Paradise Island: Complete Edition (4 page)

I told her everything that had happened. I even recounted the shirtless incident for her more than a couple of times, at her behest. She delighted in imagining being the one there instead of me.

“Oh God,” she said. “You were so close to him. And it seemed like he wanted you, and instead of shagging the guy, you borrow a couple of old ass journals from him? What’s up with that, Sophie? What’s up with that?”

“It’s actually quite spooky. These journals,” I lifted the one I was reading to show her. “His builders found them hidden in the walls of the old house when they tore it down. I wonder why anybody would go through all that trouble to hide journals, that from what I can tell, are just a lovesick girl pining for a man she couldn’t, or at least shouldn’t have.”

Lucy’s face went blank for a second, and then when she realized I was staring at her, she was back to normal.

“What’s wrong?” I hoped I didn’t offend her with my description of the girl. Surely she knew I didn’t mean anything by it?

“No, nothing,” she waved her hand as if it indeed was nothing to worry about. “Just that damn diner. If we were busier, it wouldn’t be so bad, but that place is dead most of the time. I really need to get away from this island. And once I do, you’re coming with me. Unless Jack Hotdamn Stark doesn’t sweep you off your feet first!”

“Oh Lucy. You don’t have to worry about that. At least Mr. Bottoms is at the diner most of the time, that’s gotta count for something.”

“One patron hating all our pies doesn’t count and you know it.”

She took a huge drink. I knew Lucy wasn’t happy on the island, but most of the time it was easy to forget. She would rarely be home at night, going out with some guy or other, always inviting me to join them, to make it a double date kind of thing with one of his “mates.” I always refused, of course. But it seemed for the past week or so the dates had dried up.

“Things going well with Sam?” I asked, wanting to change the subject. He was the last guy she had dated, and they seemed to be going strong. Until a week ago that it is. Usually he would call her, but that hadn’t happened in just as long. I wondered if they had broken up.

“I caught him shagging another girl. Kate if you can believe it. What a fucking twat.” Lucy took another huge gulp of her wine. It seemed I had hit a nerve without even meaning to.

“Oh, Lucy, I’m so sorry.” I said, utterly sincere.

“It’s not like I was going to marry the guy, so it’s not a huge loss.”

But there was something in her eyes that told a different story. It was as if she had hoped for something more with Sam, and now those hopes and dreams were shattered.

We sat in silence for a long time. Me not really daring to start reading the journal again, and Lucy lost in her own thoughts. I hated myself for bringing up such a painful subject, but if anybody could get over a guy, it would be Lucy. She had confided with me plenty of times that guys were only good for one thing, and I’ll let you decipher what that thing is on your own.

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T
he next few days were a blur of work and the journals. I didn’t see much of anyone, either Jack or Henry, or even Lucy. It seemed that my question about Sam had woken something in her and she had started to go out again, in search of a “real man” as she had told me. I wished her luck. She said she would need it. So each night, after Lucy put on her best dress and I helped her with her hair and makeup, a different guy would pick her up and they’d do whatever it is islanders do on this godforsaken rock. One time, Lucy had told me that the one good thing about alcohol was that it tasted the same everywhere, whether you were in the city or in a tiny village pub. I couldn’t really disagree with her, since I had never been in either.

But as Lucy’s carnal adventures seemed to resume, I had carnal adventures of my own. Not in the way you’re thinking, but through the journals I was reading. It seemed that Ms. Browning had gotten her man. Here, read for yourself:

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I
t finally happened. The moment I had been yearning for the whole summer. My beloved had finally shown me that this affair of ours was not one sided. I blush as I think of writing these words down, but they must be put to record. I never want to forget this night for as long as I shall live on this earth. For as long as breath enters my lungs, I want to remember the sweet, gentle touch of my lover’s lips on every part of my body. On the parts that no one but me has even seen! Oh the glory! The fire that burns as I think of the things we did.

It started innocently enough. I had attended his church for the last couple of months, but there were always others around. I could not get a moment alone. Especially his wretched wife would watch over him like a hawk. I could not fathom how a plain, almost ugly, looking woman as her could have gotten her clutches into such a fine man as Thomas. But I digress. This is not about her. She was not there yesterday, for she was sick in bed or something. I wasn’t really sure, and I didn’t really care. Perhaps she was allergic to something in the bread I baked for the church function. Alas, back to Thomas and that fateful hour when we two were the only sounds in the church. I had stayed later to help him put everything back in its place. He told me to go more than once, but I insisted. Mary, his wife, would usually help with these duties, but since she wasn’t able that day, I offered my services instead.

I lifted my skirts to show him what he was missing, and while there was a moment there in which I thought he would turn away and run, and my reputation would be ruined, he came closer instead. He pushed me up against a table, unzipped his pants and penetrated my inner most depths, with the hard and soft instrument of his manhood.

We made love, until both of us came in unison, while Jesus watched from the cross, blessing our love with his sad, sad eyes, that never stopped looking. I held on tight to Thomas’s firm ass as he entered me again and again, savoring each touch, each breath, each kiss, each moan. And then when we were finished, he zipped up and turned away from me.

“Go now, Josie. This must never happen again.”

I pulled up my undergarments and set everything in its right place, his seed still inside me. I went over to where he was standing, breathing heavily, obviously guilt ridden about what we had done. I put my arms around him, caressing his chest with my hands, then going a bit lower. He was still hard for me, and that made me smile.

“But it must, Father Thomas,” I said. “But it must.”

He turned around then and embraced me, and gave me the most passionate kiss of my life. The need, the desire, was plainly apparent in it.

“Damn you woman! I cannot refuse such beauty as yours!”

And that’s how I left him. Wanting me still. Mama always said that the best way to a man’s heart was through his stomach. I wasn’t much of a cook, so I’d deign to disagree.

Until later, dear diary! I’m sure I’ll have much more to report pretty soon.

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I
very much doubted that Miss Browning had blushed as she wrote those words, but I was definitely blushing while reading them. It was at once repulsive and yet oddly erotic. I could feel it reaching to my inner core, awakening the need there like I’d never felt before. I had to open a window just to get some cold air to take away the heat that had risen within me.

Miss Browning was definitely not a good girl. And it just happened that that was the last entry in the latest journal I had. If I wanted to continue the story, I needed to go to Jack’s again. But now I wasn’t so sure about the whole affair. Did I really want to continue reading what happened to be extremely erotic adventures of a scarlet woman? A woman who had no problem with seducing a married man, and a priest at that. It seemed a sordid affair indeed, but I still wanted to know what happened next. I wanted to get an idea of why these journals would be hidden instead of burnt. I knew if I was in her position, I would have burnt, not saved, the evidence of my discretions.

But here I was again, living through another’s experiences.

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N
ot surprisingly, the next day I found myself walking toward that beautiful house on the hill, the talk of the town, and towards the man that had showed himself to be more than he seemed.

I walked up slowly, not really sure if I should have gone through with it or not. I wanted to wait for him to show up at the diner and just give him the journals there and be done with it, but he did not show up today. So after work, I took the journals with me and made the long way to his house. It was quickly getting dark, so I have no idea what I was thinking. Thankfully, no storm was in sight. At least not for now.

The sun was soon to set so I hurried to the door and prepared to knock, but what I saw instead shocked me.

I saw Jack, completely naked, on top of a woman with short, shoulder-length hair. I watched in horror as he thrust harder and harder, the sound of their lovemaking, of his moans and her urging ecstatic screams to give it to her “harder.”

And then, he collapsed on top of her, both of them sweaty from their carnal act. I watched as the girl carefully laid out a line of white powder beneath her breast (powdered sugar perhaps?) and urged Jack to give it a try. The dark look in Jack’s eyes, full of longing and something darker made me think that he was going to do something I wasn’t supposed to see. But instead, he leaned down, and while both of his hands held onto the woman’s inviting breasts he inhaled the white powder. Immediately he leaned his head back, eyes toward the ceiling, and the look on his face, though not dissimilar to the look when he came inside the woman, somehow felt more genuine. As if, if even by a measure of an inch (or centimeter if you want to go there) he felt more pleasure as the white powder worked its magic on his brain, filling his blood with euphoria or whatever it is drug addicts feel when they sniff coke. For I realized now, in shock and in horror, that indeed it was coke, and not powdered sugar that the woman had laid beneath her breast.

And then something even more shocking happened. Jack opened his eyes, and his beautiful green eyes, though now dulled by the sex and drugs, looked straight into mine, and the shock on his face was my confirmation that I had been seen.

Before I turned, I caught the woman’s face as well: it was Lucy. I saw as Jack got up, his “manhood” as Ms. Browning would call it still mostly hard, and started to move towards me. I turned and ran as fast as I could down the hill, the precious journals slipping from my numb hands. I ran as tears filled my eyes.

Not surprisingly, once I made it to the beach, I fell in the sand, cursing my fate, and my stupidity in even thinking that a man like Jack Stark was a decent fellow who wouldn’t betray me. It took all the strength I had, which wasn’t much, to push myself out of the sinking sand I had found myself in. All I wanted to do was find a hole and disappear into it forever, or at least until I could hatch a plan to get away from Jack and Lucy and their torrid business.

I ran, but my legs did not take me far. Jack caught up to me. Thankfully, he had managed to put on some underwear, though his semi-hard “manhood” was still very much visible through the fabric.

I didn’t have time to say anything before he started to speak. “Sophie, please forgive me. She meant nothing to me. You are the one I want.”

“Then why were you fucking her just now?” I fired back. I might have been a small town girl, but I knew messed up when I saw it. And Jack seemed to be more messed up than anyone I’d ever seen in my life, and I know some freaks, so you know he’s not good news.

I expected Jack to apologize again, or tell me to go away, but he didn’t. Instead he used his hands to point out his perfect physique. “I’m a man, Sophie. I have needs. You don’t get to look like this and be celibate. It’s just not natural. And I don’t even know why you’re crying, why you’re mad all of a sudden. You were the one who told me that nothing was ever going to happen between us, remember?”

I knew he was right. I was the one out of line here, but I wasn’t going to let him off that easily. “You could have at least chosen somebody else, not my best friend.” Hot tears streamed down my face. The betrayal by Lucy was almost as big as that by Jack himself, if that was possible.

He looked back toward the house on the hill, no Lucy in sight. She was probably still looking for her panties. “She’s a friend of yours? I’m sorry, Sophie, I truly didn’t know. If I’d known...”

I had to look away. I did not want to look upon him ever again, for every time I did, his lies, his explanations would go right through me and I’d find myself wanting to be in his arms. I wanted him to hold me tight against that perfect chest of his. I wanted to feel his hardness push against my stomach. I hated to admit it, but I would have given anything to be Lucy just a few moments ago, with this glorious god of a man inside me.

As soon as those thoughts entered my mind, I immediately regretted them and thanked the universe that no one could read our minds. At least I hoped they couldn’t. I turned away, feeling dejected and weak, the tears drying on my cheeks now.

“I never want to see you again,” I said as I turned away, but something peculiar happened right then and there. The world turned onto itself, and pretty soon I found myself falling and falling, until the darkness was all that was left. And even then, the darkness itself turned into nothing, and I was simply gone from this world.

I
woke in a bed that was not my own. In fact, I woke in a room that I had never been in before. Confused, I tried to push the covers away, and see where the hell I was.

But strong arms held me back, pushing me gently back onto the bed.

“Don’t move too fast,” Jack said. “Thank God you’re okay. You just fainted from out of nowhere. Has that ever happened to you before?”

My head felt like lead. “I don’t know,” I started to say, each word an effort to get out. “Maybe. It hasn’t happened in years.”

I tried to get up again but he repeated the same gesture. “You should rest, Sophie. Drink some tea,” he went to the dresser by the bed and picked up a cup.