Micah's Island (4 page)

~***~

Having a lifelong fear of boats, I never
realized how soothing they are when they bob around in the water. When I
started to wake up, I think I might have smiled to myself and tried to go back
to sleep. 

It didn’t take long for the memory of
what happened to slam into my head with all the force of a baseball bat. I
jerked myself upright, gasping, choking, soaking wet, and more than a little freaked
out.

I was naked.  Completely, buck, as a
jaybird, birthday suit naked. Somehow, my shorts had parted company with me in
the water.

But I was alive.  Alive!  Take that, you
fucker!

It turns out getting into the lifeboat
only solved part of my problem. I had no water, for one thing.  The other thing: 
During the day, the sun turned the covered lifeboat into a microwave oven.  And
I felt like bacon.

Every now and again, I stuck a foot and
hand out into the water and paddled around, trying to turn the boat so I
wouldn’t miss land, if there was any to be found. I should’ve known better.  I’m
just not that lucky.

Flotsam from the ship drifted around
near me.  I was hoping to find clothes, but I didn’t.  I found some deck chair cushions. 
I pulled those in to sleep on. I found a plastic margarita shaker and some
rope. I pulled those in too.   Collecting things kept me from thinking about
the fact that my brain was melting in the heat.

It finally got so freaking hot in the
boat that I could feel myself going out again.  But hey, at least I had deck
chair cushions to die on this time.

~***~

Seagulls.  The coastal areas consider
them flying rats. I’ve heard them called ‘vermin with wings’.  They’re weird
little birds, eating just about everything from chewing gum to cigarette butts.

I heard them now.  It’s the sweetest
sound I’ve ever heard. I will never think of them as flying vermin again.

If I could hear seagulls, I was near
land.  I had to be.  I tried to sit up.  Too bad I was so fried and dehydrated,
the rest of me refused to obey.

I had a ten minute argument with my body
about moving.   I said it out loud: “UP, Gianna. 
Get up
!”  Nothing.  I
decided to start small and try to move my hands. Check.  Arms.  Check. 
Finally, with a herculean effort of both mind and body, I managed to flop
myself up, toward the hatch, and out...

...into sand and surf.  Yeah, I did a
face plant out into sand.  It was in my mouth and up my nose, but I didn’t
care.

Holy shit and hallelujah, I’d landed
somewhere!

It took everything I had to lift my head
up out of the sand and water to look. My vision was blurry, but I’ll never
forget how beautiful the sight was.

White sand stretched away from me,
sloping upward toward what appeared to be a thick jungle of palm trees. I’d
washed ashore on a tropical island. 
Somewhere.
 

I hung over the edge of the boat and
cried like a baby, expending what was probably the last moisture I had in my
body. 

I was weak and scared shitless, but I
wasn’t really hurt.  I knew I was damned lucky to be alive.

Half in, half out of the boat, I crawled
the rest of the way out and flopped over onto my back in the sun, sand and
surf.

 And then I remembered I was completely
naked.

I quickly rolled over onto my front and
glanced up and down the beach for signs of life. I didn’t see anyone, but there
had
to be someone on this island besides me. It was just too beautiful
to have escaped the notice of a multi-millionaire developer. 

I listened, but didn’t hear anything
besides crashing waves, seagulls, and a light tropical breeze tossing the palm
fronds around. There
had
to be people here.  I’d just landed on the
uninhabited side of the island.

I was hoping to find someone who could
help me, but I had to find something to wear first. I couldn’t just go sailing
into civilization buck-assed naked. Or maybe I could just snatch a towel from
around a pool somewhere before I presented myself at the office of the hotel I
was sure was somewhere on this island.  Yeah, I thought that sounded like a
good idea. 

In any case, I sure as hell couldn’t
stay out here exposed to the sun all day.  Fried ta-tas are no fun; fried butt
cheeks even less so.

I pushed to my feet, and tried to form a
plan.  I didn’t want the tide to wash the little boat back out to sea when it
came in, so I dragged it up into the middle of the beach, out of the water’s
reach.  I didn’t know if I’d ever need it again, but it was better to be safe
than sorry.

I reached into the boat, found the
margarita shaker, and took a few tentative steps toward the jungle in the
center of the island.  My priorities in order of importance:  Water, food, and
something to cover myself up. 

~***~

There were coconuts, of course, but
forget it. Too high, and no way to crack them open. I could see papayas up in
the tree, ripe and ready to pick, but I had no way to get those either.  They
aren’t a very tall tree, but that doesn’t matter when you’re only five and a
half feet tall yourself.  I thought about throwing rocks, but I didn’t see
any.  There were no branches or anything else I could use to knock them down.

I finally found a shorter papaya tree
that was bearing fruit.  I shook it as hard as I could and succeeded in
knocking down four of the little orange beauties.  Needless to say, I was
starving. I fell on them like a slavering fiend, literally on my knees and
elbows eating them as fast as I could. I’m surprised I didn’t puke.

I actually felt quite a bit better after
eating them.  The brain fog I was experiencing from being dehydrated lifted a
little, though I knew the moisture in the papayas wasn’t going to be enough.  I
had to find fresh water quickly, if I could.

My stomach full, I picked up the margarita
shaker and started to explore my surroundings.

It was the weirdest feeling walking
around outside naked.  I’ve skinny dipped before, but this felt different.  A
little scary and quite liberating. I liked it, but I made a mental note to keep
checking the beach for any kind of fabric or garments. I could put any fabric
that washed up on shore to good use as clothing.

It was a beautiful island. The air was
warm, but not oppressively so.   Birds chattered back and forth in the trees. 
Once in a while, a gigantic blue butterfly would flitter across in front of
me.  I didn’t have to fight my way through too much undergrowth; in fact, there
seemed to be a well-worn path through the jungle.  I don’t know why that didn’t
trigger some clue in my brain, as in:
There wouldn’t be a path here if
someone wasn’t using it.

After what felt like several hours (and
after a few more papayas), I heard it.  The sound of rushing water.  I ran toward
it as fast as I could.

The water was gushing up and out into a
jumble of sharp, volcanic rocks. It came out of the rock with quite a bit of
force, arced high into the air, and finally fell in a thousand rivulets down
through the craggy red stones.  I climbed the pile of rocks in front of the
waterfall and gasped.

The falls culminated in a gorgeous blue-green
pool at the base of the rocks. I tentatively knelt down, dipped a finger in the
water, and put it to my lips.  I nearly collapsed from relief—it was fresh
water!

I scooped up a shaker full of water and
drank deeply, laughing and crying at the same time.  Fresh water and papayas. 
What else did I freaking need?

When I was done drinking, I dove into
the pool and splashed around. I hadn’t been able to bath for several days, and
I was anxious to knock the stink off me.  I dipped my hair and ran my fingers
through it.  I was beginning to feel much better, both physically and mentally.

It’s funny now. Things I’d always taken
for granted—food and water, just being clean—now seemed like precious gifts.  I
will never take them for granted again.

~***~

I walked all over the island but didn’t
find any hotels, pools, or people. I was starting to get a bad feeling that I
might be the only person on this island.

 My legs and feet hurt.  I was
exhausted.  I didn’t know if I was glad to finally see the sun go down, but I sure
was looking forward to getting some sleep. I’d make sense out of the deserted
island thing tomorrow.

I found my way back to the waterfall and
found a spot to sleep, nestled in and amongst some low foliage.  I had to sleep
on the bare sand, and I had nothing to cover me, but it didn’t matter.  I fell into
a deep, catatonic sleep almost immediately.

I dreamed strange things that night:
purple and blue lightning again, driving rain, then hands and warmth and me
moving, carried into the darkness.

~***~

You know how it is when you wake up in a
panic, knowing something is wrong, but you’re not quite sure what? 

That was me the next morning.  I woke up
on my back, and as I opened my eyes, I could see the interior of a palm-thatched
roof over me. 

I cut my eyes over my surroundings,
almost afraid to breathe.  I was
clearly
not in the same place as when
I’d gone to sleep.  How did I get here? Or maybe more importantly,
who
had
brought me here?

I didn’t see anything, nor did I hear
anything, so I cautiously rose to one elbow.

I was in a hut of sorts, definitely
man-made. It was somewhat dark; I was lying on a palm frond mat.  Someone had
covered me with something that looked like sheer curtain.  My heart was
pounding hard; I was trying to breath but the air seemed to get stuck way short
of where it needed to go.

I was
not
alone on this island!

I got up and wrapped the gauzy sheet
around me—
thank you, whoever you are,
I thought—and tip-toed toward the
door.  I peeked out around the edge, left then right, but saw nothing. There
was a path that led away from the hut into the foliage.  I took several
tentative steps out and looked around again.  Nothing.

I had it in my mind to get as far away
from the hut as I could, at least until I could figure out who else might be on
the island with me.  I took several long strides, turning back one last time to
make sure no one was following me. When I turned around and picked up the pace,
I ran right into him.

We collided rather hard. My nose bounced
off of his sternum, and I jerked my head up to look into his face.

Impressions again: large, brown eyes,
long, dark hair, beyond gorgeous, freaking cheekbones a model would envy, tall and
solid as a mountain, so many muscles it was indecent. He was the star of every
Tarzan movie I’d ever seen.   His expression as he peered down at me was blank,
curious, not threatening at all.  I was majorly freaked out anyway.

I screamed, broke, and ran.

It didn’t take him long to run me down
and flatten me in the path.  He ripped off the cover I’d wrapped around myself,
flipped me onto my back, and dropped to his hands and knees over me, straddling
my body as he stared down at me.

Did I mention he was naked too?

Shit, shit, and double shit.

I was flat on my back, buck naked under
an equally naked man.  I sure do get myself into some predicaments, don’t I?

I lay completely still, very quiet,
though a scream was lodged in my throat. The only sounds I could hear were the
blood squishing in my ears and both of us breathing.  I couldn’t look at him. 
I didn’t want to see what was in his eyes.

After a few moments, he leaned down over
me and began to sniff my neck. Yes, I said
sniff
.  He rooted me with his
nose, ran it up and down my neck, into my hair, and over my ears, sniffing like
a dog. He was
smelling
me, trying to get my scent. 

Scared shitless or not, it tickled. I
started to giggle.  He drew back, startled, and looked down at me.  I used the
moment to surreptitiously roll the lower half of me to the side, knees together.
I inched my hands downward and covered my privates.  I didn’t know what his
intentions were, but judging from the size of the erection I could see as I
peered down between our bodies, I was about to find out.

He lifted a hand and began to touch me
softly. I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest.  He started
with my hair, brushed my lips with a thumb.  Moved on to my bare shoulders,
then down over my breasts and nipples, which traitorously sprang to life under
his fingertips. I shivered.

He was a typical boob man. Fascinated, he
cupped them, sniffed them, ran his tongue down the sides, and rubbed his chin over
my nipples, which by this time were so perky they were ready to jump off. It’d
been a long time since a man touched me like that. With no small amount of
chagrin, I realized he was turning me on.  I slipped my finger into my pussy; I
was so fucking wet I could barely stand it.

Finished with my breasts, he moved his
way down to my waist, running his hand lightly over the curve.  He found and
gripped my hip bone, then tried to pull my hands away from my mons.