by Anthology
Daniel, being the gym-addicted zombie that he was, nagged me constantly about my weight, wrapping it up in faux concern about my health. My health was fine; I wasn’t that heavy, it was the dimpled flab on my thighs that offended him. In the beginning, we’d had wild, kinky sex. Sex that degraded into perfunctory, in the dark, I-have-to-do-this-to-make-a-baby-with-you intercourse.
But, despite his resistance to going to the fertility spa in Tahiti, once we arrived things improved. Daniel was happy; I was hopeful. That first afternoon, in our plush sage green hotel room overlooking the turquoise ocean, we made love. He even kissed me. I tried not to cry afterward as he held me—it had been so long since there’d been any affection, intimacy between us. This trip, this place, was going to change our lives—I just knew it.
We met with a fertility doctor the next morning, with the sound of the waves almost like a song through the open window. The linen curtains floated in the salty breeze as he spoke. The man, his dark skin a stark contrast to his white coat, grimaced when he glanced over my file. Catching himself, he forced a smile at us.
“Yes, Dr. and Mrs. Nelson, there are substantial obstacles, but you know that. Our treatments here are holistic, natural. With your history, I’d recommend you take advantage of all of our courses of therapy.”
Daniel’s lips formed a hard line, his eyes narrowed. “All?” Daniel asked.
I could see the numbers floating above Daniel’s head as he added up the cost. As a prominent Los Angeles plastic surgeon, Daniel had money—an obscene amount of money. But he was cheap. We lived well, certainly a more luxurious lifestyle than I’d ever dreamed of as a homeless girl in Detroit, but Daniel’s intent was to build a legacy. He wanted family wealth, and that desire fueled his quest to have a child. As an ardent Catholic, divorce was out of the question, so he would never divorce me to have a child with his much-younger lover. Instead, he was stuck with me if he wanted to create a legitimate heir, in his eyes.
It was Daniel’s idea to rent one of the spa’s sailboats before we began our pricey treatments the next day. I didn’t know how to swim, and feared boats, but Daniel was so light, so airy that afternoon as we sipped a bottle of cold Pinot Grigio.
“C’mon, Margo,” he chided, “it’ll be fun. God knows we could use some fun.”
He only called me Margo when he wanted something; otherwise he coughed out the long name Margaret or a tepid “babe” on occasion. So I agreed, despite the angry knot in the pit of my stomach. And we had fun. Taking selfies with my iPhone, kissing, falling in love again. Or so I thought. Daniel was a skilled sailor, and yet he allowed the winds to carry our small skiff out. Too far out, too far away from the boundaries given to us when we rented the boat.
My lungs burned from the salt water that I coughed from them. I’d fallen asleep floating on a flat piece of log in the water, my head dropping into the cold ocean. I tried to think about Daniel, about what he’d done, but my brain felt as if it had been stuffed with cotton balls. I couldn’t think. Only my torso was draped across the driftwood, my numb legs dangled into the abyss of sea where the small fish that plagued me nibbled at my bare feet. I must have lost consciousness, because the last thing I remember was the searing heat of the golden sun fading into the coldness of a moonless night.
I must be dead, I thought. This is heaven, but my body feels like it is in hell.
I was certain that I was dead when I heard them. Women singing—the most magical sound I’d ever heard, a sharp contrast to my agony as I bounced on the waves.
When I awoke, I saw him. He was little more than a teen. Gleaming yellow hair floated across his forehead, and his long fingers swept it back as he peered down at me. Harsh pain wracked me—I’d hoped that death would be numb. Several times in the last few days, drifting through the ocean, I’d prayed for death to take me.
He pulled at me, my lifeless corpse as floppy as a ragdoll. “Jake!” the blond angel yelled over his shoulder. The sun had risen, and I was lying on sandpaper. As I opened my eyes again, the tide rose to me, wetting me anew.
The boy tried to lift me, and I groaned as he flung my aching body over his lean shoulders. He was naked—his skin a deep tan, golden and shining, as he carried me up the beach. I dozed off again as he walked—I lacked the strength to move. My eyelids felt as heavy as the dark draperies in my grandmother’s old Victorian, and I fell into a deep sleep, my cheek bouncing on the boy’s strong back as he lugged me across the sand.
“Jake!” the blond boy, the angel who was laying me on a bed made of palm fronds, shouted again toward the opening of the crude shelter.
When there was no answer, he looked down at me, his emerald green eyes brimming with kindness as he caressed my forehead with the palm of his hand. My eyelids were still made of cement, but I forced them open enough to meet the loving eyes of my savior, my angel.
“What’s your name?” he asked, his voice soft, almost a whisper. My lips were sealed, dry and cracked from dehydration. I couldn’t speak, but yet my ears heard my own voice answer the boy.
“Hope, hope, HOPE,” I chanted before my body shut down once again, plunging me into agonizing darkness.
*****
I felt as if I’d been in a coma for months when my right eyelid unglued itself from the sticky flesh it clung to and popped open, followed by my left. The blond was there, hovering over me, and his wet fingers left my lips when he noticed that I was awake.
“Hope,” he said, his voice as soothing as warm honey to a sore throat. “You’re awake, that’s great. Take some more water,” he cooed, his wet finger dipping into my mouth once more.
“Can you sit up?” he asked. I wanted to answer, but only a low, tortured moan rolled from my tongue.
“It’s okay, we’ve got you,” he said, the kindness of his words wrapping around me like a warm parka on a cold day.
“I’m going to go get Jake, he went out to hunt,” the blond explained, as if I would understand who Jake was. “He’ll know what to do, Hope,” the boy said with a confident nod before he left through the makeshift door.
I was left alone, but my eyelids were covered with cement again, and the blackness overtook me, leaving me to my dreams—some beautiful, like the time we went on safari in Africa, and some horrible, like those of my final minutes with Daniel.
Hours later, it seemed, my body on fire with pain, I could hear them speaking. The blond was pleading my case to someone else, a man with a deep baritone voice. “Fisher, what the fuck do you want me to do? She’ll either live or she’ll die, I can’t work miracles. It’s like that fucking seagull you rescued from the—”
“It’s not the same, Jake! This is a human being, a woman, not a pet, not some rescued animal. She’s clearly been floating in the water for days; she’s sunburned, blistered, and dehydrated but alive. She’s spoken to me! Take her to the stream, please.”
My angel, Fisher the other man had called him, was fighting for my life, I could tell. I loved him for that, no matter what happened.
“Fisher, there’s nothing special about the stream, and it’s well over a mile away. To carry this woman that distance would deplete our—”
“I’m taking Hope to be healed, right now, with or without your help,” Fisher said. His arms reached under me, lifting my top toward his body.
***
It seemed like hours passed as the hot sun beat down on my back. Every step Fisher took caused pain to rip through my battered body. At one point, while going up a rocky hill, I asked him to end it.
“Please,” I moaned. “Let me die.”
“Can’t,” was all he said. He kept climbing.
At the top of the hill, I could hear water and prayed we were close.
I passed out as he carried me, and woke up lying on the ground, my head cradled in his lap.
“Drink,” he said, holding a metal flask to my cracked lips.
“How much longer?” I managed to ask.
He smiled—his teeth gleaming white, his full lips pink
and beautiful.
“You spoke,” he said. “The water is already helping. The sirens, they didn’t want to take you, Hope. Jake is wrong about that.”
“Sirens? I don’t understand.”
He caressed my cheek and smiled again. “You are alive for a reason. Please don’t die, Hope, we need you.”
“My name is Margo. Well, Margaret really, not Hope.”
“You came to me as Hope. Would you rather be called those other names?”
“No,” I said.
“Then Hope it is.” He grinned wide at me. “I was born Henry, but Jake calls me Fisher because I bring the fish.”
I nodded, confused. Where was I? I struggled to think, but my brain was in a fog.
He brought the flask to my lips again. “Drink,” he said. “As much as you can, and then I’ll carry you back.”
When I could take no more, Fisher filled the flask from the stream. He lifted me again, and the pain was less than before. “I can try to walk,” I said.
He nodded and lowered me to the ground. I stood for the first time since Tahiti. “Thank you,” I said as he wrapped his arms around my waist.
“I knew you’d live, Hope. The night before you came to us, I dreamed of a beautiful creature from the sea being sent to us by the sirens—and then you were there on the beach.”
“I’m far from beautiful.” I looked at my own reflection in the water.
Fisher turned to me, his green eyes locking onto mine. “You are the most beautiful woman I’ve ever seen. They picked you just for us.”
I have to be dreaming, or I really am dead, I thought as he took my face in his hands. When his lips brushed against mine, I felt my body go limp. And then it happened; this exquisite being was kissing me. As his tongue brushed against mine, I knew that I’d never had a kiss like this one. Fisher’s kiss was a pure, perfect offering of affection—not a promise of anything, and not a gesture to receive.
As our lips parted, he looked into my eyes. “You are what we’ve been waiting for. They promised to complete us—you are the final part of our soul, Hope.”
My body ached as I put one bare foot in front of the other. With Fisher’s help, I was walking. “I don’t think your friend likes me,” I said as we worked our way down the trail.
“Oh, don’t worry about Jake. He’s protective of me, but you are exactly what he needs.”
“I’m so broken, Fisher.” The tears threatened to fall as I thought back on the mess that was my life. I was barren, lost, and my own husband had tried to kill me. Or had killed me, I really wasn’t sure.
“We were broken, too, Hope. That’s why we’re here.”
“You are castaways? Stranded on this island?”
He shook his head. “No, the sirens brought us here; the same as you.”
I didn’t believe in sirens, or healing waters, or any other supernatural power, but I did hear something that night. Floating in the water, tortured by the nibbles of fish, ready to die, I heard them. My body floated on and on, toward them.
We walked at my pace for what felt like hours, until I finally needed to sit. “Rest a minute,” he said. “I’m going to see if I can find you a walking stick. It’ll be dark soon and we need to go faster.”
Fisher disappeared into the tall bamboo when I heard a rustle behind me. Just for a second, I saw him. Hidden behind a large tree, I caught the dark glare of Jake. Our eyes locked, and I felt faint. With a thud, I slid from the rock Fisher had left me on.
“Hope, are you okay?” Fisher was holding me again.
“I-I think so. I saw him—the dark guy, Jake.”
“Yes, I know. He’s been watching over us the whole time,” he whispered in my ear.
I rubbed my head; I’d struck it hard on the ground when I passed out. Fisher pulled me to my feet and held the flask to my lips again. “You are dehydrated and weak, but healing is happening. I know it.”
With the bamboo stick for support, I was able to walk a little faster, but it was getting dark. The sound of the island was wild, primal; I shivered despite the heat.
“I’m going to carry you again,” Fisher said, tossing the bamboo stick into the brush.
“I’m sorry,” I said as he lifted me over his shoulder.
“It’s my honor, Hope.”
We walked for another half hour before it happened. On a steep hill, Fisher’s right foot slipped on some loose stones and we slid. He held on to me until the end, when we toppled together onto the soft earth.
I looked up to see him standing there again. “Enough,” he said to Fisher.
Jake lifted me as if I weighed nothing. He carried me, not slung over his shoulder like Fisher had done, but like a baby in his arms. There was no bouncing, no jarring, just his powerful arms holding me.
When he laid me down on my bed of palm fronds in their shelter, tears ran down my cheeks. “Thank you,” I said, reaching for his hand. A jolt ran through me when our fingers met.
Jake let me touch him for a minute, then pulled his hand away as if I’d burned him. “Drop the dramatics, lady. I’ve lost a day’s hunt because of you.”
“I’m sorry.”
He nodded. “Yeah, well, finish that water he gave you, okay?” he said and left Fisher and me alone in the shelter.
“You felt it,” Fisher said to me. He held out the flask. “The spark from him.”
“Yes,” I answered before I drank from the flask until it was empty.
His hand reached for mine. “He did, too. You are the one for us, Hope. We are to be three.”
***
Late that night, after my belly was warm and full from Fisher’s crab stew, I woke up to feel my body tingling. For the first time since Daniel tried to drown me, I wasn’t in any pain. I rolled over to my side, relishing the sensation of moving my body without it hurting. Maybe this island is magical, I thought.
And then I heard a rustle, and I saw them as my eyes adjusted to the darkness. In the moonlight, Jake’s powerful body hovered over Fisher’s. Black hair merged with blond as they kissed. Their naked bodies were as one as they clung together.
“I love you,” I heard Jake whisper.
“You are my everything, and now, we are about to be complete,” Fisher answered.
Jake’s lips skated down Fisher’s neck, down his lean chest, kissing along his torso.
“Ah,” Fisher moaned as Jake kissed the trail of hair just below his navel.
I tried to be still, but watching them was stirring something in me that I thought was long lost. My hand drifted down my belly and stroked against my throbbing sex. I’d never seen two men together before, but the vision of them was lighting a fire deep inside me.
“Please, Jake,” Fisher moaned, no longer a whisper but a prayer.
Jake’s mouth wrapped around Fisher’s erection, taking him down his throat. “Fuck,” Fisher moaned as Jake’s mouth worked him. “I need you inside me,” he begged as Jake sucked him.
Jake slid Fisher’s hardness from his lips and said, “Soon.”
My core spasmed as I watched Jake’s tongue explore Fisher’s full balls, stabbing at them with his tongue. Fisher thrashed when Jake’s tongue went lower, stabbing into his backside with a hunger I’d never seen before.
The blond moaned as Jake worked his tongue deep inside him. “I can’t take much more,” Fisher groaned, his hips rocking from side to side. Fisher’s hand was wrapped around his own thick erection as Jake feasted on him.
My fingers stroked my sex, allowing my body to feel pleasure for the first time in ages. I watched as Jake lifted Fisher and pulled him close. He dipped his hands into something oily and rubbed it over his massive member as Fisher pulled his own legs wide.
“Yes, take me,” he begged. Jake positioned himself at Fisher’s entrance, and in a hard thrust, was inches inside him.
Fisher’s hands clawed at Jake’s powerful chest as their bodies became one. They rocked together, bodies entwined, as I watched silently from the corner.
Jake picked up speed, his thrusting full of need, as Fisher stroked himself faster and faster. The only sound in the quiet night was the swoosh of Fisher’s hand on his own skin mixed with Jake’s heavy breathing.
“Come with me,” Jake commanded, pounding into Fisher with a force I’d never seen. My own climax came at the same time as theirs, Fisher’s seed coating his own belly as Jake shook from the force of his orgasm.
When Jake’s eyes opened, his chest heaving, his skin sweaty, he looked directly at me. “You liked that, Hope?” he asked.
I didn’t answer, too embarrassed to move. My cheeks burned as I lay there, Jake’s eyes locked on mine in the moonlight. “It’s okay,” he said quietly. “Watch us. I want you to.”
I was frozen until he turned back to Fisher. His tongue darted down and licked the ejaculate from Fisher’s abdomen before rolling over next to him. I watched as they fell asleep, their naked bodies glistening together in the silvery light, clinging to each other as only lovers do.
My mind drifted back to the last time I’d been truly made love to. It wasn’t as explosive as the two men I’d just witnessed, but Daniel did once love me. Before my first pregnancy, when my body was lean and my face flawless, he’d explore me slowly. Back then, he’d let his tongue run across my wetness, savoring me.
Lately, even in Tahiti, when we did have sex, it was hurried. Daniel would pump into me with his eyes closed, touching my body as little as possible. He never kissed me, and he never cared whether I came or not. It had been years since he’d bothered to make contact of any kind with my clit.
I wrapped my arms around my chest, sobbing silently at the coldness I’d spent years living in. On this island in the middle of the Pacific, watching these two lovers, I felt warmer than I’d felt in a very long time. I vowed that night, as my eyes closed, to never settle again. I would be loved or I would be alone.
*****
The next morning, I woke up to a wet cloth stroking my face. I expected to open my eyes to the green-eyed Fisher, but instead I saw the dark eyes of Jake.
