Power Games

by Victoria Fox

  She stood, dripping, her breasts rising and falling with her breath.

  Jacob stared back from his hiding place.

  At last, she slipped into the forest and disappeared from sight.

  Jacob put his forehead against the rock and exhaled.

  61

  Day 17

  The meat did strange things.

  For the first time since arriving on Koloku, the group were using their teeth. They tore into flesh, tearing and ripping and shredding before sucking the skin off their fingers. They had exercised the right of man over beast.

  Possibilities of rescue came in fits and starts. Once they had considered it every minute; now it was possible for hours to pass without it being mentioned.

  Appetite claimed them in different ways: physical, emotional and sexual. They felt themselves changing, past selves and past lives abandoned.

  Still there was no sign of Mitch. Angela led the search. They scoped the island. With Jacob’s vision renewed, he scoured the coastline and thrashed through the jungle. Nothing. The senator was nowhere to be found.

  Against the afternoon sun, Kevin’s silhouette was long and wide on the lagoon. It was stretched and refracted in god-like proportions, like a biblical drawing of man.

  He had discarded his shirt. Kevin’s shoulders were russet brown, peeled and chapped where they met his collarbone, revealing cauliflower patches of hot red. His pecs were wide as plates and his legs were strong, his haunches mighty. When he caught his reflection in the ripples he scarcely knew the man looking back.

  In his fist he carried a harpoon. Kevin directed his spear into the water with cut-throat precision. He felt the slipping body yield and collapse, and when he raised it and held it to the sun it jerked blindly, tail whipping.

  Kevin brought the prey close and studied it. A trickle of blood escaped at the point of impact, and the fish’s mouth was open. He flung the catch to shore and returned to the task, darting shadows tempting his lance into another one-sided battle.

  Deeper in, beyond the spinach-green seaweed, Tawny was bathing. Kevin squinted to see better, because the rules said they weren’t allowed to swim out that far. He liked that Tawny had gone against the rules. Rules were boring. Rules were pointless. Kevin Chase had lived by other people’s rules his whole life, and now he was free of them he was finally coming alive.

  In a few short strokes he was with her. Close to, he saw she was topless, and made no effort to conceal herself. Tawny was a goddess; there was no doubt about it. Her hair was tangled blonde and her eyes were the exact colour of his swimming pool back in Bel Air. Her tanned breasts bobbed at the surface of the water. There was a cute mole where her cleavage would have been had she had bigger tits. Kevin stared at them brazenly. He felt no shame, only arousal. At long, long last, arousal …

  It was futile to deny his attraction. He wanted her. He wanted anyone.

  Kevin was horny beyond his wildest dreams. He had so much horn he didn’t know what to do with it. Twice an hour he was vanishing into the jungle for a desperate jerk-off, irrigating the fronds with a seemingly endless supply of silky white semen. But no matter how hard he pumped or how fiercely he ejaculated, inside the next thirty minutes the impulse overtook him again.

  ‘I’ve seen you looking at me,’ said Tawny. She lifted her arms and her tits rose enticingly, capped by buds that were pink as candy. Kevin couldn’t keep his eyes off them. So many years he had stared at women’s tits in magazines, hidden behind designer blouses or red carpet gowns, or in his mom’s panty catalogue, and now they were here, begging to be touched. Sandi’s tits had been the tits of a girl; the tits of that fan he’d almost had backstage at The Craig Winston Show had been the tits of a girl—but Tawny Lascelles was all woman. Which was just as well, because he was all man.

  On cue, Tawny said: ‘You’ve changed.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Yeah.’ She licked her lips. ‘You’re hot.’

  Christ, he was ready to explode!

  ‘Do you think they can see us?’ Tawny looked over his shoulder. Back on the beach, Angela and Celeste were tending to the fire. Eve was asleep in the shade. Jacob was gutting fish at the shore. Tawny’s eyes rested on the entrepreneur.

  ‘Who cares?’ said Kevin.

  ‘Maybe we should swim in a little,’ said Tawny.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘In case it’s not safe.’

  Kevin raised his spear. ‘You’re safe with me.’

  She giggled. On the beach, Jacob heard the sound and looked up. Satisfied she now had his attention, Tawny returned to Kevin and looped her arms around his neck.

  ‘Whatever’s happened to you, I like it. I like it a lot. Y’know, all this sitting around gets me kinda frustrated; it makes me wanna … let off some steam.’

  Kevin knew how that felt. Boy, he did.

  He wedged the harpoon in the sand, just possible to touch with the tips of his toes. Moving towards her, he fed his hand beneath the surface. Tawny was so close he could feel her breath, and the irresistible slurp of her skin touching his.

  ‘Whoa,’ she said, as her fingers clasped round his cock. Kevin spilled into her grip, choking with lust.

  ‘You’re big,’ she said, shocked. ‘Seriously big.’

  ‘Let me put it in you,’ Kevin grunted.

  Tawny stepped out of her knickers, holding them just a moment too long above her head, in case anyone on the shore should care to look, before discarding them in the water. Kevin grabbed her round the waist.

  ‘To think you were such a kid …’ she began, her lips about to touch his, her breasts grazing his chest, her pussy about to slide over him when—

  There was a commotion coming from the shore.

  The figures were distant. All were waving frantically.

  Tawny smirked.

  ‘Looks like they want us back in,’ she said, drawing away.

  ‘Hey—!’

  ‘I guess Jacob’s finally jealous … Come on, Kevin: you seriously thought I was going to fuck you? Right here, in front of everyone? Dream on.’

  The uproar from the beach got louder. The group was shouting now, arms high, signalling violently. Kevin spun round. Angela, or at least he thought it was Angela, was holding two sticks in the air, crossed at their tips. What the …?

  All the fucking rules …

  Fuck ‘em.

  And then it happened. Curdling terror. Kevin reached for Tawny, growling, ‘Come here,’ at the same time as Tawny shrieked: ‘SHARK!’

  Kevin’s brain clotted. Blood filled his head.

  He whipped round. Tawny was swimming, her arms churning the water and in the distance the yells were louder and they were all chanting the same thing:

  ‘SWIM! SWIM! SWIM!’

  Angela’s sign: the triangle.

  Quietly the shark’s fin slipped behind him. Kevin saw the steel-grey shape glide beneath the surface before re-emerging several feet away, and moments later there was a sharp bump against his leg, the grind and thump of undiluted muscle.

  He remembered a fan grabbing him after a gig, sometime back in the early days. It had been Seattle. His first sell-out show and he’d been beat. The fan had snatched him out of nowhere, evading security, and had pushed him down to the floor, pinning him with her knees and planting kisses all over his face. He’d been scared—properly scared. Persecuted against his will. Bullied into submission.

  Not any more, sucker.

  Kevin dived beneath the surface. He yanked the harpoon from its mooring.

  Underwater, the shark moved more quick and fatal than ever. One minute it was obscured by the fog of a few metres away, the next whipping past, tail flashing, eyes beady and cold. Its prehistoric snout was butting and evil, hiding jagged rows of lethal zipper teeth.

  Kevin was not about to be defeated. This shark had chosen the wrong fucking battle with the wrong fucking guy.

  In his periphery he could see Tawny’s manically flailing legs making for a swift getaway. It gave him p
leasure to register her pearly-white butt in the context of this life-or-death situation.

  Come on, you sonofabitch …

  The shark was circling him. Every few seconds it receded into the ultramarine and then returned with a vengeance, darting for him, hard as a bullet, and if he swung away he could dodge it. Excited by the motion, the shark was fixed on its bait. Its gills were as long as his hands. Vaguely, Kevin knew this was no basking shark or tiger shark. This was the mother of them all: the Great White Motherfucker.

  ‘FUCK YEAH!’

  Drawing the spear from behind his back at the last possible moment, Kevin angled it into the animal’s undercarriage, right at its throat. The monster boosted forward, ever more potent in the throes of the attack, a juggernaut propelling him through the water. Kevin seized its nose and jammed the harpoon in place.

  The shark did the rest. Every inch the beast travelled was another inch of its gut slit. Clouds of red filled the lagoon. Confused as to where the blood was coming from, the Great White turned on itself, snapping aimlessly, until Kevin, with a final drive that came from within, thrust the spear so it lodged fast.

  With that the light in the shark’s eyes dimmed, glazed, and died.

  Kevin surfaced. He had drifted in, was close now to the shore.

  The water here was crimson. The beach had assumed the worst. Angela was stunned. Eve was on her knees. Tawny, splendid in her nakedness, watched open-mouthed as Kevin dragged the shark’s carcass in behind him. His muscles rippled, his shoulders and back straining at this unfeasible triumph.

  The group watched in awe until Jacob ran down to help him.

  62

  They gorged themselves that night. The shark-meat wouldn’t keep and they would have to burn what was left. The creature was massive, beached and terrifying. They had never seen a shark that close up before. It seemed sacrilege to tear it apart.

  Kevin sat separately from the group. He was restless, and claimed to have no appetite. He carved sticks into points, lining them up on the sand.

  The others were wary of him. When he’d brought back the pig they’d been impressed, grateful, but this time it was different. This was an incredible feat.

  It wasn’t natural. The natural thing would be if Kevin hadn’t come back in.

  They realised they didn’t want to be surprised. The island threw enough their way: they could not handle one of their own transforming.

  63

  Day 20

  The moon hung like a bell in the sky, whole and alone.

  Celeste wondered that this was the same moon as the one she knew: the one she had seen from her Venice apartment, or on train journeys cross-country, travelling with her parents from one city to the next, or from the window of the college dorm she had shared with Sylvia.

  She turned on her bed. The moon-balm shone directly onto Jacob, his eyelashes long and his hair swept across his forehead. She watched him a while.

  Making a decision, she got up and padded across the sand.

  Wrapped in a nest of leaves and weighted down by a stone, she found what she was looking for: Tawny’s diamond necklace. The jewels sparkled so violently that she feared someone would notice, but when she turned back they all remained still.

  Celeste pooled the necklace in her palm and crept towards Tawny. The model was on her side. Quietly, carefully, Celeste leaned over.

  The fist that grabbed hers was quick as lightning.

  ‘I knew you took it,’ Tawny hissed. The women’s faces were inches from each other and Celeste could feel Tawny’s hot, furious breath against her skin.

  ‘You’re a thief. I knew it. I knew you were a thief.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Celeste gasped.

  ‘Too late.’

  Angela woke. ‘What’s going on?’

  Celeste panicked. Stupid as it was, she didn’t want Jacob to hear.

  ‘It was because he gave it to me, wasn’t it?’ lashed Tawny. ‘He wanted me before you, and now he has to settle for second best.’

  ‘No—’

  ‘I’ve seen the way you look at him. It’s desperate. It’s embarrassing.’

  Tawny’s words hit her like a slap. She was right, of course; Celeste was nobody’s first choice—Carl told her often enough. Carl said he was only with her because he felt sorry for her. He knew that no one else would look twice at her.

  She had been crazy to imagine that Jacob might.

  Tawny snatched the necklace back. ‘Look, everyone! I was right all along. Celeste here’s a thieving bitch.’

  ‘Please, don’t—’

  ‘What do you think about that, Jacob?’

  Jacob rubbed his eyes. He sat up. In the firelight his chest was golden. Celeste wanted to run her fingers across it and knew right then it was forever beyond her reach. She didn’t want Jacob thinking badly of her. For once in her life, here was a man who believed she was good, who didn’t judge her by the things she had done.

  It had been idiotic of her to think, if only for a second, that she stood a chance. Against Tawny she was nothing.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Celeste stole my necklace. The necklace you bought me.’

  ‘Tawny, leave it,’ said Angela. ‘She tried to give it back.’

  ‘Like hell I will. She’s not getting away with this.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ said Celeste again. ‘I’m really, truly sorry.’

  ‘You can be sorry all you like, sweetheart. It doesn’t change anything.’

  She remembered what Sylvia’s mother had said to her at the funeral: Saying sorry doesn’t change anything. It doesn’t bring her back.

  ‘Calm down,’ said Angela. ‘Let’s talk about this sensibly.’

  ‘Jacob bought it for me and you had to have it, didn’t you?’ snarled Tawny. ‘You had to play pretend, act like he got it for you instead of me because that’s the kind of loser you are. Can’t find a decent man of your own so you steal that too—’

  ‘I bought that necklace when I liked you,’ said Jacob.

  ‘Liked me?’ Tawny snorted. ‘That’s an understatement.’

  ‘It’s an overstatement,’ he said, ‘because I don’t like you any more. As far as I’m concerned, Celeste can keep the necklace. She deserves it more than you.’

  Tawny’s expression was blank. ‘What?’

  ‘You heard.’

  Tawny swayed a little on the spot, as if she’d been struck. Then she rounded on Celeste and in a mad flash went for her, hands tearing through her hair, nails ripping her skin. Celeste was thrown to the sand, winded.

  Jacob hauled Tawny off. Celeste tasted blood on her lip. Tawny was writhing in his arms like a madwoman, striking to break free.

  ‘Let me go!’ she raged. ‘Let me go!’

  Jacob secured her arms behind her back. Celeste watched as Tawny’s pretty blue eyes surveyed the scene, elected a trusted route and then broke out sobbing.

  She turned and buried her face in Jacob’s chest. ‘She stole from me!’ Tawny blubbed. ‘She’s a thief!’

  Celeste was shaking. She blotted her lip on the back of her hand.

  ‘We’re not ourselves,’ said Angela. ‘None of us are.’

  ‘I am!’ Tawny wailed. She clutched Jacob’s bulk like it was a rock in a stormy sea. ‘I’m the same! I’m still the same as I always was!’

  The affirmation didn’t come to Celeste immediately, rather it swam up slowly, set in motion by Tawny’s lavish protestations, the scorn the model had poured on her since the moment they had been introduced, deriding her at every opportunity and eclipsing her in the mighty shadow of her celebrity—and now in the claiming of Jacob, who had stepped up in her defence.

  I’m not the same, thought Celeste.

  She was sick of it. She was sick of Carl pushing her and hitting her. She was sick of being told what to do. She was sick of being bullied. She was sick of being weak. She was sick of regretting. She was sick of being the one they all trampled over because she didn’t believe she was anything worth tak
ing care of.

  ‘I’m glad I took it,’ she said.

  The group stopped their squabbling.

  ‘I might be a thief, but do you know what you are, Tawny Lascelles? You’re vain, spoiled and selfish and I couldn’t care less what you think of me. I took your necklace because I wanted a piece of you. I wanted to be a tiny bit like you, just for a day. And do you know what? Now, I can’t think of anything worse. I don’t want to be you, and any woman who does needs their head examined. You might be pretty on the outside but you’re ugly in your soul. You make yourself feel good by making other people feel bad, and the sad thing is you’ve been doing it for so long and you do it so well that you’ve forgotten how to stop. I’m not going to be the other person any more.’

  She pushed past, knocking Tawny on the shoulder. The supermodel’s mouth was open.

  ‘Oh, and one more thing.’ Celeste stopped. She turned, and slapped Tawny clean across her cheek. ‘That’s for making me bleed.’

  64

  Day 21

  Morning was slow to arrive.

  Eve didn’t want to remain at camp. Since Kevin’s attack on the shark, their behaviour had been raw and unpredictable, as if the pretence no longer needed to be upheld. The pretence of what: society? Humanity?

  Days after the event, the beast’s scent still filled the air, a bitter reminder of their lost selves—and the new frontiers of their capability.

  Angela would never let her go alone, so Eve hung back until the moment came when she could slip into the forest unnoticed. She would be back before dark.

  And, with any luck, she would bring Mitch Corrigan with her.

  It was a bold claim, she accepted, as she followed the pig run up the side of the mountain. Eve feared that to bring him back alive was no longer an option, but to bury him would put all their minds at peace. It might give the group what they needed, a sense of closure, of starting afresh. After last night, they needed it.

  She hadn’t wanted to admit her anxieties when Kevin had raised them, but she felt it too. She felt like someone was watching them.

  Her legs dripped with sweat and her shirt was heavy. Her belly was swollen now, the navel distended. She stopped for breath, drinking thirstily.