by Jo Watson
“Huh? Oh…yeah, yeah…Lilly, whatever.” I sounded totally disinterested, but I didn’t care.
When Damien and the slutty slut-sluts finally emerged from their dry-humping session, Damien dragged them across to me and I had a sneaking suspicion I was not going to cope with the encounter very well.
“Hey!” The brunette was running toward me smiling. “You must be Lilly.”
I was thrown, especially when she hugged me. Why was this strange woman hugging me?
“Uh…how do you know?”
“Damien hasn’t stopped telling me about you. I basically get a message every five minutes.”
“Really?” I perked up a bit and looked to Damien; he was blushing and moving his toes around in the sand.
“Yep. He’s been going on like a stuck record. Besides, you’re also pretty famous.”
“Famous?”
Suddenly Damien elbowed her in the ribs and shushed her.
“What’s going on?” I asked suspiciously.
“You haven’t seen the pictures?” Strange Slutty Girl asked with genuine surprise.
“Jess,” Damien hissed under his breath at her.
“What pictures?” I demanded.
“Sorry, I didn’t know you hadn’t seen them…” the Jess character said to me.
Now I was worried. Something was definitely up and I didn’t like the sound of it.
“Damien, what’s going on?”
“Show her,” he said to Jess, who immediately proceeded to take out her phone. She pressed a few buttons then held it up to me.
I gasped. “You took a photo of me on the plane in my pajamas, with my hair like that, and you sent it to her?”
Damien jumped in quickly to correct me. “No! I would never. But someone did, and it’s kind of gone viral.”
My eyes widened in shock. “What do you mean, viral?”
Damien and Jess exchanged another look—it was one of those loaded looks that not only contained subtext but a whole thousand-page novel and then some.
“Guys…” I just knew something bad was going on.
“Remember that photo of Angelina Jolie’s leg and how everyone started Photoshopping it onto things like the Venus de Milo statue? Or the photo of that woman who fell asleep at the mall and got Photoshopped onto a stripper pole?”
“Yes…” I said tentatively.
“Well it’s kind of like that,” Damien said as gently as possible.
“I don’t understand. My leg is on a stripper pole?”
“No, not your leg.” A quick look passed between Jess and Damien.
“You’re making no sense!” I grabbed her phone angrily and started flipping through the pictures.
And there I was. In my SPOONING LEADS TO FORKING pj’s with my massive hairdo, my black-stained mascara cheeks and lipstick-smudged face standing next to Shrek…and there I was riding a giant spoon through the air, Photoshopped onto the Mona Lisa, climbing up the side of a building swatting planes out the air, and yes, someone really had put a flock of seagulls in my hair.
My jaw fell open.
I was an Internet meme. I was everywhere. I was viral, like the angry hamster and Psy. I know I should have been totally mortified, but I was still too focused on Damien’s plus one. Correction, plus two.
“You kind of have a hashtag, too,” Jess added tentatively.
“Really?”
“Hashtag spoonforker.”
“I see.” I felt surprisingly calm about the whole thing, especially for someone who was viral. “How long have you known?” I turned to Damien.
“Since yesterday morning, a few people at the hostel showed me. Sorry, I should have told you but—”
I shrugged. “It’s fine. What can you do, hey? So I’m trending, so millions of people are looking at the worst picture ever taken of me…So what!”
“That’s the fucking spirit!” Little Miss So-and-So smiled and hugged me again.
Who was this chick, and why was she hugging me?
“Lilly, this is my best friend, Jess,” Damien finally said.
“So nice to finally meet you.” She was smiling at me again. “Oh, and this is my girlfriend, Sharon,” she said, pulling the other chick toward her.
Now, it took my brain a while to compute the information: Sharon was Jess’s girlfriend, they were a couple, so that meant that she was a lesbian. I’d never been so happy to meet someone in my entire life. I threw my arms around her and hugged her way too hard before moving to Sharon with the same enthusiasm and then declared that I was “delighted, simply delighted, ecstatic, in fact, to meet them.”
This seemed to make Damien happy and he beamed at us.
“Oh…” Jess piped up again. “And this is Sharon’s brother Jerry and his friend Chris.”
The introductions were finally over, but I still hadn’t gotten my kiss. There was a lot of chatter, some laughter, some general catching up, and some more hugging while Damien helped the lesbians—yeah!—get their bags out of the boat.
I watched Damien intently, like a lioness might watch her prey before pouncing and biting off its head, but out of the corner of my eye I could see Jerry inching closer. And then he started trying to make conversation with me. So in between my adoring Damien stares, I grunted a few words here and there. There was nothing wrong with him. In fact, he seemed polite and nice and interesting. Well, at least that’s what I would have thought a few days ago, but not now.
“Ha-ha-ha-ha, that’s so true, Lilly!” Jerry suddenly burst out laughing and playfully hit me on the arm. Huh? I must have said something funny to him, but what?
The laughter obviously caught Damien’s attention, because he turned around and glared at us with a rather strange look. In one swift movement he was off the boat and making a speedy approach. And then seconds later he was at my side, arm around my shoulders, pulling me closer and eyeing Jerry. And then it became awkward. Jerry took a step back.
“Oh, sorry, dude. I didn’t know you guys were together.”
Automatically, without even thinking about it, I quickly replied, “Oh, no, we’re not—”
But Damien cut me off. “Not together…yet!” He pulled me even closer, and those were the best words I’d ever heard spoken.
Jerry smiled at Damien. “Sorry.”
Damien held out his hand in truce. “No worries at all.”
And then he pulled me closer and put his mouth to my ear.
“I want to kiss you so badly.”
I melted.
“So kiss me.” I’d never been so brazen before.
“I don’t think we want an audience, do we?”
I liquefied. My body turned to unstable, watery jelly and my legs shook. I could feel his lips touching my ear.
“Lilly, if I kiss you, I don’t think I’m going to be able to stop there.”
Damien looked at me meaningfully. I hadn’t thought beyond kissing Damien, but now I was. Suddenly I started having these thoughts, unfamiliar…naughty thoughts…about sex. Hot, naked, sweaty, acrobatic, porn-star sex.
I wanted to have sex with him, fuck him, make love to him, in whatever way, shape, and form I could. (OMG, I couldn’t believe I was even thinking these things. What had happened to me?)
I wanted to.
I needed to.
And it felt right.
It also didn’t feel like it was coming from an impulsive, mad place that was reeling in shock and in rebound mode, desperately seeking out a male to fill the hole. And I mean that in the purely figurative sense.
I wanted to do this with him. I put my lips to his ear and whispered, “I don’t think I’ll be able to stop there, either.”
Damien’s hands tightened around my waist and his body stiffened against mine. I’d never felt sexier and more desired in my life.
I was floating on cloud nine; nothing could touch me. I was in a Damien daze and it was so intense I barely noticed that I’d climbed a rickety string ladder up a cliff face, or that I had waded through waist-high
water and hiked through a dense—spidery—jungle. All I was aware of was Damien and the intense looks that were flying between us. Every now and then he would come up behind me and wrap an arm around my waist. He would hold my hand, he would stroke my back, and at one stage he came up behind me and whispered, “Jesus, you are so fucking sexy it’s killing me.”
And then finally Jess announced that we’d arrived at the last hurdle. We were standing in the middle of a clearing in the jungle, and in front of us was a small brilliant blue lake. Like the others we’d seen, it was completely surrounded by high cliffs, but looking around, I saw no string ladders or steps anywhere. Jess bent down and began feeling the ground around her, until she found a rope and pulled it. A trapdoor of sorts opened up, and I burst out laughing.
Everyone turned and looked at me.
“Seriously, are we on Lost? Is the island going to start spinning and going back in time, and am I going to see black smoke coming out of the jungle?” This whole thing was ridiculous: “Mysterious party” was an understatement. Everyone laughed with me and agreed that it was all indeed a little like Lost, but hopefully without the unwatchable final season.
“Okay, so the map says we can leave all our bags and electronics here and just take our essentials.”
“Leave our phones here. Why?” I asked.
“Well”—Jess looked at her phone again—“it says, ‘Swim across the lake to the white cliff directly in front of you. Look for an arrow carved into the rock, take a deep breath, and you’ll find a tunnel under the rock. Make sure it’s a deep breath, because it’s quite a long tunnel. There’s an air pocket halfway where you can take another breath, and then swim the rest of the way. See you guys soon.’”
“Um…” I hated the idea of swimming under a giant rock. What if I ran out of air and started to panic?
“Don’t worry. It’s gonna be fine, hon.” Jess put her arm around me and gave it a squeeze. “Besides…” She was smiling now. “You have big, strong Damien to rescue you if anything goes wrong.” She followed this sentence with a playful eyebrow raise, which made me blush like an idiot. “Think about it, if you started to drown he could give you mouth-to-mouth, maybe even slip you some tongue.” Jess then looked at us, flicking her eyes between Damien and me. “Ah, that would make such a cute story to tell your kids one day. ‘I almost drowned your mommy.’”
Damien lunged toward Jess. “Jess, you’re such troublemaker.”
“I know. That’s why you love me!” And then she winked at us and jumped into the water with a loud splash. I avoided all eye contact with Damien now; I was worried that if I looked at him, he’d notice that I’d been reduced to a dithering puddle of hormones. So I jumped in and followed.
We found the arrow easily and then we all counted to three, took a deep breath, and submerged. The tunnel was dead ahead and not as long as I’d imagined. I soon saw the sun rippling on the surface of the water and knew that the air pocket was close. We emerged into a small space that was just big enough for the six of us. Everyone started taking their next big breaths and disappeared. I was about to do the same when I felt Damien pull me back.
“Finally, I have you alone,” he said in a gravelly voice that did nothing to hide his feelings and thoughts. He pulled me closer. We were both treading water and as we got closer, our legs bumped into each other. Damien pulled me closer still and tried to kiss me, but we soon succumbed as the effort of trying to kiss and keep our heads above water with vigorous treading became too difficult. We sank under the water together, our knees knocking and feet tangling, and attempted another kiss. It was clumsy and pointless and our mouths filled with water. We both burst out laughing, which caused our faces to disappear behind a shroud of bubbles. This was the worst failed kiss in history, and we both emerged laughing and spluttering.
“Okay, so maybe that wasn’t the best idea I’ve ever had,” he said between fits of laughter. “I don’t want to be the guy who ends up drowning you in the throes of passion. Then there’ll be no story to tell the kids.”
Kids, dot, dot, dot. And even though I knew it was just a clever reincorporation of the joke that was being thrown around, my mind couldn’t help going there for a second.
Damien was still laughing, clearly oblivious to the fact that we now had three daughters with blue eyes and black hair and their names all started with a D.
“So how about we just forget that even happened and we’ll try again later?” he said, his laughter finally tapering off.
“Sure,” I said, and then I almost fainted when I heard the words come out of my mouth. “But you have to promise to make our first real kiss the best one of our lives…”
Damien came closer to me and I felt his hand on my stomach. I flinched—but in a good way. His hand moved down and he hooked his finger into the top of my bikini bottoms and pulled me closer.
His gaze intensified and he gently parted his lips. “I promise.”
When we finally resurfaced on the other side, we entered into a world that was amazing and bizarre and beautiful. We were in yet another small crystal lake, which was also enclosed with rocky cliff faces and had the same huge wraparound beaches. Beyond the beaches were giant palms filled with hammocks and strings of colored lights. Multicolored tents were erected all over the beach, which also had big, comfy-looking cushions and giant beach balls scattered on it. An enormous bar dominated the center of the beach and people were milling about; some were floating in the water on bright inflatable loungers, others were sleeping in hammocks, some were playing volleyball, and a few were already dancing on the beach to music being played by a DJ.
I looked around, amazed.
“Welcome to Burning Moon, Lilly.” Damien turned to me. “I’m going to make this the best night of your life.”
Chapter Eighteen
Remember all those millions of years ago when Tom Hanks won the Oscar for Forrest Gump and for the next while every Tom, Dick, Harry, and uncle’s tree squirrel’s monkey walked around saying, “Life is like a box of chocolates, you never know what you’re gonna get.”
Well, that’s ridiculous! Of course you know what you’re gonna get, just read the bloody box. Turn it over and look at the little pictures of the chocolates and their descriptions. I’m not sure where Forrest was buying his boxes, but really, it’s not that hard.
But I finally got it. Because the chocolate I was currently unwrapping, and was about to take a bite out of, wasn’t on the box. It wasn’t on any box, anywhere. In fact, it was a totally new flavor that hasn’t even been invented yet and will exist only in the future when we taste with our fingertips.
Because I would never—in a million years—have guessed that my life was “gonna get” this.
The party preparations were in full swing. More and more people were arriving and the music was getting louder and louder. The water thrashed with partygoers—swimming, floating, splashing, and jumping. Dusk was creeping up and the sparkling lights in the trees had been turned on. They scattered rainbow beads of color across the white sands and cliff faces. The tiny dots of color bounced across the surface of the reflective water, and it looked like everything had been coated in millions of brightly colored M&Ms.
But I still hadn’t had my alone time with Damien, because he seemed to know everyone here. We spent the whole afternoon moving from person to person. “Hello…How are you?…Great…Awesome…Long time…Glad to see you…This is Lilly…” etc. A couple of people recognized me thanks to my newfound Internet fame, and they’d all thought it was just about the coolest thing they’d ever seen. Suddenly, I was the “cool chick,” the celebrity. Some guy even asked me to autograph his chest. These people were so accepting; I thought about what Michael would say if he saw the picture. It would not be complimentary, and I’m sure he would have been mortified to be associated with me.
We went around like this for hours, and I was thrilled to see my strip-club buddies Mark and Francoise there. We got so wrapped up in girl talk that when I looked u
p again, Damien was gone. He was nowhere to be found. Nowhere. So I wandered around aimlessly, drank two tall purple drinks, and then went to the toilet. The bathroom was a rather junglelike affair. It was a temporary structure made up of reed walls built around a large palm tree. I wondered how all this stuff had arrived here. There were only two possibilities: Either the guy who ran this was very rich and everything had been airlifted in, or this party was that mysterious and strange that everything had been beamed here through a transdimensional portal. Either way, it was pretty spectacular and I was in absolute awe of it all. You couldn’t help but get caught up in the energy and exhilaration of the night.
You really felt like you were a part of something. Something unique. A secret underworld that was completely separate from everything else. Here people were happy. They were free. They made their own rules and marched to the beat of their own drums. (Literally—a drumming circle had been formed out on the beach. What is it with hippies and drums?) I looked around at the people and was struck by how diverse they were: from your arty, poetry-reading, shell-earring-wearing types to your hipster Kens and Barbies, a few Rastafarians, some really cute Asian schoolgirls with pink hair, a few emos for good measure, and then the most bizarre of all, a few people who looked like ordinary moms and dads.
I caught sight of myself in the bathroom mirror and stared back at someone who looked nothing like the Lilly I knew. I didn’t have a scrap of makeup on, for starters, which was very unusual. The sun had sprayed freckles across my nose and cheeks and my hair was messy and wavy from the humidity. I walked out of the bathroom running my hands through it, trying my best to tame the unruly beast, but I was interrupted.
“Leave it. It looks nice like that.”
It was Damien. He was casually leaning against a palm tree waiting for me. Somewhere along the way he’d managed to change, and it was the first time I’d seen him in anything other than his uniform black. His knee-length shorts were still black, but he was wearing a ludicrous Hawaiian-style shirt with a pink hibiscus and tropical parrot print. He looked ridiculous yet outrageously sexy and simultaneously adorable.
