by Gabi Moore
“Ellie needs medical help,” he said. “Her foot is in pretty bad shape.”
“OK? So let’s go and bring her back some help then.”
“No, she won’t last long if she doesn’t get help soon. She needs to go on the boat.”
“But--”
“Her and I will go. I can manage to paddle on my own. There’s plenty of wood around here to make a simple oar and like you said, we’ll leave in the morning and go as fast as we can out east.”
My face stung with the effort of holding off the tears.
“You can’t--”
“That’s the best way, Charlie. You’re a good rower, sure, and I know you won’t take offense when I say this… but I’ll be able to go quicker.”
A few hours before, I had been on top of the world, sure that my new discovery would finally be the thing that gave me an edge. Sure, I didn’t have a pretty white cleavage and a torn cocktail dress, but when it came down to it, I was useful. The fact that Todd wanted to disappear with her was a kick to the guts more brutal than anything we’d done on any training run so far.
He turned to carry on walking. The rain let up a little and I could tell we were close to our base camp. It was now or never.
“Todd, wait.”
He glanced back at me, his tired face streaked with water.
“Todd, I’m the one that found the boat.”
“I know you did.”
“I get some say in what happens to it.”
“Fine, Charlie, but this really is the best way--”
“You can go with her, I don’t care, just…”
He searched my face.
“Just, on one condition,” I said quietly.
“What …condition?” he asked slowly. I hated how hard his face was right now. But I didn’t care anymore. It was now or never. I was tired of holding everything together only to be passed over for people who had never contributed a thing in their lives. Tired of working my ass off to be considered second class, of beating everyone at the game and yet still feeling that I always, always fucking lost.
“You know what I want, Todd,” I said quietly and, despite the hostile rain and the anger smeared all over his face, I tried to smile at him with gentleness, or at least the closest I could get to it. A light went on in his expression when he understood what I was suggesting, followed immediately by a shocked laugh. Ah, there was that kick to the gut again. Utterly hilarious, even suggesting something with me.
“You know, Charlie, I’m beginning to suspect you have serious mental health problems.” He turned to carry on walking again but I grabbed his bicep and he spun around to glare at me.
“Todd, I’m serious.”
“I’m serious too. The answer is no, if that wasn’t fucking obvious.”
“Then you can’t have the boat.”
He shrugged my grasp off, hard.
“The boat’s not yours, Charlie. You don’t get to blackmail people when--”
“I’ve already moved it. You don’t know where it is. Only I know.”
A little shred of triumph flickered inside me, but I couldn’t return his gaze. I stared instead down at the mud pooling around my soaking feet. There, I had said it. I mean, I couldn’t sink any lower. There was no other way for me to get what I wanted and it simply wasn’t an option to let Todd go. I just wouldn’t let that happen. I could tell that he didn’t like it. But as I stood there before him and let him stare at me in disbelief, I realized that his liking it wasn’t even necessary, not at this point.
I get what I want in this world because I’m smart and work hard. It would have been sweet if Todd gave me a second chance, but given that he wasn’t going to, I was just going to have to take it. He’d come to his senses in the end anyway. He’d see what I saw, he’d realize all this bullshit with Ellie was just an embarrassing mistake and that I was the right one for him, and always had been. We needed to be willing to do all sorts of things to survive on this island, to eat and stay warm and dry, because those things were important. Todd was as important to me, and if I had to go to extreme measures to make sure that what we shared together survived, then so be it.
“You’re crazy,” he said at last.
I brushed past him forcefully.
“And you don’t have a boat,” I said. “Unless you agree to my conditions.”
“Save yourself then. Take Ellie and go,” he said, his face now filled with pleading. It was disgusting, how far he was willing to go for some dumb tramp he’d met only two seconds ago. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing.
“You do realize that even if you play her knight in shining armor, she’s still engaged to be married, right?”
“She’s hurt and she needs help, Charlie. The rest of us might make it for a few days more but she--”
“Nope. If you turn me down, then I go on my own and leave all of you fools behind.”
“And if I agree to your condition, you’ll show me where the boat is? And you’ll let me take Ellie?”
I nodded.
“And you’ll stay behind?”
I nodded again. “If we …you know. Before you leave.”
He stared at me slack jawed.
“My god. You’re actually crazy. That doesn’t make any damn sense.”
I said nothing. Maybe he had a point. But maybe I didn’t care. I had played my last card and now there was nothing but to wait for him to play his. He walked on. I could make out the shape of our little ground hut a short way in the distance.
“I’ll think about,” he said in a clipped voice. “Give me till morning. And don’t fucking say anything to anyone. And I haven’t said yes.”
I held my tongue as we approached the pit. The white of Carl’s mostly bald head poked out from the end and he smiled as we lowered ourselves down inside and he closed up the roof over us. It was damp and steamy and nearly suffocating inside; the last place I wanted to be. Nobody said anything as we settled down to the ground, our wet clothes gluing us together. He didn’t even think twice about lowering himself to lie down next to her. I had no choice but to wedge myself down between him and the damp sand wall. It was a vision of hell, no question about it. But I wasn’t afraid of a little mud, or a little foul play. Come morning, I’d have what I wanted.
One way or another.
Chapter 14 - Anthony
It was one of those dreams that didn’t end, but bled over into waking life, slowly, so I wasn’t quite sure where exactly the dream ended and real life began.
We were all in a grave. A damp, sandy grave, buried beside one another in a grey heap. We were naked. Dead but still writhing somehow. We had left the realm of the living and were in a temporary hell underneath the earth, were the darkness hid our nudity. Like worms, curling and twisting over one another. And then I became aware that it was also sexual, that we were all participating in some kind of carnal rite, mashed into the earth and forgetting everything but our animal needs, squirming against one another desperately, crushing our bodies together as though we wanted to melt the boundaries of our skin and become a single hot, sordid mass…
It was only when I blinked my eyes open that I realized I had been dreaming at all. But we were in a grave. And we were packed tight against one another. The only thing remaining of that disturbing dream was my pounding heart and the ache of my erection pressing hard against Ellie’s soft belly. But I breathed a sigh of relief: we all still had our regular boundaries in place. I was not going insane. I was not a dissolving, sexually depraved animal. I blinked hard to adjust my eyes to the light. Well, I was not a dissolving, sexually depraved animal just yet.
“Baby? Baby, are you OK?”
Ellie’s whisper was faint as a spider web. Her breath felt warm on my chest. I stroked her and kissed the top of her head.
“Just a bad dream,” I said.
She shifted her body weight, obviously aware now of the stiff cock wedged between us and wondering how bad a dream it could have really been.
“A bad drea
m? It couldn’t have been worse than this…” she said, and I could hear the smile on her voice. I held her close for a moment. I had about four million nasty, conflicting emotions about Ellie. But this early in the morning, before I had properly woken up, I decided that the angst could wait for later and I would rather just stay nestled here for as long as possible, holding onto the last little threads of a normal life with her.
The pit slowly filled up with light, and I entertained the idea that I could smell morning coming on. There was a freshness in the air, the sea was quiet, and though my muscles were sore, it only made them feel all the better when I stretched out long, feeling my spine crack deliciously. Today, I would find everyone food. A lot of food. I’d step up and get us closer to a solution. I’d take control like I should have taken control yesterday. Ultimately, we needed to find a way off the island. But first, we had to secure a regular food source, and soon, before any of us started to lose too much energy. Ellie’s wound would heal any time now, and then she’d feel less vulnerable and then maybe …maybe we could go back into the forest.
I throbbed against her. She did nothing to acknowledge me, but I knew she felt it. With Carl nearly plastered to me at the back, and with that asshole Todd sleeping just on the other side of her, it was impossible to imagine anything more than softly grinding against her, softly kissing her hair, softly whispering a secret word.
Whatever drama happened here, Ellie was mine and I was going to do whatever necessary to guard this private, warm space between us. Ellie had been difficult all the time I knew her, but I could look past her flaws. I may have had my suspicions that she wasn’t a woman ready for the duties of marriage, but she was ultimately my woman who wasn’t ready for the duties of marriage.
I heard stirring and then peeked up to see Charlie standing and raising the roof, letting in bright, yellow triangles of light that soon woke everybody else. Everyone in our pit groaned and stretched, and soon we all peeled ourselves off one another and stepped out into the new morning. I tucked my hard-on into the waistband of my trousers, squeezed Ellie good morning and got up too, stretching my arms high overhead to release the creaks and tension of a fitful night.
Looking at the sun and the way it bobbed low at the surface of the water, I instantly knew what my plan would be: first food, then her. She was scared and confused. And wounded. It wasn’t her fault she was behaving like she was. And that immature piece of shit Todd certainly wasn’t making matters better. But I felt strongly at that moment that what we needed, and what she needed … was solidarity. To come together.
We needed whatever that lecherous old married couple had with one another. We needed sweet, sweet release. She always said she wanted more spontaneity, more passion, more spice in our love life. Well, it didn’t get more exotic than this.
I watched her limp out of the pit, still in her wilting silk and lace dress, and I was resolved: before sunset this evening, I would have her writhing on my cock and screaming with pleasure. She wanted to do naughty things in the forest? Well I would show her. I could take care of all her needs.
“Jesus, what did I tell you?”
I turned to see Todd snapping angrily at Charlie. She stood back defensive, hands raised. Interesting. Not that I cared much about their weird little love affair, but still. I’d rather they took care of each other so Ellie could focus all her attention where it belonged.
“Just chill out, OK?” Charlie said.
“I’ve just woken up,” Todd responded. “Don’t start. I’m …I’m going to get us all something to eat. I’ll swim out to find more mussels.”
Carl was listlessly kicking sand around and squinting at the sun as Livvy fanned her shirt to cool herself and then tried to knot the lower end tightly around her midriff. Without the usual civilized distractions of a morning routine, we all felt thoroughly bored after being awake for a mere five minutes.
Charlie shrugged and busied herself with the frond roof, then examined the collapsed and crumpled parts of our shelter. But I could tell she looked a little red in the face.
“Hey Anthony, are you coming with me, man? To gather mussels again?”
In this light, it was obvious what people saw in him. He was ripped. And good looking. But just looking at his stupid face was enough to get the rage boiling up in my veins. I didn’t give a shit if he was a marine or a seal or Rambo himself, I wasn’t going to play along and be his sidekick.
“Nah, the mussels are a dead end,” I said breezily.
He stood there, hands on his hips, looking like he was at a Baywatch audition or something.
“They’re not, you just picked the wrong ones last time. There’s plenty of food out there if you know where to look.”
I sighed and shrugged.
“Then go and look. I’m not wasting my time with it though. I’m going to try something else,” I said and started to put my still water-logged shoes back on.
“What are you going to do?” Ellie said. She was perched on the rim of the pit, and her foot dangled down, looking terrible. Scary black stains had seeped through her makeshift bandages. I hated the way it looked, like it was just a bloodied stump hiding under all that swaddling. Perhaps the damage was worse than it looked at first.
I cracked my neck and looked away from the sea, towards the forest.
“I’m going to look for food out there. We’ll have better luck with digging for more roots, and I swear I saw some date trees earlier. Maybe I can find a lizard or bird or something.”
Everyone looked at me and silently considered the prospect of eating roasted lizard.
“Fine, suit yourself,” Todd said and shrugged.
Shoes laced, I stood tall and cracked my neck again and then reached for Ellie. I leaned forward, gripped the back of her neck and pulled her in for a full, passionate kiss. She went stiff in my arms and didn’t kiss back. It was a kind of boldness that wasn’t really my style, but honestly I hoped that everyone there saw it, and understood exactly what it meant. I lingered, my lips hovering above hers, and pierced her gaze with mine.
“I’ll be back soon, baby. Will you be OK here?”
She nodded quickly and glanced away, looking a little like she’d been asked to play a role she didn’t really want to.
I stood again and nodded to the others, who were watching with me with interest. The sun was still one third submerged under the horizon. Todd sprang to action, peeled off his shirt and started walking towards the water.
“You’re …you’re going now?” Charlie said. She seemed strangely upset. Todd simply ignored her and spoke to the group at large.
“When I come back we’ll all eat some seafood for breakfast. Somebody needs to start a fire here in the meantime. Anthony, see if you can make your way back here within an hour or so.”
Asshole. Still trying to give me orders.
“I’ll be back when I’m back,” I said. He scowled up his pretty-boy face at me.
“OK, fine, just be careful.”
“Thanks, Todd, but I don’t really need you to tell me that.”
“I’m just saying. You don’t know what’s out there. It could be dangerous. If I were you, I wouldn’t even bother. Carl and Livvy have tried looking out there already, haven’t you?”
The couple nodded at him.
“Our best bet for food now is the ocean.”
“If you’re too afraid to explore a little, that’s fine, Todd. You go for a little swim, and I’ll meet you all back here later.”
“I’m not afraid…” he said quietly.
But I ignored him and set off. The group broke up and drifted off, each person trying to find some activity. I tried to wave back at Ellie as I made my exit, but she wasn’t looking my way. Her eyes were turned to the sea. To him. Determined not to let that fact hurt me, I made for the boundary where the light brush turned into denser forest. I’d be going in the opposite direction the couple had gone, slicing through the denser foliage and towards a knot of thicker trees that from the shoreli
ne looked something like green pillow stuffing. Everyone would see who the real man on this island was soon enough.
After some time, the soft roar of the ocean disappeared and all I could hear were birds overhead and the crunch of twigs underfoot. I don’t know how long I walked for. It was strangely exhausting, looking at everything in front of me and trying to decide if it could be eaten or not. I put a few leaves to my lips and tasted here and there, but every single plant on the island seemed either covered in thorns and prickles or else tasted bitter as hell. I walked on, dismissing the growing pain in my feet.
I was hungry.
And horny.
And …I wasn’t even sure what to call the way I felt anymore. I pressed on, occasionally slapping insects off my skin and looking up to notice how far the sun had crept through the sky. I had failed yesterday to deliver with any food of substance. So today there was no question – I had to turn up with something real for everyone to eat or else.
I was never one to beat my chest and go in for the whole alpha male bullshit, but something about Todd easily stepping up to claim that role rankled me no end. It was the sheer arrogance of it. I could also stand around and pose with my shirt off if I really wanted to, but I was a man of action. Of intellect. A six pack was great but that wasn’t all that mattered. And nothing would shut him up faster than seeing me return to our little base camp with enough food to win everyone’s respect and remind Ellie that although I wasn’t a lame-ass navy calendar boy, I damn well knew what I was doing.
A glint caught my eye. I rushed forward, astonished.
Water!
I knelt down at a thin, clear trickle of a stream knobbled on either side with rough moss and rock. I lifted handfuls to my mouth to drink and nearly wept with how sweet and cool that water felt against my parched lips. I must have taken ten or twelve scoops, drinking long and deep and gulping down so hard it almost hurt to swallow. Thirst quenched, I stood and looked around, trying to remember if I could lead everyone back here later. I could picture it now: me up front, guiding everyone expertly, and them in the back, filled with gratitude and respect. In any case it was a good omen. Not food, exactly, but the news that I had found it would definitely go down well.
