by M H Ryan
“Oh!” Sherri said. “We can pull the lifeboat over here and use it for sleeping. You know, after we clear it out. This is going to be so fun!”
“There are avocados over there,” Benji said.
“Shut your face,” Aubrey said, spinning around and looking at the avocado trees. “I love avocados!”
“Avocados are gross,” Benji said.
“Are you insane, Misses Mango?” Aubrey asked with wide, excited eyes. “Avocados are better than your lame-ass mangos any day of the week.”
“Oh, no you didn’t,” Benji said getting closer to Aubrey. This was a good-natured argument, and both were holding back smiles behind those stern faces. “You’re telling me you rather have some grassy paste versus the delicate blend of sweetness and texture of a mango?”
“Have you ever seen a mango dip at a party? No. But if someone brings out a nice guacamole, and that shits gone in minutes.”
“Really? You can get mango-flavored anything but have you ever seen a candle or a lip balm or a shower gel with a shrunken-up green nut sack on it?” Benji said.
Aubrey tried to hold that angry face, but lost it at “nut sack” and laughed. “Yes, I’ll take the nut sack fruit, thank you very much.”
Their exchange had us all laughing.
“I’ve never had an avocado,” Eliza said.
“And you’ve never seen a nut sack,” Aubrey said.
Sherri plucked two avocados from the tree, dangled them from her fingers and gently bounced them. We all laughed, except Eliza, who looked from the fruit to me and my crotch with a squinting gaze.
“They don’t actually look like that,” Kara whispered to Eliza.
Eliza looked relieved.
“Okay, ladies, we don’t have much time. You guys want to get a fire going while a few of us get the lifeboat?”
Benji, Cass, and Eliza went to gather some wood, while the rest of us went to our raft and grabbed the lifeboat. We set the bamboo near the shoreline and dragged the inflatable to the premade camp.
They already had a small fire going by the time we got back.
The setting sun sent the sky to a more purple color. Soon it would be dark, and the stars would be coming out.
“I found a spring, just over there. I think it’s fresh water,” Eliza said. “I had one just like it back on the island I grew up on.”
“Nice,” Sherri said. “Damn, we were lucky to find this place.”
“I think I saw a pepper tree near the center of the island as well.”
“Pepper?” Benji said, standing up and ignoring the fire she’d been working on.
“Yeah, a few trees had some vine on it that looked like pepper,” Aubrey said.
“Show me,” Benji said, leaving the fire.
She and Aubrey walked quickly into the small forest.
“Nice job on the fire, Cass,” I said.
“Yeah,” Cass said, looking down at the fire and the wood she gathered burning in it.
I knew that look. She was starting to accept this as her reality. Good, now I hoped she would begin to understand that we needed her contribution to the group. After what we went through to get Cass, and what she and her body had gone through, I was willing to extend that line a bit further than others, but at some point, she needed to work like the rest of us. The girls didn’t say anything, but I knew it annoyed them. A bad vibe allowed to fester could turn into a cancer through the group. I wouldn’t let that to happen.
“She’s gotten good at it,” Sherri said, motioning to the fire. “And there must be some kind of crab off the shore here.” She gestured to the broken crab shells near the fire.
“I wonder how she caught it?” I asked
“Had to be a trap of some sort. I noticed a lot of cut branches from the trees. She could have built a wood cage.”
“Impressive,” I said, and it was.
It didn’t go unnoticed that she had built a fire, as well, without matches. That was a difficult thing to do. Had she made some kind of raft and left the island?
The girls came running back, holding a handful of what looked like small berries. Most were green, but some were shriveled and black, smaller than a raisin. Peppercorns.
Benji couldn’t stop smiling. She extended her handful of pepper toward me.
“Pepper,” Benji said. “I can’t believe it. I can finally put some spices into the food. If only I had this when I had the shark steaks.”
“Most of it isn’t dried out yet, but there was some on the ground that is blackened,” Aubrey said.
She showed me a small bundle of green berries, which were about the size of a raisin.
“Whatever. All I know is we’re taking the whole lot. We’ll have pepper for months!” Benji said.
“This is such a good find,” Sherri said. “It’s going to make your already good food even better.”
“I’m excited to try this new stuff. I’ve never had pepper either,” Eliza said, looking at the pepper in Benji’s hand.
“Here, try a piece,” Benji put a peppercorn in Eliza’s hand.
“Don’t,” I said. “It’s going to be spicy.”
“Oh, come on, Jack. It’s just pepper, not a habanero,” Aubrey said.
“Just eat it?” Eliza asked, putting the peppercorn between her thumb and finger.
“Yeah, chew it up,” Benji said.
“Unless you’re scared of the heat,” Aubrey teased.
Eliza popped the pepper into her mouth. She looked confused as she chewed, and her face contorted in disgust. Then her eyes went wide, and that’s when I knew some of the heat hit her. She spit it out, getting a lot of it on Benji and Aubrey. She spit again on the ground near her feet.
“What is that?” Eliza said, gagging.
“Wow, you can’t handle any heat, can you?” Aubrey said.
“It’s burning my tongue. Is it poisonous?” Eliza asked with her tongue out.
“It’s just a spice. Something to give your feed a kick,” Benji said. “Nothing dangerous. That heat will pass quickly.”
Eliza’s eyes watered, and she looked between us.
“You’ve never had a spice, have you?” I asked.
“Nothing like that. We had salt,” Eliza said and spit on the ground again.
“Hey,” Benji said, putting her hand on Eliza’s shoulder. “Sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. Where we come from, pepper is common on food.”
“Hey, no biggie dude,” Eliza said using a bit of that borrowed slang.
“Why don’t you help me with dinner tonight?” Benji asked Eliza. “And I can show you how to use these kinds of spices in the things you cook.”
“Yeah, sure, thanks. I’d like to see what you do with this pepper,” Eliza said.
“Oh, let me fish something up,” I said, and headed off toward the boat.
I grabbed the fishing pole from the shack and went to the shoreline. The sun had set enough that the water looked black and silky in the mild waves. The moon and stars shined down on us and reflected off the water. Whoever had been on this island had landed on a good one. I wondered what it took for her to leave this place. Had she seen something that made her go, or was she was compelled to, much like Eliza had been when she searched for us?
Unspooling the line, I set one of the slugs onto the hook and flung it into the ocean.
The girls were laughing around the fire and sharing in several conversations. The good mood felt like a nice reprieve from the terrors on the ocean. Cass walked up to me, watching me holding the pole.
“Hey, there’s my pro angler,” I said, and she smiled. “You want to take over?”
“Sure,” she said, hesitating.
I handed her the pole.
“Okay, I’m going to try to get something a tad bigger on your line this time,” I said.
“If you think you can,” Cass said.
She was still skeptical of our powers, and I had yet to figure out what hers might be or if she even had one. I suspected she knew it already but
had refused to acknowledge it, much like Aubrey had. It came to you like a feeling at first, almost making you aware of its presence even if you weren’t looking for it. A skeptical person would dismiss it outright. Out here though, nothing could be dismissed easily.
I closed my eyes and reached to the ocean. I jolted back when I felt something I hadn’t felt in days: a watcher.
“Shit,” I said.
“What?” Cass said.
I ignored her and felt again. It was just the one watcher out there. I took a deep breath and connected with the thing. It was curious, just watching us fish. Concentrating, I sent a thought that it needed to leave here and forget that it ever saw us. That thought broke through the static and slammed into the watcher.
An immediate change washed over the watcher, and it seemed confused as to why it was where it was and that it needed to get back to its island. It swam away, never thinking of the people it was spying on.
I collapsed to one knee and breathed hard.
“You okay?” Cass said. “You didn’t eat one of those peppers, did you? I bet those have, like, cat urine on them or something.”
“I’m okay,” I said, getting back to my feet.
“Oh shit,” Cass said, her pole bending down. “I got something!”
Chapter 11
I bit into the crab that Cass had caught, still impressed at her fishing. She didn’t even need me to lure one in. She did it all on her own. Of course, she had screamed when the thing emerged from the waters, but that just made it funnier. The big crab had wrapped its arm around the line, and I wondered if there were a bunch of them out there. I reached out and felt the static, but I couldn’t get a good picture of what they were.
The pepper did make things taste better, and even though we didn’t have chips, the guacamole that Aubrey made was amazing—creamy and chunky, seasoned with salt and pepper. Benji made another mango glaze for the crab, and it was all delicious.
As the hours went by, we discussed all kinds of things, from the homes we came from to the dream foods we could have out here. Cass didn’t talk much, but she seemed engaged in the conversations. I think catching what we ate for dinner gave her some needed confidence in her worth to the group.
It was interesting to watch how easily Eliza morphed into the group juxtaposed with how much Cass seemed to struggle with it all. The other girls were actually happier than when I found them—especially Kara. She wasn’t full-blown Sherri happy, but she wasn’t anything resembling the girl we picked up from Yin Island. Eliza seemed to think she’d been searching for us for her whole life, as if she knew she had to stay alive to save us one day. In a way, she did. If we had mistakenly welcomed Mario and his ship with open arms on that one day, he might have “ripened” us in in preparation for his king. Whatever that meant.
I got up and put the last log onto the fire.
“I’m going to get some firewood,” I said.
“I’ll go with you,” Eliza said quickly and jumped to her feet.
Some of the girls around the fire circle giggled.
“Okay, cool,” I said and made my way into the cluster of trees.
Eliza jogged up to my side and smiled up at me. She was so full of life, enthusiastic about it all, that it was hard not to be happy around her. Most people took the civilization around them for granted. A person that played the guitar might be ridiculed for missing a note, but for Eliza, when we sang a song for her, she thought it was the most beautiful thing her ears had ever heard. When we told a story, she listened with an edge-of-her-seat intensity. She couldn’t grasp everything we talked about, especially the cities and technologies we described, but she was starting to understand our culture. She soaked it up with fervor. She loved hearing about our families, our upbringings, our schools. She was fascinated by holidays and traditions. The Easter Bunny made her laugh, and question if we were serious.
We passed through a dozen or more trees, and it looked like most of them were avocado trees or something similar to an oak but with bigger, greener leaves. I sensed a few small creatures in the trees as we walked around. Nothing dangerous, I didn’t think—probably some kind of insect.
The trees nearest to the camp were void of easy wood. We headed deeper into the forest.
“Cass seems to be coming around,” Eliza said.
“Yeah, I think she just needs more time to adjust to this,” I said. “She’s taking it kind of hard, being here.”
“She must have had a rad life going if this one here blows,” Eliza said and I guessed it was Aubrey feeding her these 80’s slang words.
“I hadn’t thought on that. You could be right. Back home there is more opportunity, I guess.”
“I can’t even imagine going to where you guys are from,” Eliza said. “I’d lose my damn mind. I mean, it’s hard to get your attention out here with a few girls. I can’t imagine a whole city full of them.”
I laughed. “Back there, women weren’t beating down my door.”
“They break guys’ doors down?”
“Just a figure of speech. I mean, there aren’t women…vying for me back there.”
“Well, if the city girls weren’t going after you, that doesn’t speak too highly of their judgment.”
“Thanks,” I said. “Actually, where I’m from, the girls are the ones that are more typically sought after. I think you’d be very popular where I’m from.”
“Oh yeah? You think guys would find me attractive?”
“Sure. You’re beautiful, but it’s not just that. Well, it’s a big part of it initially, with guys, but you’re also fun and loving, and just a good person. You deeply care about others and you… you just have this way about you that is infectious. Like, I want to share everything with you just to see that look of amazement on your face.”
I bent down and picked up a branch from under a tree. It was a few inches around and seemed reasonably dry.
“How would a girl get your attention back home?” Eliza asked.
“Well, typically, she’d message me on Instagram or text me stuff, send me emoji’s or pics. Sometimes, they’d call, but usually, it was more a pics-and-words kind of thing.”
Eliza looked panicked. “I don’t even know what that is, Jack.”
“Hey, it’s okay,” I said, getting closer to her. “That wasn’t my thing.”
“I don’t know what to do here, Jack,” Eliza said. “I don’t know all the ins and outs of how things work, and the girls tell me stuff, and half of it I just nod politely to because I have no idea what they’re saying—”
“Eliza,” I said, getting her stop.
“I like you,” Eliza blurted out.
I smiled and put my hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t look at me like that,” she said.
“Like what?”
“Like I’m this cute girl that doesn’t know anything. Benji told me about it.”
“Hey, I do think you’re a cute girl, and what you don’t know, makes you even cuter.”
Eliza huffed and then said in a rush, “The girls have been telling me stuff, okay. I know about hookers now. I know what hand jobs actually are, and I know about sex, and tit fucking, ejaculations, orgasms, anal penetration, blow jobs and fingering, blumpkins, dirty Sanchez—”
“Whoa,” I said, getting an urban dictionary thrown at me. “Who is telling you about a dirty Sanchez?” I asked and then waved off her answer. “You need to talk with someone other than Aubrey.”
“I could talk with you?” Eliza said, moving closer to me. “I mean if you like me like I like you.”
I took a deep breath and saw a moment where I had a significant advantage over her. If I wanted, I probably could take it all the way with her, and maybe she would be happy with that, but that skipped so many great steps that she should experience first. I owed it to her, as her first boyfriend, to be something better than a dick.
“I do like you,” I said and meant it. Over the last week, I cherished the moments I got to spend with her.<
br />
She beamed with a big smile and her mouth moved as if she was searching for the words.
I spoke before she found any. “You asked what we do back from where I come from. We usually start with a date.”
“Yeah, Aubrey told me about dates. She said that was for blow jobs,” Eliza said. “I know how to do one. She kind of showed me, but I’ve never seen a man naked, so I might need some practice. Maybe you can help me?” She moved closer to me and touched my waist.
“Wait,” I said, even though little me was screaming yes! “A date starts with conversations and then things can progress from there, if there is a mutual connection.”
“We’ve talked a lot, Jack. Many conversations. It’s where I’ve fallen in love with you.”
Love? The word surprised me. The ease in which she used it amazed me, and I put both of my hands on her shoulders. She looked up at me in the pale moonlight.
“I’d like to take things slower with you, if that’s okay,” I said.
“What does that mean?”
“I don’t know yet, but I want to find out. Typically, it starts with kissing and cuddling, touching and exploring the other person. It builds up to something more over time.”
“Kissing? Like a blow job kiss? Like kissing your dick?” Eliza said.
I really tried hard not to laugh at this, because I knew she was putting herself way out there for the first time in her life, and the last thing I wanted to be was some jerk that laughed at her advances. Plus, they were so endearing in their naivete.
“No, on our lips,” I said, leaning over to press my lips to hers gently. Not much more than a peck.
“What was that?” Benji asked, touching her lips.
“Just a quick kiss.”
“Aubrey didn’t tell me about this part.”
“Sounds like Aubrey told you about the finish line, but there is a fun race that can be had to get to the finish.”
“I liked that,” she said.
I bent down and kissed her neck, and her body went stiff against mine, and I heard her quick breaths. I wrapped my arms around her and held onto her trembling body.
“I got you,” I whispered into her ear.