by Robert C Ray
How could they do those things to her? He did not even realize to what extent they had gone, though he could tell that they were things that hurt her badly. He could only wish that he would be able to comfort her.
Thumbing through the socks, he found the ones that he figured would fit her best, but a tap on his shoulder made him jump, and turn to see her smiling up at him.
"How do I look?"
Just that fast, she had found her black slacks, and a gray sports bra to go with it, and she was the picture of loveliness. How she had gotten them on, and made her way back to him, he could not figure, though why should he question perfection?
"You look beautiful," he managed to say, as his eyes simply looked her over. The way that she turned and danced to properly display it, made it impossible for him to do otherwise.
"Do you like it?" she asked as she finally paused, yet with opened jaw, he had only four words to say.
"I found your socks," he replied.
The grin grew large upon her face as she saw the stupor that he was in, and she snatched up the socks before sticking her tongue out at him, for the simple fun of it, and then walked off to the dressing room.
"Put your tongue back in your mouth, Charlie," she said in slightly more than a whisper, and then entered the small space.
How could he, Charlie thought, when she seemed to be enchanting enough to control his every motion? Surely, she was created to be this way, but how could they have done so well at it, that someone like himself would find himself without control? He figured that he could better control himself, but was beginning to wonder why he should even try.
For a moment he thought that every woman should be created by men, yet he had quickly determined that every woman would not willfully accept this, and for good reason. Still, he was here with one so stunning, and she was not influenced by the trials that all women go through, and that being the understanding that men are inherently dogs.
This woman would not judge him like other women would. She would not see him as being flawed, simply because he was male, and not even a good specimen of it. She was as innocent as Mirage was, and she was smiling at him.
Just then, something dawned on him. Why did she go into a dressing room, simply to put on a pair of socks? This question, however, was quickly answered as she stepped from the small room.
Like an angel, she stood there in a firm fitting, strapless, red dress that dropped just above her knees, while showing enough of her cleavage to still make it seem slightly modest. He was not someone that had done it often in his life, in any situation, but he desperately wanted to make love to her right there.
"You like it then?" she questioned as she twirled about to show it off so gracefully, and certainly he did.
"We have more important things to get here," he managed to stutter out, but it was only an excuse to battle his mind away from the feelings that were overwhelming him. Why he even tried to resist, he still struggled to understand
"After you," she said with a tilt of her head, as her eyes drew him in once more.
* * *
For the remainder of their time in the store, she had consumed his thoughts and emotions, yet as they drove back to the motel room, he began to remember what she was asking him to do. Sure, he was willing to help her in any way that he could, but what if he failed?
If he failed, she would be dead, and he would have to see it happen. He had never seen a dead person before, other than his grandmother in a casket when he was quite young, and the thought of seeing Viper on the floor, motionless, was a very scary one.
Certainly, he had never seen someone die, either.
Just as before, she seemed to sense when he was distraught, and quickly moved to comfort him.
"Even if you can't revive me," she said as though knowing his thoughts, "I will die with someone that I love."
"Wow!" he thought to himself. The sound of it was surely pleasant, though this might be considered a bit fast, and he wondered if it was the bird from its egg that would think that the first one it saw was its mother. Surely, she didn’t think that he was her mother, but what if she was programmed to fall in love with the first person that she saw after awakening?
"You don't have to love me," he told her with a timid shake of his head, "simply because I helped you."
"They made me a lot smarter than that, you silly," she explained with a friendly smile and a playful slap on the arm. "Love, as a verb, is defined as someone that you care a lot about, and helping me is only one of the things about you that lead me to that."
Now, he was the one to feel like the foolish, naive child, rather than thinking that it could be her. Love comes in many forms, and since the only other person that she had ever known was the program that they had cursed her with, it would only make sense that she would love him on some level or another. They would have likely never given her the chance to love anyone, if they had the choice.
"Could you stop, and buy a bottle of champagne?" she asked with her beautiful, green eyes, ever stirring his inner being. "I want to celebrate after you successfully revive me."
"Aren’t you only supposed to be eighteen?" he questioned, yet the scolding look that she threw back at him, forced him to realize how silly a statement it actually was. In reality, she was only eight months old, but in that same reality, she deserved to celebrate however she wanted, if he could actually keep her alive.
"Sure," he told her, and the smile he gave her did well to cause her to smile back at him, and that was more than enough reward.
* * *
Quietly he sat on the bed in the modest room, attempting to attune himself to the task that stood before him. How could he have ever agreed to such a thing, knowing not only that it was something that he had never had to actually do, yet was also something that he had learned so long ago? There had to be a better way.
Standing, he began to pace the room, fearing that the outcome might not be a favorable one, and his mind raced as if he might still discover a better option. There was not one quickly forthcoming.
"Are you okay in there?" he questioned as she prepared herself in the bathroom.
"I’m fine, Charlie," she called back, knowing his doubts. "Now stop worrying. I'll be ready in a moment."
Moment? That was the root word of momentous, which was the magnitude of the task that he would have to perform, and he had no doubt that he would be unable to stop worrying. At best, he could do the task without panicking, which was something that would turn it from a momentous task to an impossible one.
"I'm ready," she said softly as she stepped from the bathroom, having changed from the red dress, back into the black slacks, and the sports bra, which did well to reveal the area that she needed to operate on.
"I don't know that I am," he sighed, as he looked her up and down. "You are so tiny, and even if I can help you, I might hurt you as well."
Smiling with her head tilted downward slightly at an angle, and her enchanting eyes gazing up at him, she sauntered her way to where he stood motionless, and placed both hands upon his face as she raised her chin to him.
"They made my bones nearly as strong as steel, and my muscles do not bruise so easily," she told him, as he stood there, entrapped by her beauty and charm. "The only way you can hurt me is by not trying."
He put his hands upon her lower back, overcome by his desire for her, but she softly patted his cheek, and withdrew.
Grabbing a few wet towels, and the box cutter that she had picked out, she sat on the floor with her legs stretched forward, and took a deep breath. This was when he noticed that she, too, was feeling the fear of the moment.
It was a brief moment, however, as she reached behind herself with the blade in hand, and a damp towel clenched between her pinky and ring fingers in the other, and began to make the incision. The wincing of her face made it clear that she had cut deeply into herself, and it became obvious that she was searching for something.
At one moment, her face would be blank, and
in the next, she would express pain, while shortly after that, there was contentment again. This happened a few times before she looked up at his horrified face, with her own beautiful expression.
"I've got it," she said with that same smile that now enslaved him. "Are you ready?"
Taking a deep breath, he leaned forward, and before he could actually ready himself, she pulled it from her back, and then fell the rest of herself to the floor.
She had left him no time to think about it, and as he pounced upon her, he figured that she had done so on purpose. He was learning that she was smarter than he was, and he should have come to terms with that already.
Now she lay dead before him, and he was the only one that had a chance at bringing her back.
First, he put his lips to her own, and breathed his breath into her, and then he began the compressions. Repeatedly, he continued this as best he could remember from what he had learned, and repeatedly, he worried that it was not working.
"Come back," he screamed as she remained motionless on the floor, though his shouting was helping nothing.
Tirelessly he tried for what the clock told him had been eight minutes, before he realized that he had failed. The brain begins to die after five, but he had hoped that she was different enough that he could make a difference.
One last time, he placed his lips to hers, yet this time it was not to breathe life into them. This time it was to kiss a woman that had loved him, and although he had not known her very long, he felt as though he should have loved her more. She deserved it.
Slowly he stood up from her, and went over to sit back on the bed. This time it was not fear that consumed him, but rather guilt. He had hoped to help her right down to the core of his being, but in the end he failed her. Perhaps it was to be as much sorrow as was told by Shakespeare, and no different from Ryan and Mirage.
Then he heard a great gasp, as Viper sat back up in an instant, and he could not help but to launch himself from where he sat, and position himself in front of her.
"Are you alright?" he questioned as he placed his hands upon her cheeks, though her eyes seemed distant, and her attention was not there.
Quickly he reached forth, and pressed his lips against hers, but there was no response at first, though suddenly she began to softly kiss him back.
He had no desire to break the kiss, and slightly fought its end, yet she eventually pulled herself away, and stared up at him.
"Is it ok, if I might find one more reason to love you?" she whispered, but the euphoria of the moment did not allow him a response, and he pulled her lips back to his own, insistently.
When he finally found his heart beating at a rate that aloud him closure, she asked him one more question.
"Does it please you," she asked with eyes of longing, as her hands softly caressed his cheeks, "that your lips are the only ones to have ever touched my own?"
Certainly it did!
CHAPTER SEVEN
Happiness, Contentment, and Euphoria
Resting on the large cushion, Ryan began to think about life before the island. He could not seem to remember anything other than a handful of things that did not seem to help any, and though he rather enjoyed what he was currently going through, he was still bothered by not knowing.
Closing his eyes, he tried to imagine anything he could about what would have been his home, though nothing seemed familiar. There were no memories of his own bedroom, or his own living room, or any other room for that matter.
Opening his eyes, he looked down at his hands, and wondered again, what he might do for a living, yet nothing came to mind. His hands were not rough and calloused, but did not appear to be manicured either. Sadly, they offered no clues.
Staring out at the jungle through the front opening, he tried again to imagine any familiar faces, but still could only envision the beautiful woman that he was growing quite fond of.
For a while, he simply lay there, and thought about her. Although he could not remember much about himself, the memory of her was about as vivid as though she was standing in front of him, and without realizing it, the corners of his mouth began to curl upward.
Physically she was an angel, and a devil, both at the same time, the likes of which would make a Greek goddess envious.
Mentally she seemed as intelligent as she was mysterious, all while retaining an aura of innocence. He may not remember any other woman, but he still understood this to be a rare trait indeed.
He wondered for a moment what she would be like in the real world. Certainly all the men would be eating out of her hand, while nearly every woman would hate her, if only behind her back. The rest of them would simply be jealous.
"I need to gather some fresh herbs for dinner," she told him as she entered from the back. "Would you care to join me?"
"Of course I would," he replied as he stood to follow her, and when she stepped back out, he determined that this trip down would be the smoothest yet.
When he dropped down the hole in the patio without touching an edge, she threw him a glance that seemed to indicate that she was impressed, and then she began down the steep embankment.
This time down, however, she showed more agility than she did grace. The first step was more of a hop as she cleared about five yards, and landed with her right foot against the bottom of a small tree. This was only the beginning of one continuous motion as she quickly leaped to another tree, and swung around it as if it was a playground pole. A few more interesting moves, and she was out of sight, and all he could do was to stand there at the top with his mouth open.
"I don't think so," he thought aloud, and then began to take a more cautious approach to his descent. One step at a time he figured, and he meant it both literally and figuratively.
Finally reaching the riverbank, he glanced around, but could see her nowhere. He had not taken that long, so she could not be far, though he had no idea which way she had gone.
Looking around more carefully, he found a clue that gave away her location. Draped over a branch he saw her fur strap, and wraparound skirt, and when he turned back around, there she was rising up out of the water.
"I have the first ones," she said as she walked ashore with a handful of long leaves, and the sun glistening off her slender, naked body.
For only a quick second he stared at her before turning away to blush. He had absolutely no idea how he should respond, and figured that even if he could find the words, he would simply stutter them out.
"Take off your shirt," she told him as she approached him from behind, and he immediately did as she asked.
Without thinking, he turned to face her, though what she did next he had not been expecting.
"You wouldn't want to stain it," she said as she draped the long leaves over his shoulder, and then walked past him, back to her fur clothing.
Putting them back on, she then began to walk the path that ran along the riverbank, leaving him speechless where he stood.
For a moment he did not move at all, and then finally found the strength to follow her. He figured she would make any outfit look stunning as she walked gracefully ahead of him.
"Have you ever wanted to leave the island?" he asked her, which caused her to stop, and pause for a moment.
Turning, she walked up to him, and placed her soft hands on his cheeks, caressing them ever so slightly.
"The island is who I am," she told him with a sincere smile. "How could I ever leave myself?"
How could he ever have believed that he would get a simple answer, but that was part of her mystique, and he would not change it if he could.
Turning back up the path, she began to walk again, and he was content with simply following her. Somehow, he just could not believe that she would be happy in his world. His world did not even deserve such beauty.
For a short while, they made their way up the river in silence until she stopped, and turned toward the jungle. Looking around, she plucked a small plant from the ground, and then walked up to him.
"They are quite rare, and I call them Happiness," she said as she handed it to him. "You have to look carefully to find them."
Glancing down at it, he saw that it was a small bunch of thin leaves attached to a thin root that was about three inches in length. Raising it to his nose, he was delighted by the scent. It was sweet, yet earthy, and had the slightest hint of a vanilla smell to it. Now he found himself looking forward to dinner even more. She certainly seemed to know what she was doing.
"It won't just come to you," she said with a playful grin as she continued to search around. "You have to find it yourself."
He smiled back at her, wondering if she was teaching him how to gather herbs, or teaching him Zen. Either way, he was quite impressed, and joined her in the search.
All around the jungle surface there were many types of plants, and none of them looked the least bit familiar. He supposed that this was the first jungle he had ever been in, but it was nothing like he would have imagined.
He thought that there would have been insects everywhere, but he could not recall seeing a single one. When he did find one, he had no doubt that it would be a beautiful butterfly. That is just the way that this island seemed to work, as if it were a place of fantasy come to life.
"I found one," he said excitedly, finally spotting one of the small plants, and quickly he plucked it from the ground.
"Very good," she told him as she approached with a handful. "We should have enough now."
Handing her the two that were in his hands, he began to follow her back. He was sure that she was correct about having enough, but he wished that he could have been more helpful. It would seem that she was much better at finding happiness than he was.
Reaching the spot where they came down, she reached into the water, and pulled out a basket. It was the same basket that had the crabs in them the night before, and he assumed that they were still in there.
When they reached the top, she set the basket down beside a large stone with a flat surface, and then pulled out one of the lifeless crabs. Then she placed it upside down on the stone, and pulled off the triangle-shaped belly flap before flipping it upright.
