playing games in the dark with everyone. And I hate to say it but it’s kind of fun seeing you so uncomfortable, as if you were going to have to satisfy 18 women every night.”

  I said solemnly, “I could do it.”

  She laughed and said, “Do what? Satisfy 18 women every night?”

  I said gravely, “If I have to, yes. I can do almost anything if I set my mind to it. I admit, 18 is a house full but now that you are asking, I think that as long as we don’t go over 30, we’ll get along fine. If it’s more than that, I might have to make up a schedule.”

  Ariel said, “You rascal. I know that you’re teasing but I love you for it. Damn, Florin? Why does that turn me on?”

  I said, “It turns you on? The thought of me making love to 30 women?”

  She said, “No. The thought that my boyfriend is the kind of man who will rise to whatever challenges we face and conquer them.”

  I grinned and said, “It kind of turns me on too. Are you ready to conquer our fears?”

  Ariel said, “You mean, am I ready for you to conquer me? You know what? I think I am. Yeah. Hey, let’s stop talking. Florin, I’m ready! Um but I really don’t know what to do. Just tell me, OK?”

  I walked toward a palm tree and said, “OK but whatever we do this time won’t be the same every time.”

  At that moment, I went back to believing that if I asked the right silent questions that I would hear the right silent answers.

  And then I stopped myself, suddenly. I had been about to switch into a mid-brain lizard mode and push Ariel up against a tree and “have my way with her.” And she probably wouldn’t have complained. Crap, life is complicated. Damn it, damn it, damn it! Why did it have to be so complicated? Yeah, I could say, to hell with it, just be an animal and don’t abuse her and it’ll be done with. But I had been raised to “Do the Math.” That meant evaluating the cost of our decisions. And if I did that, the potential cost of a mistake here, making love for the first ti
me with Ariel who had been 14 at the time of the plane crash, could cost me more than I was willing to pay for a few minutes of animal time. Damn it. OK, Ariel wasn’t a child. That wasn’t the thing. She was 32. But she had been alone since she was 16. She was a woman but who knew what she really was? I had questioned her sanity when she first arrived. Ariel needed a sensitive and experienced lover now, and I didn’t know how to be one.

  But whether I knew how or not, I was going to force myself to learn. The first time I had sex, Allie had taken the lead. Then Christie had known what she wanted, and she got it for us. Bebe had done the same. In a sense, they had all seen what they wanted and had pounced on their prey and devoured me. I wasn’t complaining. That had felt fine to me. Maybe Ariel would feel the same way if I took that role now but maybe deeper down, she wouldn’t. The bigger issue was that I wouldn’t. I wanted to make love with her right now, here in the jungle, and I didn’t want to wait. Hell, if it had been Bebe here right now, maybe I would just pull her into my arms, and she’d smile and spread her legs and we’d devour each other. But Ariel wasn’t Bebe.

  What was I saying? I didn’t know who Ariel was! I didn’t know who any of them were! I hardly knew who I was. I wasn’t who I had been a month ago. Who was I? What the hell was going on? Why was I here? Why didn’t I stay on the farm and marry a nice NORG-Wife and let my dad and my grandfather teach me what the hell I was supposed to being doing with my life?

  I let myself feel all of these feelings. I didn’t fight them. I knew better than that. These were feelings and fears and the way to handle them was to look at them and see what they were. Just like that first day as I woke up on the beach with noises out beyond the tree line. I wasn’t in danger unless I made a terrible mistake, and even then it wouldn’t kill me. Yeah, I could think about being back home where none of this would be an issue but that wasn’t the real world. The real world was here with Ariel and “Pahu”, as she called the rest of the family.

  No, in many ways I didn’t know Ariel or the others, but I did know myself. I didn’t have the skills to be a good lover, but I had the mindset to learn as I went. I knew the theory and I could work it out. It wasn’t that different than making friends with a baby goat, and I’d done that plenty of times. And it certainly wasn’t as hard as making friends with a parrot, and I’d done that too. So far, the hardest thing that I’d had to do here was help Christie become whole again. I hadn’t done that much, and I couldn’t say that it had all been my doing but at least I hadn’t screwed it up worse than it had been. This would be easier than that, right?

  I took Ariel’s hand in mine and I took a calming breath, and I smiled as we walked farther down the beach.

  Ariel said, “You poor man.”

  I looked at her in surprise and she smiled.

  She said, “It’s the same for you. Look at the sky. It scares me. It’s blue and white and calm and beautiful. And it scares me. I have never seen it before. When I got here, the sky was dark. Florin, I don’t know if I ever asked: do you know where we are?”

  I slid my hand down to Ariel’s hip and she put her arm around my waist.

  I said, “This is the Atoll of Rangiroa. We are in the south Pacific Ocean, a little more than 200 miles from Tahiti where my family is. Roughly 2500 miles south of Hawaii where your plane took off from. Directly east of here would be Peru. Maybe 5000 miles. To the west is Australia, about the same distance away.”

  She said, “Just 200 miles from home.”

  I said, “It’s a long way.”

  She said, “Not as far as it was a week ago.”

  I said, “We aren’t going anywhere. This is home now.”

  CHAPTER Twenty-Nine - Loving and Playing

  I smiled to myself and pulled Ariel against my side. Ariel was a child of the water and maybe that was where we needed to be for this.

  I scooped the girl up and put her around my waist and headed for the ocean a few short steps away. Ariel immediately melted into my body. She hung her arms around my shoulders and rested her face against my neck.

  Once again, she sniffed me and said, “I do like how you smell.”

  I stepped into the water and said, “I like how you smell. And how you feel. Ariel, I’m crazy about you.”

  She raised her head and grinned at me and asked, “Crazy about me?”

  I said, “Well, yeah. We’ve been really subdued because of what we have had to do but now that we’re safe, I feel like, I don’t know. Like I’m crazy about you.”

  She giggled and said, “Tell me more!”

  I said, “Well, like when you first came and you climbed onto my back. It was distracting and felt out of place, but it was really nice at the same time. I didn’t know what was happening, but I liked it. A lot.”

  She lowered her face to my neck again and said, “Yeah? You liked that?”

  I said, “I really did. I loved it. I wanted to really feel it, but we were in the middle of so much. I felt like I was missing something important.”

  She said, “Tell me. What was the best part?”

  I said, “Um, the best part? It’s kind of embarrassing.”

  She said, “You mean intimate, not embarrassing. It felt embarrassing because it was so intimate. Isn’t that it? But say it. Tell me. Don’t be shy. I wasn’t, was I?”

  I said, “Well, not if you knew…”

  She said, “Oh, I knew. I knew full well. And I wanted it to last longer than it did. The longer it lasted, the easier it would be. You could have just gone ahead right then, you know that, don’t you? I guess you don’t. Florin, I knew what I was doing.”

  I said, “When you were on my back?”

  She said, “I let you feel the weight of me. I let you get used to my body heat and the feel of my legs and my breasts on your back.”

  I said, “But then you climbed onto my shoulders.”

  She said, “And did you like that?”

  I said, “I really did.”

  She said, “And I let you carry me. The full burden of me. And you accepted hat I was going to let you carry me. And you smelled me.”

  I said, “Um, you kept smelling me. But you were right. I do like how you smell.”

  She said, “And when you felt my wetness against your neck, and my scent attached itself to your skin, you liked that?”

  I said playfully, “You scamp! Was all of that deliberate?”

  She said, “We had to tame each other, didn’t we? Like baby animals? Letting us smell each other?”

  I said, “And when you turned around to slide down my front and your crotch was against my nose, you rascal?”

  She said, “But you liked it.”

  I said, “Of course I liked it.”

  She raised her head and grinned at me again and put her lips briefly against mine and said, “I wanted you to kiss me. Right there. With your nose in my crotch. You thought I was a weird little girl. I was. I am. But I’m a weird little woman now and I want…”

  She went silent and I stopped in the knee-deep water and waited.

  I said, “You want what?”

  She shuddered in my arms and whispered, “Now I’m the one that’s embarrassed by something intimate.”

  I said, “I’m crazy about you!”

  Ariel asked, “Do you really want me to tell you?”

  I said, “I really do.”

  She took a deep breath and whispered, “I love you. I waited for you for 18 years. But if you really want to know what I want, and I don’t even know why this is what I really want but what I really want is for you to…OK, I’ll just say it. Florin, I want you to um, fuck me…” and then she whispered even quieter but with more intensity, “with your tongue!”

  I thought, “Oh. Yeah. OK. Sure.” I wasn’t going to do it with her on my shoulders, but I could accommodate her if that’s what she wanted. And then, when she was satisfied, it would be simple to move on to something else.

  I turned around and hurried back to the sand and as soon as we were on dry ground, I
set her on her feet and lay down on my back.

  I said, “Come here!” and motioned her to move over me.

  I grabbed her ankle and encouraged her to stand over my body and then to lower herself to where she straddled my face. Pulling her downward, Ariel resisted me for the briefest of intervals but then gave into a release of her desires and dropped to her knees with her vulva at my lips.

  Taking hold of her hips, I guided her into a comfortable position where I could reach her easily and kissed the bottom end of her slit. Her first moan was immediate and lustful. Her body dropped onto my face more fully and I felt her grind into me firmly. And then she adjusted herself by rocking forward over me so that my nose nudged the button of her clitoris hidden beneath its hood.

  For a minute, I played with the outer lips of her vulva, kissing her with my mouth closed. And she obviously loved it. Ariel tried to stay still as she knelt above me, but she was already quivering, and her thighs trembled against my cheeks. My first inclination was to focus on exciting her, but I was learning that our lovemaking was sweeter if I shared in the experience, paying as much attention to her feelings as to my own. And to that end, I took time to attune to my senses as well.

  She did smell wonderful. It wasn’t musky or dark. It was almost sweet. Something about it was delicious to me. Maybe it was because we didn’t wear clothes. Maybe it was because we spent so much time in the salt water and fresh air. Maybe it was her diet of raw fruit and fish. Whatever it was, I liked it.

  Ariel moved easily as I gave her hints with my hands at her hips. When I silently suggested that she raise up, she did so. When I asked that she roll her pelvis slowly, she moved like we were dancing. All of her grace, the grace that I had noticed that first day and every time I saw her, was part of the way that she made love now.

  I had practiced some oral technique with Allie several days before, and it had been wonderful, but this was even better. My lips caressed her, and the dew drops of her womanhood collected on the petals of her flower and moistened us both. I wasn’t “fucking her” yet; I was caressing her tenderly. I was taking my time, exploring and tending her. Ariel’s slit was delicate and closed. Her labia tight and slender. Inside they must have been moist but so far, she was glistening, not dripping.