Gillian's Island

by Natalie Vivien

  But, hey, I floated for a heartbeat. And being immediately awkward doesn't negate that fact, which is what Ivy chooses to concentrate on, too. She smiles at me as I stand up in the pool again, beside her, coughing.

  “Good. That was good,” Ivy says, her voice low, husky. She clears her throat, looks distracted for a moment as she considers me. I wipe a tear out of the corner of my eye from coughing and take a ragged breath as Ivy glances down at my breasts, her smile turning up at the corners.

  “Now,” she says, lifting her gaze back to my eyes, “let's try a breast stroke.”

  Breast stroke, I think weakly, longingly, though I'm perfectly aware of what Ivy means.

  “So, the trick is not to be afraid of getting a little water in your mouth,” says Ivy, and when she tells me this, she lifts up her hand and graces my chin with her fingertips. My heartbeat thunders through me as she steps forward, but then she's not touching my face anymore. She leans into the water, and then she lifts off from the bottom of the pool with her feet, and she begins to swim through the pool toward the opposite bank.

  She cuts through the water like a knife, every movement of her arms, her legs, calculated to take advantage of her momentum. I've seen swimmers in the Olympics, and Ivy's motions remind me of theirs: precise, determined, but also fluid and graceful, like a dancer might move across a floor. That's how Ivy moves through water: she dances.

  I try to study the motions of her arms, her legs, but I'm distracted by the movement of her muscles, by the sight of her body beneath the waves.

  Ivy turns easily once she reaches the opposite bank, and then she makes her way back to me. She touches down on the bottom of the pool, standing upright again, and she gives me a wide smile. She isn't even breathing hard. “So,” she says, lifting her chin, “it's something like that.”

  “Ha, right. That's easy,” I smile, and I'm surprised when she laughs at my weak attempt at a joke.

  “Well, it is pretty easy,” she assures me, eyes twinkling. “But I'll show you how to do it. Here—lean forward in the water, like this.”

  She reaches out between us, and then her fingers are curling over my hips again, exactly as they did when she was kissing me a few days ago. Don't think about that, Gillian! Don't think about that! I make a concerted effort not to, but my skin burns wherever Ivy touches me, though her touch is light, gentle, barely there...

  “So, lean forward a little,” says Ivy, her smile small now as she glances at me. “And keep your chin up.”

  “I'll try,” I murmur uncertainly, and I do try to do it, but I only succeed in swallowing a little water. Then, embarrassingly enough, I panic and flounder, attempting to right myself and get my feet back on the ground.

  “Here,” she tells me, and then she lifts me up by my hips. Suddenly, my feet aren't touching the bottom of the pool at all; instead, I'm floating upright, held by Ivy. “Tread water,” she tells me, holding my gaze as the front of my body drifts toward hers. “Peddle your legs, like you're riding a bicycle.”

  “What?” I ask her, perplexed and distracted as my breasts brush against hers.

  And then Ivy is floating next to me, and the two of us drift together, farther out, out into the deeper portion of the pool. If I strain, reaching down with my toes, I can still touch the bottom of the pool, so I advise myself not to panic again.

  “Trust me,” says Ivy softly, soothingly. She draws me closer, and then we're floating together, she and I. “I would never let anything happen to you,” she tells me, her eyes locked on mine.

  We are so close; our faces are separated by a mere inch. All I would have to do to kiss her is simply lean forward, follow the momentum of our bodies. But I don't. My breathing comes hard and fast from my lungs, and I bite my lip as Ivy holds me out in front of her, at arm's length.

  “Now peddle your legs,” she tells me with a little chuckle, encouragingly. “Imagine that you're on a unicycle, and you're trying to keep it upright.”

  “I've actually ridden a unicycle,” I tell her casually, and I begin to peddle my legs.

  Somehow, magically, I'm still floating, and no water gets into my mouth. I try to peddle a little faster, and as I take a deep breath, I rise higher in the water.

  “Tell me about that,” says Ivy, and then she loosens her grip on my hips. Her fingers are still there but lightly now; she's hardly holding me up at all.

  I'm floating by myself.

  “I wanted to win the school talent show in high school,” I say, taking deep, even breaths and squashing the panic determined to rise inside of me. Instead, I concentrate on the fact that I'm floating. I'm actually floating in the water. “So I got a unicycle from the Sears catalog for Christmas, and I taught myself how to ride it. I don't think I could do it now, but I did it once.”

  “Did you win the talent show?”

  “Not even close.”

  And then I'm laughing.

  And I realize that Ivy has completely let me go.

  “So was it a little like this, riding that unicycle?” she asks me, her head tilted to the side as she considers me with a warm grin. “Because look at you! You're treading water.”

  “It was a lot like this,” I tell her, waving my arms around me on the surface, just like Ivy is doing. This motion helps keep me upright instead of letting me list to the side, like a sinking ship. I clear my throat. “But I fell a lot of times before I was able to balance myself. It's tough on a unicycle.”

  “You're braver than me,” Ivy smiles. “I don't think I could do it.”

  “Braver?” I hold her gaze, shaking my head slowly. I take a deep breath, say in a low voice, “You're the bravest person I know.”

  She looks at me with her bright, unblinking eyes, and I'm suddenly self-conscious again, but I continue to hold her gaze.

  Then Ivy murmurs so quietly that I almost can't hear her over the waterfall, “I don't see myself that way.”

  “You...you saved me from drowning,” I tell her, spluttering as I wave my hands. I twist a little to the side, but then I keep peddling calmly, and I'm able to right myself. “You saved Charity. You searched for your brother tirelessly, and you've kept so calm throughout this entire thing. You knew how to build shelter, to find food... You're amazing,” I tell her, which is the truth.

  She amazes me. Every day.

  Ivy smiles a little, her mouth softening at the corners. “Well, thank you,” she says with a little shrug. “I appreciate that.”

  She glances at me with her warm green eyes, her mouth slanting to one side just for me. As she inclines her head, as she drifts closer, I know, with a sinking of my heart, that I'm falling for her.

  Oh, my God, I'm falling in love with her.

  This is so complicated. This can't work, can't end well...

  But it's happening, like a brakeless car on a collision course.

  I try to swallow my feelings as Ivy lengthens her body beside mine, as she shows me how to move my arms when I lean forward into the breast stroke. I try to swallow my feelings as Ivy lifts me gently in the water, her fingers caressing my thighs, her arm wrapped around the front of my chest and shoulders, her skin grazing my breasts as she lifts me up in the water, as I am suddenly weightless in her arms.

  But I can't. I can't ignore what I'm feeling as she holds me in her arms, as we both surrender to the weightlessness of the water, and somehow, magically, I learn the strokes I need to stay on the surface, to move with the water, rather than panicking and fighting against it.

  I surrender to the water, just like I surrender to Ivy.

  I'm held by both of them.

  As the afternoon wears on, I realize that—wonder of wonders—I'm learning how to swim, really and truly, and as the confidence of that fact begins to grow within me, I am finally able to cut across the surface of the pond. And after I do it once, I do it again and again. I swim the length of the small body of water multiple times, Ivy cheering me on, clapping and yelling like Xena. Then Ivy dips low and swims halfway to me, her eyes
flashing mischievously.

  “Wanna race?” she asks, her head to the side.

  “Race? Oh, my God, let me catch my breath,” I tell her, trailing my feet to the bottom of the pool and standing upright. I draw in a gulp of air, letting my head fall back as I wet my hair, smoothing it back over my head. “I don't know,” I tell her then, straightening and raking my eyes over her thoughtfully. “You look pretty fast.”

  “I am pretty fast,” she grins. “But who knows? You might give me a run for my money! You're a fast learner, after all.”

  “No,” I tell her seriously, “I have a very good teacher.” I learn forward a little, feeling the corners of my mouth turn upward in a soft smile.

  Ivy's brows rise, and then she cuts through the water in two strokes, and she's suddenly beside me. She touches down on the bottom of the pool, running her hands through her hair, running the palm of her hand over her face. Little droplets of water cling to her cheeks, her eyelashes, her lips, and my eyes are drawn to them, to the way her chest rises and falls in the water as she breathes deeply, evenly.

  “Ready,” I tell her then, because the closeness, the intimacy of this moment is overwhelming. We both line up, and Ivy nods toward the other end of the pool.

  “Last one to finish is a rotten egg!” she calls triumphantly, and then she says, her eyes narrowing, her mouth twitching up at the corners with mischief, “Three...two...one...”

  My feet lift off from the ground, just like I practiced, and then I'm cutting through the water. It's obvious that I'm much slower than Ivy, but then, she's purposefully slowing her strokes. Halfway through the race, she even flounders in the center of the pool.

  “Oh, my gosh!” she shouts theatrically, waving her arms in the air, “I think a kraken has my leg!”

  I splutter with laughter, and then I'm on the other side of the pool, holding my sides as she laughs, too, waving her arms and trying to disentangle the imaginary sea monster from her foot. “Help!” she calls out to me. “He's going to eat me! Oh, crap, now an octopus has my other leg!”

  I don't know why... Maybe it's from the exhaustion of swimming so much (I've crossed this pool of water many, many times now, and my muscles are sore), but I find Ivy so funny that I almost snort water, I'm laughing so hard. I begin to swim back toward the center of the pool, toward Ivy, still waving her arms above the surface of the water, asking “Mr. Kraken” to please stop trying to eat her.

  “I don't see a kraken,” I tease once I reach her, treading water beside her.

  Ivy flashes me a smile, her green eyes dazzling. “Well, I thought one was here,” she says, sniffing. “Anyway, congratulations on winning! The student has surpassed the master—there is nothing more I can teach you.” She bows to me a little in the water, holding my gaze.

  I'm laughing again, shaking my head. “Yeah, right. You're the one who saved me from drowning a couple of days ago, remember? I'm not going to 'surpass' you until I save...like...an entire bus full of children. From a kraken.”

  “The next time that happens, I'll be sure to give you a call,” she tells me, her mouth slanting as she shakes her head. “Pretty specific line of work, Gillian. Saving children from krakens.”

  “Hey, every superhero needs an angle. Batman saves bats. Catwoman saves cats...”

  “Uh, no.” Ivy bursts out laughing. “You don't know much about superheroes, do you?”

  I shrug a little, smiling.

  This is nice, the two of us treading water together, the despicable heat around us something we can ignore in the invigorating cold of the pool. The stream rushes around us, out of the pool and flowing down the small hill, away from the waterfall, and I can feel the force of it all around my body, pulsing over my skin...

  I can feel something else pulsing, too: the pull of Ivy's body, drawing me in.

  We've had a good day. We've moved past what happened, and Ivy has taught me something I never thought I'd be able to learn. I'm not very good at it yet, but nevertheless, I can swim. If I were to be in a near-drowning scenario ever again, I might be able to get out of it, or at least stay afloat until help came my way.

  I don't have to be so afraid of the water anymore. Ivy gave me that gift, the gift of fearlessness.

  As I watch her, as I breathe deeply and evenly, steadily moving my hands on the surface of water to stay afloat, I feel heat begin to throb inside of me, dueling with the outer cold. It's euphoric, these opposing sensations; they move through my body, over my skin, and want and need and hope draw my eyes to the curve of Ivy's chin and neck, the flashing of her bright green eyes, her gorgeous smile, and the way her blonde hair drifts over the surface, exactly like a mermaid's.

  I clear my throat, and I'm about to say something silly, something tension-breaking—like, “Well, I wonder what the others are up to?” because the idea of being so close to this beautiful, naked woman, with these sensations moving through me, is hard for me to bear...

  But then Ivy lifts her head and inclines it toward the waterfall.

  “Come on,” she tells me, and she swims toward the edge of the pool. She climbs up and out of the water, droplets sliding over her skin, dripping off of her as I—utterly mesmerized—watch. She turns back to me, her mouth set in a warm smile as she holds her hand out to me. “Come on,” she repeats, glancing at the waterfall. “To wash off all of the pond slime.”

  I'm hesitant as I follow her path through the water. There's not a lot of slime (actually, none at all) on me...maybe a little algae on my feet as I pad out of the stream and onto the bank. But the waterfall was exhilarating before, and I'm sure it will feel just as awesome now...

  Then I'm suddenly aware of how naked I am, and how naked Ivy is beside me. The two of us stand there, as if this is a perfectly normal thing to do on a perfectly normal day—until Ivy reaches for me, taking up my hand.

  My cold skin against the heat of hers ignites a spark, deep inside my belly, and soon there's a raging fire racing through me, through every vein, across every inch of my skin.

  I'm cautious, slow, as Ivy and I move into the stream again, this time standing beneath the waterfall. I gasp out a rush of breath as the water hits me, pummeling my shoulders, my head, my back, and it's so much sensation, the freezing cold of the water, the needling of the individual droplets as they rush into my side, but it's also amazing, that pulsing weight of the water, of the cold, of the mighty stream all around us.

  I lift my head back, let the water slide over the top of my head, let it fall over my face as I hold my breath, as I let the cold cover me.

  But Ivy is still holding my hand, and tightly. And when I lift my head again, when I let out my breath and take in a deeper one, I shift my gaze to the right...and I see Ivy watching me.

  “What?” I ask, but the word is drowned out by the water, and she only sees me mouthing it. I can feel a blush rising in my cheeks, because the way that Ivy is watching me...

  Her eyes are on fire. The bright, electric green of them is so clear, so deep, so sparkling, that they steal my breath. Her lips are parted, just a little, her jaw tensed, and she's watching me with appreciation...

  And want.

  And need.

  And the same feelings are roaring through me, though I've been trying, so hard, to squash them. It's impossible: she's too close, too sure of herself, too easy and carefree, and these are all of the things that attract me to a woman to begin with, but there's just something else about Ivy. Something real and raw and true that calls to me like the tide to the shore.

  I remember the first time my parents took me to the beach when I was a little girl. If you live inland in Florida, the beach is always this “eh, we'll get there this summer” sort of thing—that you rarely get around to actually visiting. So they'd put off taking me until I was seven years old. I was old enough to remember, and remember deeply.

  I remember watching the waves crash into the shore. I remember the sun setting behind the dunes as the ocean, spreading before us, became such a deep, midni
ght blue that it took my breath away.

  It was the first time that I ever snapped a picture of something. A Polaroid that I still have. I pointed the camera at one of the tallest waves, just as it was cresting over the beach.

  “Why do they do that?” I asked my mother.

  “They have to,” she told me with a small smile. “The shore pulls the water in. They're linked.”

  I'll never forget how my mother looked when she glanced at my father and spoke the word linked. The joy and love emanating from her face was something that has remained with me all these years, just like the joy I felt when I took that first picture of the waves, as I began to understand how connected the ocean and the land are.

  How they call to each other.

  That's exactly how I feel as I stare at Ivy. She's calling to me, and I'm calling to her, and there's nothing that can stop the tides or the waves... They keep coming relentlessly on, and they will always find the land.

  Just like I find Ivy now.

  The waterfall pulses all around us, pouring down over us as I reach out in the semi-darkness, beneath the waterfall, for Ivy. I curl my fingers over her hips, and I draw her close, closer still, lifting my head up as the water pulses down on our heads. My mouth connects with hers, and in the cold curtain of the pummeling waterfall, the heat of our mouths is as hot as a star as we kiss.

  There's so much sensation—of the waterfall, of our naked bodies melding together, our chests and hearts and hips pressing together. Though our skin is cold because of the swimming, heat rises off of both of us; I can feel, bask in it.

  I am wholly alive in this moment; I taste Ivy, I kiss her, drinking her deeply. But I am also aware of how quickly something can change. One moment, we were standing inches apart, a wall of water between us, a wall of water and the hurt I caused days ago. And the next, we're kissing passionately, wet bodies connected.