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Jake and the Castaways
a Novelette by Varkel (var_kel@yahoo.com)
Spring, 2000
***
Jake has the three Meron sisters, a missionary's
pubescent daughters, who along with Jake are the only
survivors of shipwreck on a desert island in 1848."
(Mm+/Ffg, nc, rp, hist, oral)
***
PROLOG:
The clipper ship at the quay, the Fleeting Star, longer
and sleeker than the tubby Dutch and British ships on
either side, was for its era a magnificent emblem of
Yankee prowess and technical achievement. Its captain
leaned smugly against the stays, watching Chinese
coolies wrestle aboard the last of his cargo: tea,
porcelain and exotica from the depraved, heathen Middle
Kingdom. The man's large nostrils filled with the scent
of oak, tar, tea and the stench of the dockside. He was
eager to be away, to be again at sea and feel his ship
come livelier than a woman beneath him.
He smiled at the sight of the Reverend Hosea Meron and
his three young daughters beginning their ascent of the
aft gangplank. They were such pretty girls, he thought,
even the chubby one. Meron, a missionary, owned enough
of the Fleeting Star to be welcomed aboard but not
enough to question the captain's authority. On the
voyage home he and his girls would make a most
satisfactory audience for the captain's ship-handling
skill.
"Good day, Mr. Meron," he called out to the party as it
reached the deck below him.
"Good morning to you, Captain Norris," Meron replied
looking up at the gruff seaman whose uniform could have
been that of an admiral. "It's a fine day to return
home."
The two younger girls pulled away, wanting to race
about and inspect the vessel, but the tallest held them
in check, gripping their hands tightly. Except for
color they were dressed alike in knee-length frocks
fluffed by many petticoats, lower legs loosely encased
in white laced pantaloons, ankle boots and medium
sleeves bunched high on the arm in the style of the
previous decade. Their foreheads under wide brimmed
bonnets were moist despite having just descended from
the breeze of their rickshaws, which did not surprise
the captain. It was a warm day in Canton. Sweat must
often be wiped away from his own forehead and the bare-
chested coolies gleamed with it.
"We'll cast off in a few hours, Mr. Meron. Would you
and your lovely daughters honor me with your presence
at lunch?"
"We would be delighted, Captain," Meron called back as
he turned to follow the barefoot sailor who led them to
their cabins.
CHAPTER 1
---------
The two men sat at table in the captain's cabin,
enjoying a light repast, while the three girls giggled
together at another nearby. The stern portholes stood
open, admitting the cool on-shore breeze.
"So you had trouble, I hear, with your first mate.
What's his name?"
"Jacob Higgins," the captain replied with a sour look
on his face. "He somehow managed to ship a good sized
cargo of his own here to Canton in this very ship. We
caught him easily enough, and while he's imprisoned in
a converted sail locker, where he belongs, I must admit
that I'll miss him on the bridge if we run into
trouble. He's a good sailor."
"He's a thief," the reverend responded with disdain.
"He's stolen from me and from my partners. Let the
court in New York deal with the rascal."
The girls suddenly began to squeal for no apparent
reason, disturbing the men.
"Belle," Meron turned to admonish his eldest daughter,
"please control those two little imps."
"I want to go to the bottom of the boat, Daddy," little
Jill stated, coming up to the table. The pretty ten
year old had left her bonnet somewhere again, much to
the delight of any onlooker, because she had the most
lustrous, light blonde hair that hung from her head in
natural ringlets.
"Rats and stink live down there, darling," Meron
replied to his youngest daughter, pulling her onto his
lap. The captain watched with narrowed eyes, thinking
ironically of the Chinese wanton, no larger and not
much older, who had graced his own lap just the night
before.
As her father's hand closed securely over her abdomen,
Jill looked up into the captain's eyes and amazed him
with a wink. To the captain it seemed deliberately
lascivious. What had this one learned among the
heathen? Perhaps to read minds?
"I'm getting sea sick, Daddy," pudgy twelve year old
Marie complained enviously, wanting a cuddle of her
own, despite Belle's previously expressed judgment that
all of them had grown too big to sit on a lap.
"Marie!" Belle protested sternly. "We're still tied up
to the dock." She pulled Marie back from the table,
where Jill grinned in her father's embrace, knowing
that she was his favorite.
Belle was an essentially grown, tall girl of fifteen
whose face would be beautiful did it not scowl so often
in her role as surrogate mother to the two younger
sisters. "Belle, darling," Meron beamed at her, his
favorite in fact, "show the girls around the deck.
We'll be leaving soon and then it may not be so
pleasant."
"Yes, Daddy. Give me your hands, sisters."
The captain nodded approvingly as the tallest led her
sisters out onto the bridge deck, now almost cleared of
the clutter of port. "Quite the leader, isn't she!"
"Oh, yes," the father responded fondly, "and a more
serious and responsible one you would look long to
find. Their mother died trying to birth our fourth and
Belle has been my right arm since." The man chuckled
wryly. "It pains me to know that somewhere in the world
today walks a callow lout with no idea of the good
fortune that awaits him when he takes her to wife."
The captain grinned. "Thus speaks a father! You wish to
make certain, I take it, that your 'callow lout' at
least is not Chinese?"
"If you mean, is that my reason for taking them home? -
- no, the European colonies grow in China with every
arriving ship. Didn't I understand that you fetched two
or three families here on your current voyage?"
"Yes, I did. Excuse me, Mr. Meron; I had no intention
of prying."
"Not at all, captain. I don't mind explaining my
reasons. China today is simply not the place to raise
white children. Licentiousness is the way of life. You
can hire no servant, male or female, for whom sexual
intimacy is more significant than urination or
defecation, and God knows they're careless enough about
that!"
"I take it you discovered this characteristic well
after you brought your children here?"
"<I> paid it no attention until I caught my youngest
inspecting an immodest houseboy! Then I saw evidence of
the prevailing attitude everywhere I looked. To you,
sir, I'll admit my surprise that my wife never noticed
such indifference. But she was an intensely loving
woman always eager to give anyone the benefit of the
doubt. God, how I miss her!"
"I'm sure you do," agreed the captain sympathetically.
"I was having great spiritual success in my district,
except for this sexual abandon that I had failed to
notice. When the girls are safe with my sister in
Massachusetts, I shall return instanter -- possibly on
your next voyage out. Here in China the opportunity and
need for God's message is unsurpassed anywhere in the
world."
The captain smiled. "Don't you find it surprising that
such an important message, considering the source, had
never managed to arrive here before?"
Meron drew back to study the man. "Are you serious?"
The captain shrugged. "Perhaps not. Excuse me." He got
to his feet, peering out over the long deck. "What
concerns me more immediately is that your daughters
seem about to enter the fo'c'sle. What they might see
there, sir, is worse than any possible inspection of
houseboys!"
CHAPTER 1: Castaways
The ship pitched wildly once again, smashing Jake's
head painfully against the strong door of the converted
locker. He fell to the deck in nausea, blood streaming
from his scalp, as the ship heaved violently back and
forth, casting him to the other side of the small
compartment.
"Oh, Christ!" he moaned aloud, his wail obliterated by
the rage of the typhoon that tossed the huge ship as if
it were a cork. Above him wind with a strength beyond
imagination screamed in the remains of the rigging. The
whole structure of the ship, oaken beams thick as his
torso, creaked and snapped in constant complaint. Jake
had been at sea for 27 of his 44 years, but never had
he known such a storm as this. The wind above was so
powerful that violent gusts of it penetrated to his
prison, deep in the hold, strong enough even there to
blow out the oil lamp swinging in the passage beyond
his barred door. A few other lights remained in the
hold, enough for him barely to make out the silhouette
of a hand held before his face.
And now water splashed over him as the ship rolled! He
struggled to his feet, holding to the bars of the door,
cold with sudden fear for his life.
A crash loud as thunder rang through the ship and his
hands were torn from the bars. He fetched up on the
soggy remains of his bedding. Had the mainmast snapped
off? A terrible grinding sound reverberated through the
ship, on and on, making his teeth ache. No, not the
mast. Most of the motion had ceased; what remained
seemed to be more pitch than roll, and the deck beneath
his feet now sloped permanently upward toward the bow.
His cold fear increased as he understood. The Fleeting
Star was fleet no longer. Its back was broken on rock.
The grinding meant that the storm would soon tear it
apart.
At least it would be easier to stand now. He forced
himself up, reaching again for the iron bars. The light
was just bright enough for his astonished eyes to see
that the door stood open. The crash on the rocks had
forced the locking bar from its hasps.
"Get out, we're sinking!" a voice screamed from
somewhere in the hold, barely audible above the
terrible grinding. Instantly Jake launched himself
through the open door.
Water rushed at his ankles as he made his way to the
nearest companionway. Death seemed fairly certain as he
coughed his way toward the upper decks, but less so
than in the dark of the hold, now filled with choking
dust from the disturbed cargo. He knew that some kinds
of dust, tea in particular, were explosive and that
lamps were yet lit in the ship. He seemed to fly up the
steps.
He reached the well deck intent only upon escape and
forced open the fo'c'sle entrance. Without hesitation
he threw himself into the pitch darkness of the main
deck -- and slammed into a wall of water. Immediately
he was submerged, alternately lifted and dashed down,
twisting and turning crazily, arms and legs flung about
by overwhelming forces. Great rushing sounds and
monstrous gurglings pounded his ears through the water.
He knew only that he was about to die. His lungs were
bursting. The run up the companionway had already
exhausted his oxygen and he had taken no time to
replenish it. Though the violent confusion had eased,
he gave up. He opened his mouth to suck in the killing
fluid.
But it was air that filled his lungs. Sweet, incredible
air! He found himself at the surface of the sea,
flailing and spitting, but <breathing>, by god!
A breaking wave dashed his momentary elation, but he
clawed his head above water again and took another
breath. After this happened two or three times he
discovered that he fared better faced away from the
wind-whipped froth and struck out swimming in that
direction. Shortly his arm struck something large and
very hard: a smooth, endlessly long pole, probably a
ship's spar. He encircled it with both arms and held on
desperately as the storm sought to destroy him.
Time passed interminably. Hours later a gray light
stealing over the world roused him from numbness. To
his amazement, he was still alive. The sea was calming
because the storm was past. Soon the sun rose above the
horizon into a sky cloudless except for a dark mass
high in the west, the retreating storm. It promised a
lovely day for those more fortunate than he.
But he too was fortunate, he suddenly realized, finally
registering what his ears had been telling him for some
time. The boom of surf! On the crest of the next wave
he looked wildly around and espied a dark island behind
him hardly 200 yards across white froth.
* * *
Though weak and exhausted, he wasted no time in pulling
himself erect and staggering above the strand, beyond
the reach of the dashing water. There he flung himself
on his back and took great lungfulls of air. He almost
fell asleep, so peaceful was this motionless land and
cool breeze, but the very incongruity of his fate
amused him. From prisoner in the tiny locker to freedom
in an infinitely larger prison!
Presumably so until further notice. He rose first to
his elbows, then to his feet, the better to survey his
new world. From wave marks above the surf, he judged
the tide to be low. Despite that, the sandy beach was
relatively narrow. A jungle began hardly fifty yards
from the water. Tilting his head back, he understood
the reason for the narrow beach. The land, clothed in
palms and broad-leafed tropical vegetation, rose
quickly in a slope he thought as much as forty degrees
to a hill high enough to shade this beach in early
afternoon.
He saw shells above the high-water mark and here and
there the parallel tracks of crabs and the trident
tracks of birds, but no human footprints except his
own. The beach curved away to right and left. On his
left a huge cluster of rocks rose from the sea a half-
mile offshore. Possibly the Fleeting Star had struck a
submerged member of that collection.
No strange footprint, but artifacts were washing ashore
even as he watched. He waded into the surf and picked
up a sailor's striped shirt, thinking that if he was to
survive he might need it. Here and there were other
articles: mostly barrels most probably of tea, a few
boxes, a pillow from some sailor's hammock, even a
corked bottle. He retrieved the bottle and found a
folded paper inside. The handwriting was only too
recognizable.
"To whom it may concern:
"Greetings.
"This message is consigned to the charity of the sea at
five bells of the dog watch on July 2, 1848, believed
at 7 S 139 W, past the northernmost island of the
Marquesas group, the ship assailed by wind and wave
forcible beyond previous experience, having lost mizzen
and midtop before darkness fell, pumps barely keeping
pace with the flood, with 104 souls on board.
"Harvey G. Norris, Master, Fleeting Star, out of Canton
bound for
New York
"May God have mercy on our souls."
Jake stood quietly with the paper in his hand. Curious
message! He was certain that the dog watch was long
behind them when the ship crashed on the rock. Then he
decided, not so curious: obviously the bottle would
drift before the storm alongside the crippled ship.
Was he the only survivor? He shaded his eyes and looked
farther out to sea. Flotsam in the shape of barrels
rose into sight on the tops of swells as far as he
could discern them. The fatal rock could be miles
offshore. But <he> had made it! The stormwind must have
been onshore; a shoreward current might even be
running.
Perhaps the only difference was that he had jumped into
the dark almost immediately after the ship went on the
rock. Perhaps others had tried to stay with the hulk
and were at last drifting closer. He jumped up and
down, shouted and waved his arms over his head, but had
to give it up when no answering arm could be seen on
the sun-sparkling water.
With a sigh and a whimsical smile, he stuffed the paper
back into the bottle, shoved home the cork and threw
the message as far as he could back into the surf.
* * *
A dry throat finally drove him from under his palm tree
back out onto the beach in the dazzling noon-day sun.
The storm last night must surely have contained as much
rain as wind. He reasoned that somewhere on the island
a fresh water stream, however temporary, must today be
spilling into the sea. Facing the surf he turned right
and set out to round the island, trying to count his
paces as he strolled. His clothing, a tattered
sleeveless undershirt and side-striped trousers that
remained from his mate's uniform, was long since dry,
itching his shoulders and hips with the retained salt.
He walked in the wet strand of necessity because the
dry sand was hot enough in the sunlight to cook his
bare feet.
Though he had slept off and on during the long morning,
he was confident no one might have come ashore without
him noticing. No footprint had been added to those of
his own. Now the tide had turned and was rising.
His count of paces was approaching 200 when he crossed
a spit of sand, rounding a boulder large as a house,
and saw the white lifeboat stranded hardly a hundred
yards further down the beach. He lifted on his toes
into a jog, dashing spray from the puddles left by the
strongest waves, and quickly reached the boat.
It was 20 feet of white-painted wooden hull, one of
four normally born inverted on the main deck, covered
with canvas still laced to the gunwales. With a sigh of
disappointment he decided that this one had simply come
loose from its restraints during the storm to wash up
here and be stranded at low tide, as had the other
flotsam still lying about.
Ah, but a lifeboat contained emergency provisions! He
turned to the bow, where to his surprise he found the
laces already loosened, leaving an edge of the canvas
free to flap in the wind. Thirst drove him to ignore
this anomaly.
Yes! Just beneath the raised flap in the bow thwarts
was the provision locker. Leaning into the boat, he
worked the sliding catch forcefully, opened the cover
and smiled hugely as he held up a corked gallon jug of
clear water.
The cork was jammed tight, but reaching farther into
the locker he located the corkscrew as expected. The
plug was soon extracted. One second later the sweetest
water he had ever tasted was washing down his throat,
albeit likely it had been moldering in that same jug
for the two years since Fleeting Star's initial voyage.
Much refreshed, he lowered the jug to the canvas cover
and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Life was
looking up! If this proved to be one of the two boats
with centerboard, stepped mast and mainsheet, he could
very shortly --
From close behind him a female voice said clearly, "We
couldn't get it open."
CHAPTER 2
Discoveries
-----------
Jake nearly jumped onto the boat's canvas cover.
Restraining an oath, he swung about to behold a young
lady clad incongruously in a bedraggled short dress and
half-sleeved blouse, obviously supported by many
petticoats. Her light brown hair had been coiled atop
her head at one time; now long strands of it hung free,
fluttering in the breeze. She wore stockings to the
knee but no shoes. Two smaller girls, dressed the same
even to garment color, hung back behind this one.
"Who are you?" he asked, gaping at the bulge of modest
breasts under the wrinkled blouse. Raising his eyes, he
realized suddenly that she was beautiful.
"We couldn't get the locker open," she replied in a
sternly haughty voice that belied the unadorned
innocence of her youthful face.
The shortest girl, an exquisite blond child no older
than eleven, advanced around the tallest and pled,
"Sir, may I have a drink?" She stood close to Jake,
staring up into his face, boldly demanding the water.
"Yes, we're very thirsty," the tallest stated, reaching
for the bottle as if it were her right. The middle girl
cowered behind, peeking over her elder's shoulder at
Jake, who in bemusement surrendered the jug.
"You're from the ship," he observed unnecessarily. "Are
there any others?"
"None alive," the eldest said somberly, tilting the
heavy jug for the youngest to drink. "There are some
bodies down the beach."
Jake turned to look. Much flotsam was washing in with
the tide. He could not distinguish human from artifact.
Meanwhile the tallest gave water to the middle child
before bringing it to her own lips.
When she lowered the jug, he asked, "What are your
names?"
"I am Annabelle Celeste Meron," said the tallest
gravely, "at your service." She put her hand on the
middle child, chubby, a dark brunette. "This is my
sister, Clister Marie." The identified girl blushed
fiercely, reddening even to the upper arms, and hung
her head. "And this is my youngest sister," -- the hand
transferred to the blonde -- "Jill Anna." Unlike her
middle sister, Miss Jill stared boldly up at the man.
Jake nodded. "I am Jacob Higgins, and I'm very glad to
see you, though for your sake I hope we find others
alive."
"Daddy's still out there," Jill, the blonde, declared,
her face solemn. The middle child, Clister Marie,
emitted a sob and turned her face into the hollow of
her elder's neck, where she began to weep quietly but
convulsively. The tallest regarded Jake impassively,
either in control of her emotions or perhaps in shock.
"How in the world did you get ashore?" he asked.
"In that."
"In the lifeboat?"
"Yes. My father said that the storm was blowing toward
land. When the back mast blew away, he put us in the
boat under the cover and he climbed on top. He made the
sailors lower it into the water. When the storm died
down, I was able to cut the lashings with my little
knife and we climbed out. The boat was where it sits
now."
"But your father... wasn't with you?"
"No, sir. The boat--" She looked down at the snuffling
Marie, leaned her head closer to Jake and whispered,
"The boat turned completely over several times."
"Did it! I'm surprised you don't have broken ribs."
"Father put us between two mattresses."
Jake shook his head. "So much foresight for you and so
little for himself!"
Her eyes glinted. Criticism of her father was not
welcome. "What do you mean?"
"He should have realized he could never hold on to a
boat cover in such a storm."
"He is no sailor." She looked away and corrected
herself. "Was." A tear glittered in her eyelash.
"I'm sorry, my dear Meron, eh? He was a passenger?"
The girl's eyes flashed upon his. "Aren't you from the
ship?"
"Yes, of course." He smiled grimly. "I came ashore upon
a spar."
"Then how could you not know about our father and us?"
Jake returned her stare, wondering how best to explain
that, when the blonde Jill declared, "He's the man in
the little room behind the bars. Is it truly a jail,
sir?"
Even chubby Marie, still clinging to her elder, ceased
snuffling long enough to stare over her shoulder at
him. He noted that her eyes were so brown as to be
almost black, where the other pairs were bright blue,
all inspecting him as if he were a gaffed shark.
But these were only young girls. "Yes, it is," he
admitted calmly. "Or was."
"Are you a very bad man?" asked Jill avidly.
He smiled at her. "The captain thought so."
"Captain Norris was a fine seaman," the tallest
declared, haughty tone returning. "Our father said so
many times."
Jill asked curiously, "What did you do to him?"
"Jill!" snapped the eldest, but she, too, awaited his
answer.
He maintained his smile. "I hurt his pride. It is a
dangerous thing to hurt a captain's pride."
Jill was fascinated. "Is that like mashing his
<klung>?"
"His what?"
"Jill!" The tallest shrugged out of Marie's arms,
caught the blonde by the neck and pulled her away from
the man. "You will not speak of such things," she
ordered fiercely.
Jake asked, "What does it mean?"
The blonde twisted easily away from the restraining
hand. "It means his grapes," the child explained. The
eldest lunged for her but she evaded, adding, "Wu Fong
said they're not really grapes, even if they do feel --
" She had to leave off and break into a run. The
tallest chased her toward the tree line. Marie was left
to stare at him alone.
"Are you truly a bad man?" she whispered, eyes huge.
"No. What language is <klung>?"
"The Hanchow dialect. We didn't study Mandarin yet."
Blushing as if two successive sentences exceeded her
limit, she spun away after her sisters, running in the
jerky manner peculiar to pubescence.
"Hanchow? Where in China is that?" When he received no
answer, he raised hands to either side of his mouth and
yelled, "I'll go look for other survivors."
He set off down the beach. The enormity and horror of
the disaster weighed on him at last. Away from the
charm of their female voices and dress, he could
contemplate what finding these girls likely would mean
to him. They constituted a responsibility that no man
of self-respect could ignore, not even one freed from
prison and saved from the storm by nothing more than
fickle fate.
He passed three corpses, sailors known to him, one of
which bobbed in the surf, and waded into the water to
pull that body onto the beach also. He would have to
bury them, he knew. He walked on for several hundred
yards but discovered nothing more than scattered
debris, the only consequential piece being a small cask
of rum.
Rounding a sand spit, he came upon a cove formed of
tall rock. A narrow strip of sand penetrated to its
depth only on the nearer side. The waves dashed
directly on the opposite rocks. They formed a natural
cut sloping steeply up the hill, huge boulders
interspersed with green vegetation. The cut was
oblique, so that the surf broke only upon the outer
perimeter. At its deepest recess the sunlight, slanting
over the slope that would soon shade the whole beach,
glittered on falling water.
He hurried at an easy trot along the narrow beach and
found a burbling stream dancing down the rocks into the
sea. The flow was copious today after the storm but
seldom ever dry, according to the mossy evidence. He
cupped his hand under the cool flow and tasted it.
Fresh water!
He looked around, studying the site. Part way up the
slope was a level space among the palms. The ground was
studded with fallen coconuts. He recognized breadfruit
and banana plants from his six months stranded once in
Hawaii. With tools he knew he could feed a small group,
and the boat's two lockers were supposed to contain
tools. Here was the place for a camp. It had food and
water and was high enough for a fire to attract rescue.
Oh his way back to the boat he reached the rum cask
sitting in the sand just as a dying wavelet splashed
against it. Stupid, he thought, to let it wash out to
sea with the rising tide. He took it up under his arm
and walked on. It gurgled pleasantly.
Ahead of him the shade of the huge hill was beginning
to darken the white beach. The boat was a speck high
and dry above the strand. Its lightly loaded hull had
been enough of a sail for the storm winds to push it
higher than the ordinary tide could reach. The huge
jumble of rocks glowered offshore to his right. Just as
well, he thought, that the girls could not imagine the
doom their fragile boat had so narrowly missed.
Jake undid the bung absently and took a long draught.
The fiery liquor was welcome in his gullet. Though he
reminded himself that it was too early for drinking, he
took another swig. Why not? Who could possibly be
offended?
When he reached the lifeboat, he saw the girls in their
colorful clothing under the palm trees at the edge of
the beach. They seemed content to watch him remove the
lacings at the stern of the boat.
When he raised the canvas cover, letting the wind hold
it back above the still fastened part, he was greeted
by the sickly pungent odor of vomit. He found the two
mattresses and, releasing additional lacings, brought
them out onto the high sand to dry. Their condition did
not surprise him. It must have been horrible indeed
inside the small boat as it rolled on its beams in
pitch darkness. Even people inured to ship motion by a
long voyage would have been sickened. He wondered
whether the girls' quick recovery of good spirits
indicated strength of character or merely the
resilience of children.
Indeed this was a sailboat! The sectioned mast lay
clamped along the sides, with mainsheet and lines
folded and stowed just ahead of the centerboard box.
The shippable tiller was clamped in the stern. The
survivors of Fleeting Star would not have to endure
this unnamed island for long!
He leisurely examined the boat's provisions from both
bow and stern lockers, finding another jug of water,
several pounds of hardtack, a sewing kit, a water-tight
tube of lucifer's, a sealed box containing a Colts cap-
and-ball revolver with the ammunition for several
reloads, a shovel, hammer, handsaw and, most
immediately impressive, a snicker snee. He held up the
long knife to see it glint in the sunlight. He smiled.
With this boat and its treasures he felt himself both
fortunate and rich.
The girls gazed apprehensively down at the man near the
water's edge, watching him rummage through the
lifeboat.
"Is he going to help us?" Marie asked with a nervous
quaver in her voice.
"I don't know," Belle, the eldest, replied slowly.
"There's no one else to help us, but remember what
Father said. Sailors can be trouble."
"I want my daddy!" Ready tears overflowed Marie's
cheeks. She bawled until Belle quieted her with a hug.
The eldest found this behavior curious, though she
refrained from comment. Their father had shown Marie
the least attention of all.
"What kind of trouble?" asked Jill.
"I think you know the answer to that," Belle retorted.
"Mash his <klung>, indeed!"
"That's trouble for the <man>," the blonde suggested.
"Have you forgot what Wu Fong wanted to do to you?"
Jill retorted in the dialect of the Hanchow district
that Wu Fong had promised to ride her to the heavenly
world on his rod of love.
Belle's eyes flashed. "Speak English. You know what
Father said.
We must still obey him."
"It doesn't sound nearly so sweet in English," Jill
grumbled.
"Is Father not coming back?" asked Marie piteously.
"I don't know, darling," replied Belle, hugging her
again.
They watched the man sit on the sand and play ominously
with an enormous knife. For more than an hour they
observed him repeatedly loft the cask and drink from
it.
Jake got gloriously drunk, although before every drink
he reminded himself that he had to take charge of the
disastrous situation and see after the girls. He began
to hum a tune popular in the waterfront saloons. The
words soon came back to him. He sang loudly and
joyfully.
The wind blew his song, only slightly garbled, to the
fascinated audience under the palms.
"Oh-h-h, I've been there and I've been told that the
Boston lass is mighty bold."
"If the fire is low and the money bright. She'll dock
your sprit throughout the night."
Marie had a question, but held it to listen more
closely as the distant singer attacked the chorus:
"The Boston lass, the Boston lass
"Will pinch your boodle and spank your ass.
"The Boston lass, the Boston lass
"Will lick your doodle and drain you fast."
The song ceased. "'Dock your sprit,'" Marie repeated.
"What does that mean?"
"I don't know," responded Belle, making a face, "but
it's probably indecent."
"I know!" Jill insisted. "The sprit is that long pole
at the front of the ship. I think it means what Wu Fong
wanted me to do." Her lip curled and she glared askance
at the tallest. "If you hadn't got Daddy to run him
off."
"I saved you from a lot of trouble," Belle responded
with some heat. "The day will come you'll be grateful.
Father said so."
"What trouble? Why will nobody say?"
Belle held her peace.
Shortly the man's voice arrived again, bearing a second
verse.
"The Boston lass has a tight little cunt. That pinches
your doodle and makes you grunt. But for him who brings
her even more gold "She'll boot your ass out in the
cold."
"Oh, the Boston lass, the Boston lass," etc.
"What's a doodle?" asked Marie during the repeated
chorus.
Jill answered with a word of Chinese. Marie blushed.
Belle raised a punishing hand but relaxed with a sigh.
Jill frowned. "Then a cunt must be a hand."
"Why?" asked Belle curiously.
"Because it pinches."
Marie smiled secretly. "Not a hand," she murmured.
* * *
"By God," Jake exclaimed drunkenly, eyes wide in sudden
realization, "I'm a sheik on my own island and I have a
lovely harem."
He had consumed almost half the cask. His mind had
become confused and his lips numb. He was close to
vomiting. His first attempt to rise failed pathetically
and he fell into a sprawl.
"Girls," he called from a stooping position, "your
master is coming to get you."
He struggled to his feet, pulled off his britches and
staggered toward the tree line clad only in the
sleeveless shirt. His penis, more nearly erect than his
body, waggled back and forth as he stumbled toward the
girls. Spittle drooled from his mouth, open to gasp for
air as he lurched onward with bleary eyes, the long
knife still in his hand.
Belle watched the man approach with horror. She pulled
Jill and Marie behind her, then leaned down and
collected a handful of sand. Marie blubbered with
quivering lips at the sight of the oncoming monster.
Jill peeked from behind the eldest in open- mouthed
fascination at the size of the exposed "doodle," so
incredibly larger than Wu Fong's!
"So, you pretty," Jake slurred, staggering up to the
girls and confronting Belle, who stood ready for
combat, her body bent slightly forward. "Do you want me
first? I have enough for the lot of you."
With a calculated flip of the wrist Belle threw the
handful of sand into his face. Though he dodged too
late, his blink reflex was still able to save his eyes.
He fell back, caught himself, pawed the air and
staggered even farther forward, stumbled and collapsed,
his swinging arms knocking all three girls to the
ground.
"Hurrah!" the drunken man exclaimed in triumph,
throwing Belle's many skirts above her hips, exposing
pale thighs and a modest pubic bush. He crawled upon
her before she could twist away, easily fending off the
blows of her fists with his arms. His knees forced hers
apart.
"No, no!" she screamed, trying to reach his eyes with
her fingernails. Lying heavily upon her, he wrapped one
arm about his face, using the other hand to guide his
manhood. Marie, seemingly overcome, dashed away into
the trees. Jill hovered close, fist balled and extended
tentatively toward the man's head. Instead of striking,
however, she leaned around to see what he was doing
with the hand between the pairs of legs.
His fingers opened the tender flesh. Positioning
himself, hand assisting his stiffness, he pressed into
it irresistibly, once, twice. On the third thrust the
barrier gave way. The girl screamed in pain and fear.
"Don't hurt her!" cried Jill and struck Jake's back
ineffectually with both fists.
Marie returned suddenly from the underbrush, a freshly
fallen coconut, still in its husk and twice the size of
her head, held aloft. She brought its narrow end down
with all her strength on the straining man's head.
His body stiffened. He flopped over reflexively onto
his back beside his victim and lay still with mouth
wide, breathing hoarsely.
Blood spread quickly in the sand behind his head. Marie
lifted her weapon to strike again.
Belle interposed her own hand over his face. "Don't
hurt him!"
Marie stared at her and said with a strange certainty,
"Then he'll only hurt you again."
Jill, eyes round, said, "You're bleeding, too, Belle."
The eldest got to her feet and pushed her skirts down.
"I'll be all right. We need him, Marie. This place is
wild."
"I want my daddy," declared Marie, letting the coconut
fall to the sand. But this time she didn't bawl.
Jill leaned down to inspect the man's still erect
penis, reaching out and enclosing it with a diffident
hand.
"Jill!" Belle screamed at the youngest, slapping her
painfully on the back of the head. "Get away from him!"
The youngest lurched erect and stood rubbing the back
of her head, wide eyes on her sister, who retrieved the
long knife from the sand where it had fallen and
gestured to the others. "Come on quickly, before he
wakens."
They ran together down to the shore. Under Belle's
direction they secured the cask of rum and all the
items Jake had earlier taken from the boat, removing
the lot in three trips deep into the shelter of the
trees, while Jake remained unconscious on his back.
Belle segregated the water and hardtack. The girls
carried it up the beach in the direction from which
Jake had first appeared, to a point where the tree line
extended further out. There they rested in the shade
and took nourishment for the first time that day, while
keeping an eye on the fallen man.
CHAPTER 3
Remorse and Caution
-------------------
Before nightfall the girls checked on the unconscious
man, Belle armed with the large knife and Marie with a
coconut. They lingered over the half naked body longer
than was really necessary. Jill stared unashamed at
Jake's now flaccid penis, which lay along his upper
thigh, impressive even in repose. The other two stole
glances at it again and again.
"Are you certain I didn't kill him?" asked Marie,
biting her lip apprehensively.
"No, dear," Belle assured her again. "He is breathing
and his bleeding has stopped."
The eldest knelt beside the man and rotated his head
enough to see that a scab was forming where the coconut
had struck. She also saw another scar from an earlier
cut and released the unresisting head distastefully.
"He's passed out from the drink, I suppose," she
snarled, rising to her feet and pushing at the torso
with her stockinged foot. She was furious with the man.
Because of him, she reminded herself with bitterness,
she was no longer a virgin. She separated her knees
once again to ease the soreness. She had long dreamed
of being taken for the first time in a much different
way, entwined with a loving husband on her wedding
night.
"I thought my coconut did it," observed Marie with a
frown.
"It did," the eldest agreed, "but the rum he drank is
what keeps him asleep. Do you remember old Tai-lo after
he found Father's medicinal whiskey?"
Marie thought about it. "Why would anyone want to do
that?"
Belle grunted. "You'll have to ask someone who does.
<I> certainly wouldn't!"
Marie accepted that, but Jill had a question. "Why did
he hurt you, Belle? He made you bleed!"
"He was crazy, dear. Crazy drunk."
"Will he be crazy when he wakes up?"
"I don't think so, unless he finds more rum."
"We won't tell him where we hid it, will we?"
"No, dear. Jill, you must promise me not to tell him
about any of the things we hid. That is what we have to
bargain with."
"I won't tell him, Belle."
The sunset that evening was astounding in its beauty,
even though the heights that shaded the beach obscured
the Sun itself. Dramatically painted clouds, piled high
toward the south, threatened a storm. The sisters had
constructed a rude shelter of fronds amidst a grove of
palms, located up the beach from the man who lay on the
sand like a corpse. They huddled under it together,
savoring the light breeze, and unwrapped crackers of
hardtack salvaged from the boat. It was hard chewing
but all three girls enjoyed sound teeth. Nearly
tasteless, it nevertheless swelled with saliva and,
along with draughts of water from the jug, filled their
stomachs.
Darkness fell quickly, as it does in the tropics. Soon
the three girls could see each other only by starlight,
in a world utterly empty except for themselves. Marie
snuggled to Belle, snuffling a bit but determined not
to cry. She tried with all her mental energy to wish
herself and her sisters into the past, back to Hanchow
where they had been so happy.
Jill, too, thought of Hanchow and their expansive home,
large enough for secret places, in one of which Belle
had discovered her naked with Wu Fong before he could
more than touch her, before he could teach her the
naughty things that she somehow knew were deliciously
sweet. Jill dozed off with her face nuzzled into
Belle's neck and a hand on the eldest's breast.
Belle's eyes were wide open, staring into the blackness
above her. She felt a worry too large, too all-
encompassing to allow more than a single, desperate
solution: she must tame that awful man, that Higgins.
She knew herself incapable of saving the girls in their
present situation. Only he could, if he would. She
suddenly felt old, although she was not quite fully
grown.
* * *
Torrents from the storm lashed the beach and the man
lying upon it, awakening him suddenly. It tasted sweet.
Only rain? His first sensation was relief for a dry
throat, the second was nausea. Up came his gorge,
irresistible and massive. He turned his head quickly
and vomited powerfully to the side, onto his cheek,
onto the sand.
His head was splitting. A hammer pounded his temples
with every heartbeat. Thinking himself still in the
sea, he flailed out with his arms to swim but ground
them unmistakably into wet sand. No, by god, he was
lying on his back on a beach! The nearby thud and hiss
of surf made that clear. And he was naked. No, not
quite. He was wearing a soggy undershirt.
He sat up and his head seemed to explode. He groaned
aloud at the overwhelming pain. Where was he? Opening
his eyes revealed nothing: absolute blackness. He was
blind, then.
Oh, no, he wasn't! A streak of lightning zigzagged
across the sky, accompanied by a soul shaking crash of
thunder. For an instant clear as day he saw a narrow
beach and wind-torn white- caps nearly reaching his own
position, a ship's lifeboat poised among them.
Automatically he determined to reach that boat and
rolled forward onto his knees. His head protested in
agony. It felt as if a horse had recently kicked it. He
continued forward, over onto his face in wet sand.
The rain stung the back of his head now. He put up a
hand and discovered hair and sand matted into a thick
scab. The area was tender to the touch.
Suddenly his gorge rose again, even more powerfully,
but he could raise his head only enough to keep the
vomit off his shirt. God, he was sick! The unspeakable
flavors in his mouth included the taste of rum. Rum!
Where in hell might a prisoner find rum?
With a rush the memories came back: the shipwreck, the
night in the water, finding the boat, meeting the girls
-- good god, where were the girls in this storm?
The wind increased, driving the rain up the beach so
hard as to sting his exposed skin. The boat, their
passage back to civilization -- he <had> to save that
boat! But where was it? His orientation was gone. The
wind howled even above the crash of surf. He rose to
his knees, awaiting the next lightning flash.
When it came, the boat was gone! Stunned, he jumped to
his feet, the sinking in his heart momentarily more
powerful than the pain in his head and the nausea in
his gullet. Blind, he took several cautious steps
forward, nearly knocked down by the wind, until he
found himself wading in the surf, warmer than the rain.
Another deafening flash revealed the boat, now well
beyond the shore, heading before the wind directly
toward the rock pile offshore. He stared in its
direction forlornly. He knew with certainty that he had
awakened too late, that he could never save it now.
How bad was this new storm? On the next flash he was
already looking upward, ready to apply an experienced
mariner's eye to the organization of storm clouds. He
easily recognized the one-sided configuration of a mere
squall -- a dangerous one for small craft, he noted
ironically, but soon to pass over any particular point.
He trudged into the tree line and sat down, leaning
back against a slanted palm bole to wait it out.
Memory returned of the equipment removed from the boat.
He sighed again, thinking it all lost, the floating
items blown out to sea, the weapons and tools buried in
the sand. At first light he might find the shovel, if
he had any luck left. The water bottles! He started to
get up, meaning to form a bucket of large leaves, then
sank back as he recalled the cove and its falling
stream that this squall could only enhance.
A drink! The rum, too, must be gone. Ah, that was it.
His last memory was of swilling rum betwixt verses of
the "Boston Lass." That explained the head and the
nausea, perhaps ultimately even the scab in his hair.
But when had he removed his britches?
"What a goddamned fool!" he said aloud.
The wind was dying. Not three feet away a feminine
voice asked clearly, "And who is the fool?"
He put out a hand and felt a yielding shoulder that
immediately snatched itself away. "Don't touch me!" its
owner commanded.
"Which one are you?" he asked after clearing his throat
of phlegm.
"Are you still crazy?" the voice asked.
"Crazy?"
"Belle said that you were crazy."
"Where is Belle?"
"In the trees."
"Trees! Are you girls all right?"
"Yes, we're safe. Belle let me come to see if <you> are
all right."
The girl's voice paused and then asked diffidently, "Do
you still want to do..." Her voice died away to
inaudibility.
"Do what?" he asked.
"Wh-what you did to Belle?"
"What was that?"
She failed to answer. With a sense of foreboding, he
asked again, "What did I do to Belle?"
"You don't remember?" The tone was incredulous.
He explained sheepishly, "I think I was drunk."
"You put your thing into her. Do you want--"
"Oh, my god! I did <what>?"
"You knocked her down and got between her legs."
Jake shuddered. "Oh, no!" His head sank into his hands.
"I didn't rape her, did I? Please tell me she said,
'Yes!'"
"She said, 'No, no!'"
He sat silently, horror stealing over him. The girlish
voice added, so softly that he barely heard, "But I
wouldn't."
"Wouldn't what?" he asked hoarsely.
"Say, 'No.'"
He took a deep breath. Which of the two was she? Jake
wondered. Certainly not Belle! "Is she hurt?" He rose
impatiently on a knee. "Give me your hand."
"Why?"
"To lead me to your sisters."
He heard a swish of leaves but no reply. After a moment
he leaned toward the girl's position and felt around
but encountered only wet fronds.
"Hey!" he called. "Jill! Isn't that your name?" Or was
it the middle one, the plump little girl whose
expression was so much like that of a frightened doe.
Listening closely, he heard no response. The wind was
still rustling in the wet foliage, enough to mask foot
noises. But how could she make out her path? Was a
child's night vision better than a man's? Apparently
so, he decided, if the man was afflicted with a raging
hangover.
Groaning, he sagged back against his palm trunk, head
sunk in his hands. Crazy, was he? Had he actually raped
the girl? His cock had no memory of it. In the morning
light he would get to the bottom of the matter. He knew
that a man is always accountable for his acts, one way
or the other, however much he might himself despise
them. But he had done it before, raped a girl, he
recalled in anguish, in Santiago. She was so cute, and
he so drunk. Christ! The little thing didn't even have
tits. And now he had done it again, evidently. He
didn't remember it, although the guilt pressed upon
him.
The rain had ceased. A star appeared in the opening
above him, then a rush of others as the obscuring
clouds moved on. It was enough for him barely to make
out the white breakers, even around the rocks offshore,
but he saw no sign of the white lifeboat.
* * *
It was a glorious morning, fresh and clean. Jill was up
with the Sun. Only she had managed to sleep through the
horrid storm. Her sisters slumbered yet, Marie cupped
behind Belle. Jill took a drink from the water jug and
removed a single chunk of hardtack from its oilskin
bag, then put it back distastefully. She was hungry,
but her clammy wet clothing was of more immediate
concern.
She stood facing the beach and pulled layer after layer
of damp garments from her slight body until she was
clad in a petticoat and nothing else. Her graceful arms
and slender shoulders were bare, open to the sun as
were her lovely knees and calves. Her tangled hair, as
golden as the dawn itself, lent her the appearance of a
wild child, but her exquisite oval face that of an
angel.
Jill raced onto the beach in search of the curious man
who had hurt Belle, the man who possessed such a large
penis. She saw him in the far distance, naked, emerging
from the heavy surf of the storm's aftermath. She
slowed her advance, suddenly cautious. She stopped and
watched him pull on his shirt as the water lapped at
his ankles. He turned his head and looked at her. She
would go no closer. He was a bad man. He started
towards her, but she ran into the trees on a different
line than the direction to her sleeping sisters.
The Sun was well into the sky before Marie and then
Belle came awake, much to the relief of Jill, who had
been fidgeting around the makeshift camp for at least
an hour.
"He's alive!" she announced to her groggy sisters,
rushing up to them as they stretched and yawned, Belle
twisting her neck because of a crick.
"I'm hungry," complained Marie, whose well rounded body
required more calories than her slender sisters.
"Here." Jill passed her the bag of hardtack. Marie made
a face but took out a cracker and bit off a piece. Jill
said to the eldest, "Won't we soon get something better
to eat?"
"Yes, of course, we shall," Belle responded soothingly,
getting up to stand at her full height, somewhat taller
than Marie and much more so than little Jill.
"You're almost naked!" she admonished the youngest when
her eyes adjusted to the day. "Did you let him see you
like that?"
"I didn't come close to him," Jill replied defensively.
"What would happen if I did?"
"Don't try to find out!"
Jill turned away with a sniff.
Belle murmured in reflection, "Well, I suppose we'll
all have to adjust to our new circumstances." She began
herself to shed some layers of clothing in the
breezeless morning. Marie, usually so shy, was quickly
clad like her younger sister, in just a petticoat that
draped her body more tightly than did Jill's,
suggesting small breasts and a solid mid section. The
middle sister's limbs were ample, but well proportioned
and shapely. Though pleasantly rubenesque, she was not
truly a fat girl.
Belle smiled at her younger sisters, shrugged and
likewise stripped down to her petticoat. Belle was
gorgeous. Her garment concealed the torso of a young
woman with generous hips and almost mature breasts. The
graceful line from ankles to upper thighs was exciting
even to little Jill, who appreciated such things.
But Belle's face quickly took on her usual, stern
expression, as she looked from Marie to Jill. She
paused thoughtfully before speaking.
"We need that <Higgins>." She pronounced the man's name
with a sneer. "But we can't let him take charge of us.
He's a beast, you know."
Marie looked up at her older sister with an open mouth,
nodding slightly. Jill wrinkled her face, not
understanding.
"We need him because he's strong and because he knows a
lot of things." She paused to study her audience. "But
he's a man, and you know what they're like."
Marie blushed deeply, but Jill asked, "What are they
like?"
Belle looked at the youngest with an expression of
exasperation.
"Just don't let him touch you."
"Even if I want him to?"
"Especially then!" Belle retorted.
"May I touch him?"
"No!" Belle shouted, almost out of patience with the
child, whom she knew to be sexually precocious despite
her size. She would never forget bursting into the
attic chamber and finding Jill naked with Wu Fong, the
sixteen year old house boy, whom she herself secretly
loved.
"Listen to me," Belle began again. "We need Higgins,
but we don't need him to be one of us. We must keep him
in his place. Whenever he's around we'll speak Chinese
to let him know that."
"Doesn't he speak Chinese?" asked Jill.
"Have you forgot? He doesn't know the Hanchow dialect,
at least."
"Father told us to quit speaking Chinese," Jill
reminded her.
"We shall, except when Higgins can hear us."
"But what if he then just goes off by himself?" Marie
asked sensibly in a low voice.
Belle realized that Marie had just found the flaw in
her plans, but a brilliant insight occurred to her. "He
won't go away because he's a man and we're women. He'll
always be hoping."
"Hoping for what?" Jill chirped with a knowing smile.
Belle stared at the girl and threw up her hands. "Have
some hard crackers," she suggested, not wanting to
continue this conversation. "Then come and sit in front
of me while I plait your hair."
Later, as her hands wove among Jill's golden strands,
she murmured pensively, "One of the first things we
must get from him is better food. We'll have to give
him something, too."
* * *
Jake had retreated into the shade as the rising sun
tingled on his reddened arms. He was sunburned there,
on the tops of his feet and on his face, all of which
had been pale from weeks in prison.
He shook his head. He had slept the previous afternoon
in a drunken stupor! Had he not lain in the shade,
purely by the accident that the girls were there, he
would probably be sunburned all over, including his
cock!
He looked up suddenly when he heard a soprano shout and
saw the blonde girl staring at him from a hundred yards
away. That's the small one, he thought, as pretty as a
porcelain doll. And no more sexually attractive, he
would have added, had he not been filled with remorse
and a sick headache. He had vowed the night before
never to even think about sex again. It was his penance
for the awful sin he had apparently committed.
At dawn, when he realized that he would continue to
live, he thought of leaving the beach and losing
himself in the interior of the jungle island, to be
away from the girls and their temptation. But then he
acknowledged that they needed him, his strength and
skills, possibly for the rest of their lives unless he
could somehow build a replacement for the lost
sailboat.
He had searched the strand and found nothing. All the
litter from yesterday, the tools and food from the
boat, was of course blown away or buried out of sight.
As best he could he had located the spot where the boat
had stood by the remembered angles of certain palm
trees. He had dug in the sand desultorily, hoping to
find a few tools, the long knife, anything -- to no
avail.
Every thought of losing that boat induced another
paroxysm of self reproach: He was a sailor, a first
mate who had hoped one day to become captain. But
instead of pulling the fucking thing higher onto the
beach, he had gotten drunk and raped a young girl! In
the bright light of day he had to face the enormity of
his guilt.
They would be marooned on the island for years, he
concluded, because a ship had no reason to come so far
off the shipping lanes and discover them. He knew about
dugout canoes and had once studied the sturdy
Polynesian outriggers, but without tools how might he
even attempt to construct one?
Staring at his toes, he resolved to build them a house
somehow, provide them with food and protect them from
whatever. But he could not live with them. Another
violent rage suddenly festered his brain. He would cut
off his cock, had he still possessed the knife... but
then, no. He could not do that, because he would bleed
to death and not be able to serve the girls.
The shout came again, ruffled by a rising onshore
breeze. The girl was jumping up and down on something
in the sand at the edge of the trees. She wanted his
attention, did she?
He got up and walked out onto the sand, his hands
concealing his manhood. The girl was hardly clear of
the trees herself. She stood still when she spotted
him. She must be hungry, he thought, and thirsty, too.
Her golden hair was plaited behind in a single long,
thick braid. She was wearing only a white, knee-length,
sleeveless but full-shouldered petticoat. He thought to
warn her of sunburn, but even at a distance he could
see that her arms and legs were a golden tan. From
playing on the ship's deck across the Pacific?
When he had reached half the distance, she cupped her
hands around her mouth and shouted, "Bring us food."
"I mean to," he shouted back.
Immediately she spun around and raced into the trees,
bare legs flashing white half way up her thighs where
daylight seldom penetrated.
"You don't have to run away," he shouted after her, but
she had already disappeared.
He continued to the point where she had called him and
found two things atop a small natural rise in the sand:
the long knife and his britches. Of course! He must
have had them in his possession when he sought out
Belle. Someone had brushed off the sand and folded the
garment neatly. Quickly he stepped into it and closed
the waistband, surprised at the improvement in
confidence afforded by covered genitals.
He took up the knife to an even greater lift of
feeling, and turned into the tree line himself. Almost
immediately he came upon a freshly fallen coconut. A
few slashes of the sharp blade, knowingly applied,
split the husk away. The hairy nut yielded to a single
chop. He licked out the unspilled milk and pried up
chunks of the white meat. How welcome and sweet it was
in his mouth! But his stomach convulsed in warning when
he sought to swallow.
Shortly he found three other coconut specimens, one
larger than the first, and brought them out into the
sun on the mound. In short order he freed the nut in
each, then cupped his hands around his mouth and facing
the forest, shouted, "Come and eat! Come and eat!"
The three girls stepped out onto the sand nearby.
Obviously they had been hiding behind the leading
palms. Not that he could blame them. They approached
cautiously and hesitantly, watching him narrowly, each
with braided hair, wearing a white petticoat and
apparently nothing more. He studied Belle closely. Yes,
her pace was slightly less graceful than yesterday, the
knees held farther apart.
Her eyes narrowed under his scrutiny. He stared at her
breasts, which filled the wrinkled petticoat. Suddenly
two sharp points appeared in the full chest. He dropped
his eyes immediately, ashamed of himself, ashamed for
her, that he had glimpsed her covered parts before. He
wondered if she knew how exquisitely desirable she
actually was.
He knelt and laid the three nuts each on its husk. The
girls stopped about ten feet away, staring at him,
clearly ready to spring back into the trees. They
jumped as the heavy knife fell upon the first nut,
separating it into halves and of course spilling most
of the milk. He quickly opened the other two similarly.
With a deep sigh, he got to his feet and backed away.
At ten feet distant from the little offering he asked,
"Are you familiar with coconut? Drink what milk is left
first, then pry out the white part, the meat, with your
fingernails. It's sweet and tasty. You'll like it."
The girls edged nearer, watching him closely. He sighed
and backed farther away.
"You can get all the milk out without splitting the nut
if you have a small enough blade. Belle, you have a pen
knife, don't you?"
Instead of answering, the tallest asked, "If it's so
good, why don't <you> eat it?"
He shook his head. "Because I'm sick to my stomach. But
it's good, and good for you." He sighed. "I know you
have reason to doubt me, but I promise you I'll never
again do anything to hurt you -- any of you."
Belle said something in Chinese. Jill came slowly
forward, took up a coconut half and cautiously sipped
the liquid. Her eyes widened. She cried out a word,
then turned the object up, draining the remaining juice
into her mouth. The other two also came forward and
took up nuts, but glanced away from Jake only briefly.
He raised his hands. "All right. I understand that you
hate me this morning. If I did what I fear, I guess you
have good reason. I'm sorry, Belle. I would hang for
that if we were in port, but if I hang myself I can't
help you live here.
"Right now I'm going to take this knife and hack out
graves for the bodies down the beach. I'll bring you
back some bananas and breadfruit I found yesterday."
With that he turned on his heel and plodded away,
angling onto the cool strand to spare his feet from the
sand already heating in the Sun.
CHAPTER 4
Hope
---------
Yesterday's corpses were gone without a trace. Once
again Jake was assailed by feelings of guilt and shame.
Instead of returning to bury them when he had a shovel,
he had succumbed to rum and awful sin. Nevertheless he
felt relief at their absence -- and no particular
surprise. The human body is heavy, but in the Mexican
War he had witnessed how quickly it becomes distended
with the gasses of putrefaction. That condition had
aided the high tide and storm winds, which together had
cleaned this beach, not just of its human flotsam. Now
the strand glistened pristine in the early sun.
Above the cove he verified the suitability of the small
clearing, spied yesterday, for siting a camp. It was
protected by the hill from western storms and from
southern storms by the opposite rock wall, yet lay open
to the common breeze from the northeast.
It was a shelf of level rock, thus the absence of
vegetation. Fallen stone could be used to construct
both a sturdy shelter and a wall to protect against the
terrible eastern storms. Food was nearby, literally
growing on the palm, banana and breadfruit trees, and a
crystal stream danced down the center of the cut.
It was perfect, but would the girls agree to live with
him there? It was Belle whom he had to convince, he
knew. He must win her forgiveness. But how?
* * *
He returned to the mound on the beach bearing two
ripening bunches of bananas hung over his shoulder and
discovered, in addition to three well-scraped coconut
rinds, the shovel taken yesterday from the boat. The
girls must have found it, he concluded thankfully,
thinking how it would ease the construction of the
camp. Sitting in its tang was a small wooden box, also
from the boat, "Bear Grease," according to its label.
For his sunburn? Lowering the bananas, he took it up,
pried off the lid with the knife point and slathered
the white salve onto arms and forehead with immediate
relief. How fortunate for the girls to find exactly
what he needed! How good of them to offer it, under the
circumstances!
He held up the bananas and shouted several times into
the tree line, "Come and eat!"
They were slower responding. Finally the three of them,
still in white petticoats, appeared on the beach and
approached cautiously.
He tore off a ripe banana and half-peeled it one side
at a time, turning it in his hands so that they could
study the operation. Then he took a large bite, chewed
and swallowed. At last his stomach seemed to welcome
the food.
"This is a banana," he told them. "I see you liked the
coconut. You'll like bananas even better. And thank you
for the bear grease. That was very thoughtful."
He backed away and they took his place on the mound.
Belle peeled a banana as he had done and tasted it
cautiously. Her expression showed approval. She said
something in Chinese and passed the fruit to her
sisters. Shortly each of them was eating her own banana
with obvious pleasure, chatting all the while in a
Chinese dialect. He smarted at the intentional rudeness
but withheld comment because he understood that he
deserved to be excluded.
He told them, "I've found a place down the beach that
would make a good campsite. It has food and water, and
we can build a shelter there to protect us from the
rain and from storms. It's high enough to see a passing
ship and for a ship to see our smoke or fire. Would you
like to come and see it?"
The girls regarded each other. Belle turned to face
him. "We'll stay here, thank you."
He bowed towards them. "As you wish. I'm going there to
work on it. If you need me, come down the beach as far
as you can and call for me."
"Would an ax and a saw be of help?" Belle asked around
her mouthful of banana.
"Yes, of course. Wonderful help!" He cocked his head.
"Do you mean you actually found them?"
"Wait for us." She added something in Chinese. The
girls threw down their banana peels and turned away
into the tree line. Jill looked back just before she
disappeared.
* * *
They helped themselves to second bananas, watching the
man's figure, burdened with the tools, plod down the
beach.
Jill asked thoughtfully, "Do you bargain differently in
English?"
"What do you mean?" asked Belle.
"I watched Auntie Lee bargain for vegetables with the
hawkers. They waved their hands and yelled a lot."
Belle smiled. "They were bargaining for price. Auntie
Lee and the hawkers both knew auntie needed the
vegetables. We don't know what Higgins needs... except
I think he needs for us to forgive him."
"Why?" asked Marie. "He made you bleed and I made him
bleed. Aren't we even?"
"No!" Belle declared passionately. "I'm surprised at
you, Marie."
Jill looked from one to the other with interest.
Belle explained, "To hurt someone in her private parts
is much, much worse than a little cut on the head. You
know about hanging, don't you? Even he said he would
hang for it if we were in a port. Don't you understand
how bad it is? They would kill him, Marie."
Marie frowned. "No, I don't understand. Isn't that what
men do to every woman?"
Belle drew herself up. "You'd understand if it was done
to you!"
Her eyes narrowed. "How can you know what men do to
women?"
Marie shrugged. "I talked to Sheng-jou."
"Did you! When?"
"After we spied on her with the gardeners. She said
every woman does it with men. She said it's great fun,
and sometimes you get a baby."
"Father would punish you if he knew."
Marie regarded her with calculation. "Can he do that
from heaven?"
Belle took breath to affirm it but, thinking quickly,
held her peace. If she established such a theology, she
would give them as much ammunition against herself as
she might gain against them.
"Is Father really dead?" asked Jill.
Though a question, it was the first expression among
them of their terrible loss. Belle sighed and admitted
regretfully, "It seems that Mr. Higgins is the only man
from the ship left alive."
All three turned to look down the beach, where the
man's figure had dwindled to a barely discernible dot.
Only later that night on her bed of rustling fronds did
Belle think of this conversation and the remarkable
change overtaking shy Marie.
For the next several days Jake brought them bananas,
coconuts and breadfruit twice a day. They didn't care
for the breadfruit, for which he apologized, claiming
it was much better cooked. The mound on the beach
became their "trading post," according to Jill, though
they gave the man nothing further in exchange for the
food.
Thunderstorms struck at night, each time leaving the
girls miserable in their roofless campsite. Their two-
fruit diet, plus the shrinking remains of the hardtack,
became increasingly monotonous.
* * *
"Marie!"
The girl whirled at the exasperated tone in Belle's
voice, to find the eldest glaring, hands on hips. "I
can't believe you are so careless!"
Marie took a breath. "What, now?"
"Just look over your shoulder at the back of your
petticoat."
She looked, and expended the recent breath in a sigh.
"Oh."
Belle approached her, hand extended. "Take it off."
"H-help me, won't you, so I don't get it on me?"
"Huh! It's your blood. It's <already> on you!"
Nevertheless Belle held the hem of the garment away
from the girl's plump body while lifting it over her
head. "You can just take it down to the surf and wash
it out, careless one."
"I am not careless! I couldn't help it."
"I'm sorry, dear. You do bleed a lot, don't you? Wipe
between your legs with the front of the skirt. You are
careless for not counting the days. It's always 29 days
from one start to the next."
"We have no calendar."
"Then make marks on a tree as I do." Belle watched as
the girl drew the garment between her legs. Passing
under the crotch, it acquired an additional reddish-
brown streak. Marie's body was changing, with delicate
pubic hair and mammary growths that promised to rival
Belle's own.
"I don't understand it," Belle groused. "You're not
quite thirteen, but already this is your fourth curse.
I was almost 14 before my first one."
"Sheng-jou said that my plumpness was the cause."
"Maybe so, but it is strange."
"What can I do about it, Belle? We have no rag bag."
"I guess you'll have to go naked and wipe yourself with
those fuzzy leaves."
"For a week? But what about Mr. Higgins?"
"So far he respects our retreat. Even if he does
glimpse you, I think it will be all right if you stay
well away from him. Keep in mind, he's not very tame."
"What will you do when it's <your> turn?"
"That will be in another six days. The same, I
suppose."
Jill came dashing among the trees. "Come see what Jake
has--" She halted suddenly with wide eyes. "Why is
Marie naked?"
"Jake?" Belle demanded incredulously. "You called him
<Jake>?"
Jill retorted righteously, "It's only what he <says> to
call him.
His name is Jacob Higgins."
"You've been talking to him! Jill, you bad girl!" Belle
grimaced with disgust. "I'm tempted to turn you over my
knee."
The youngest backed away by a step or two. She
announced sullenly, "He caught a big fish."
"Now just how could he do that? We have all the fish
hooks."
"He made a spear, like the Hoy-uns taught him."
"<As> the Hoy-uns -- The who?"
"The Hoy-uns, or something like that. He lived on their
island once. Marie, that's blood on your leg." Jill's
eyes widened. "It's fresh! When did he have time to do
that? I've been with him since he caught the fish."
Marie shook her head. "He didn't do it. It's my curse.
'Jake,' huh?"
"Your what?" The youngest sidled closer, stooping. "Oh.
I forgot."
"The curse of Eve," said Belle, hand falling on Jill's
shoulder and pulling her back. "It happens to all of
us. Your turn is coming in a couple years."
"Jake, too?"
"'All of <us>,' I said. "Men don't get it, the lucky
things! God only blamed Eve."
"Why was that, Belle? Adam sinned, too, didn't he?"
"Father said it's because God was more disappointed
with Eve. He expects women to be more righteous."
Despite her question, Jill proved more interested in
the practical issue. "You made a rag bag for Marie on
the ship."
"Yes, but we don't have one here."
Jill nodded confidently. "Jake knows all kinds of
stuff. I'll ask him what you should use."
"You will <not>!" Belle nearly screamed. "You stay away
from him, do you hear me? Don't talk to him about this.
Only women have this problem."
Jill shrugged. "All right," she murmured placatingly.
She took breath and added, "Jake said to tell you that
it's a big fish with plenty for everyone. He had to
take it to his camp where he has a fire to cook it. If
we meet him near it when the sun is there" -- she
pointed to a part of the sky -- "he'll give us warm
fish to eat."
"He has a fire?"
"I guess. I didn't go <that> far away!"
Marie declaimed, "Oh, I am <so> tired of coconuts and
hardtack!"
Belle sighed. "So am I."
"But I'm naked!" Marie added in consternation.
Belle shook her head. "You can't go naked."
"But I want some fish! I can, too! I can stay behind a
tree and you can bring me some."
Jill remarked, "Jake said he could bring some back
here, but it would be cold."
"I want it warm," Marie asserted.
Belle sighed. "All right. But you'll have to stay
behind me."
* * *
Rounding the sand spit, Belle stopped to survey the
rocks piled on the other side of the cove and the
narrow beach extending into its interior, and realized
for the first time how religiously the sisters had
clung to their own campsite. It had been six -- or was
it seven? -- days since the shipwreck, and the impulse
to explore this land had never occurred to any of them.
A feminine caution? Perhaps. If so, it stemmed from the
dread of encountering their wild companion in unsafe
circumstances.
This brought a bitter smile to her lips. Where exactly
<were> they safe, if he should wish to assault them?
She was not so foolish as to suppose that all three
together could prevail against him if he were sober and
determined, except perhaps by means of the pistol whose
box she had opened and immediately reclosed.
Yet here they were, down the beach almost "as far as
they could go," his directions to Jill. Certainly none
of them could pass the rocks on the far side of the
cove.
Jill, who had pressed ahead on the trek, now hung back,
looking to the eldest for guidance.
Belle took a deep breath and directed the naked Marie,
"Get behind me. Jill, help me shield her."
The youngest sidled close and the three girls walked
cautiously along the narrowing beach into the shade of
the hill. Soon they were beyond the crashing surf and
could hear the buzz of insects and the trill of birds
other than the raucous gulls.
Jill was first to see the smoke. She pointed up the
hill. "There he is. Jake!" she called in her shrillest
voice, cupping her mouth with her hands. "Jake, we're
here!"
The man came into view beside puffs of smoke shredded
by the wind.
He smiled widely and plunged down the hill in a few
wide bounds. Shortly he stood on the sand a few yards
before them. His face showed his delight. "You did
come!"
"I told you we're tired of coconuts," said Jill.
"Well, I think the fish is about done. Come on up and
help me eat it."
They all looked at Belle. Without smiling she said to
the man, "Thank you, Mr. Higgins. Will you show us the
way?"
"My pleasure, Miss Meron. If you ladies will follow me,
I've pretty well worn a path this week."
"Ladies!" whispered Jill derisively, glancing at naked
Marie.
Indeed he had worn a path up the hillside. In short
order they reached the flat ledge of rock. They came
first upon a waist-high wall of selected stone,
obviously artificial, extending partly across the front
of the clearing.
"That represents a lot of work," Belle admitted.
"What's its purpose?"
Jake smiled deprecatingly. "I've been adding to it as I
think of it. Perhaps some of you could help. I want to
build it high as my head. It'll keep the strong winds
off us." He pointed behind them, out to sea. "They come
from that direction."
Behind the wall they found a circular hut, built of
bamboo and partly thatched with woven palm fronds. "I
haven't finished this one, but I will in another day.
It's for you ladies to sleep out of the weather." He
pointed to a framework beyond it. "I've started one for
me over there."
Belle licked her lips. It was large enough for the
three of them, and if the woven roof were half-way
water tight it would be a wonderful improvement over no
roof at all... but sleeping only ten yards away from
<him>?
"Come on." He gestured with his head. "Let's try the
fish."
He led them to a spot in the center of the ledge. A
small fire burned nearby, but the man's objective was a
low heap of stones beside it. Protecting his hands with
a folded palm frond, he knelt and removed several
stones from the top, revealing a strip of white flesh
bubbling in its own juices. The fitful breeze could not
entirely dissipate the savory odor of broiled fish meat
that suddenly filled the air.
"You heated the rocks first," Belle remarked with
interest.
"Yes, and it will surprise you how long they stay hot!"
He took up a stick that had been cut just after a
triple branching, obviously his fork, and pointed to
several flat pieces of slate. He smiled. "That's the
best I could do for dinner plates, but they're clean.
Pick up one and let me serve you."
His method, using the forked branch and the huge knife
point together, was to pry a section of backbone and
the associated ribs away from a selected fillet, then
slice the meat itself free before forking it onto the
"plate" of the supplicant.
"If it's not salty enough," he told Jill, who of course
was first, "dip your fingers in that coconut husk and
sprinkle some sea-water on it. I'm afraid you must eat
with your fingers."
A blissful expression appeared on the child's face at
the first mouthful -- before her eyes flew open and her
breath puffed loudly in and out.
"Yes, it's hot," he agreed. "You should blow on it
first. Here, drink this juice."
When Jill was settled, Marie was next. She approached
the impromptu oven shielded by her elder. Belle looked
back to coordinate their kneeling, but with a grunt of
impatience, the drooling adolescent skipped around her
sister and dropped to a squat directly across the oven
from Jake, careless of the brown streaks exposed on her
inner thighs. She extended her slate hopefully.
Jake looked inquiringly at the discomfited Belle. "Did,
ah, something happen to all her clothes?"
The young woman sniffed. "I believe you can see what
the trouble is. But she had to have warm fish."
The man went ahead and filled Marie's plate but said to
her elder, "She needs to do what the wahines do. So
will you."
"The who?"
"The girls of the Hawaiian Islands. They make
disposable skirts out of large leaves, such as palm
fronds, which don't show stains. But if one does get
dirty they just whip up another. I've seen a girl make
a new one in half a minute."
Belle agreed dryly, "I'm sure you have! Do you possess
this skill?"
"Well, I never made a skirt before, but the Hawaiians
taught me how to weave leaves with screw-pine shoots."
He indicated the half-completed roof of the nearby hut.
"Let me serve you this meal and I'll see about making
your sister a skirt."
"My name is Clister Marie," Marie announced around a
mouthful of fish.
When her trademark blush did not appear, he commented,
"I thought you were the shy one."
"I'm not shy," the girl retorted, staring into his
eyes, "and I don't say, 'No.'"
"Marie!" cried her elder. "You certainly do say, 'No!'
Mr. Higgins, I would fancy this part in the middle. Can
you, ah, skip ahead?"
"It's no trouble," he assured her after sparing a
glance at Marie's budding breasts. So this was the one
who had checked on him after the storm?
As she ate, Belle glanced around at Jill and smiled. "I
guess now we know who the 'Hoyuns' are."
"The who?" asked Jake.
"Jill told us you said the 'Hoyuns' taught you to spear
fish."
Jill tossed her head. "I said, 'Or something like
that.'"
"I see." Jake smiled at the child. "She was so excited
at my good luck."
Belle remarked politely, "Captain Norris showed us the
Hawaiian Islands on his charts. You visited them,
perhaps?"
He nodded around his own mouthful of fish. "Yes, about
five years ago. I lived there for six months and
learned a lot about the people of all these islands."
"Are you sure this is an island?"
"Oh, yes. One of the northernmost Marquesas. I found a
note left by the captain that told where the ship
foundered."
"Where are the Marquesas?"
"Just about in the middle of the Pacific Ocean."
"Do you know if they're inhabited?"
"Some of them. An American discovered them but I heard
we let the French have them a few years ago. I guess we
don't want to be bothered. From the way you speak
English I believe you're American."
"I am. And Marie. Jill was born in China. She's both.
How can we contact the French?"
He shrugged. "By going where they are, which will be
one of the larger islands. If we hadn't lost that
sailboat... Miss Meron, of all my sins, letting a
little squall blow that boat away was the worst."
"That's a matter of opinion, sir! What sailboat?"
"The lifeboat you rode ashore was also fitted as a
centerboard sloop. We could have gone <anywhere> in
it!"
He studied her thoughtfully. "One of your sisters, I
now think Marie, came to me after the storm and told me
what I had done." He shook his head. "It made me sick
at heart. How I hated to believe it!"
Her eyes flashed. "You... You claim you don't
<remember>?"
"I do not remember, and I hope this is some consolation
to you."
"Consolation! It makes me furious. How dare you deny
it! You <raped> me, sir. You hurt me and made me
bleed."
He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. "I
don't deny it. I just don't recall it. I can remember
drinking rum and singing that silly song about the
Boston lass, which I'll be first to admit is unfit for
ladies' ears. I can... even remember thinking that I
was like a sheik alone with my harem on an island. But
then it's all blank. Miss Meron, don't you know that
after too much drink a person doesn't remember what he
does? No, of course not. You are too young and too well
raised to have such experience."
She had heard servants talk about this phenomenon, but
that he might be speaking truth infuriated her even
more. Could he forget such harm as that? She gritted
her teeth and suggested, "Feel of the back of your
head."
He started to raise his hand. "You mean the new cut?"
"Yes. One of my sisters struck you with the edge of a
coconut husk while you were doing your worst to me. It
cut the back of your head, in the middle."
He stared at her. "Did that stop me?"
"You rolled off me and lay on your back, unconscious,
for many hours, until the storm came after dark."
He sighed and lowered his head. "Miss Meron, I am...
sorry. I hate it that I have treated you so." He turned
partly away. "I ask you to believe that I hate it as
much as you do."
She snorted in her anger. "How can you say that?"
He sighed again, put down his slate of fish half-eaten,
walked over to the wall and leaned against it, his head
sagging.
Jill, her eyes following him with interest, looked
beyond him and suddenly straightened. "What's that way
out there?" she demanded.
"Out where?" asked Marie.
"There, at the end of the world." She used the Chinese
expression for <horizon>, translated literally to
English.
Even Jake looked up. He jumped fully erect. "My god, a
ship!" he cried, turning with wild eyes toward the
fire. "Quick, bring me green leaves, all you can tear
off!"
Belle took a moment for a single glance. She could make
out tiny white sails, the kind she had always seen at
the tops of masts, hardly more than a dot perched on
the horizon. She hurried to gather leaves, as directed,
and brought them with her sisters to Jake beside the
fire. He was fanning the fire while raking in dead
grass along with the dry leaves that had collected on
the forest floor.
"Throw yours on a few at the time," he ordered. "We
want to make a lot of smoke. Just don't smother the
fire."
Together they worked until the clearing was choked with
gray clouds despite the fitful breeze. His shirt was
soaked with sweat and spotted with soot when he raised
both hands toward the girls at last and declared
between gasps for breath, "There! If that doesn't do
it, nothing will."
They all ran to the wall while their smoke streamed
into the sky above them. The distant ship had moved
through a noticeable angle. Reluctantly Jake had to
admit to himself that the sails were smaller. The
second to'gallant spar that had been barely visible
before was now sunk below the curve of the Earth.
They watched for a long time. Finally Marie said
sorrowfully, "It's not coming back for us, is it?"
Jake sighed and shook his head. "No, my dear, she is
not. If a lookout is even aloft, he won't see our smoke
now unless he's looking for it... Oh, god, I've done it
again! I took my eyes off the sea too long and never
saw her until she was already pulling away."
With another sigh he turned back to the fire and
removed the worst smoldering leaves to the bare ledge
to die out. When he raised up, he found Belle waiting
for him.
"At least, Mr. Higgins, this should give us hope. If
one ship came by, surely another will follow."
Slowly he nodded. "Thank you. That is about the best
face we can put on it."
"Mr. Higgins, if... if that ship had returned, wouldn't
you be placed in danger?"
He regarded her curiously. "What danger?"
"You yourself said that you might hang for... for what
you did to me."
He straightened with a sigh. "I guess that would depend
on you and your sisters, Miss Meron."
"The fish tastes good," said Marie with relish,
arriving with the last of her serving in hand and
mouth. "Jake, were you going to make me a skirt?"
* * *
Marie was thrilled with her new vegetable attire and
pranced about the clearing, causing the skirt to sway
and to open and close seductively about her shapely
legs. Jill watched only briefly with gaping mouth
before predictable words issued from it.
"I want one, too!" The youngest jumped from one foot to
the other in excitement. Jake smiled at her and within
minutes she was clad in a skirt of leaves, having
exhibited no hesitation at all in doffing the
petticoat, now no longer white.
The chests of both girls were left naked. Belle drew a
long breath, regarding them with ill-concealed horror.
How indecent for her sisters to be so displayed in the
presence of a man! It's just another step in the
descent toward savagery, she groused to herself,
although with a sigh she did accept the fact of it. At
least Marie's bottom was now concealed -- most of the
time.
She admitted that they looked quite fetching in their
new garb. The bright green skirt contrasted pleasantly
with their pale torsos. Jill's flat chest was adorned
with roseate nipples only slightly swollen, suggesting
what was to come within a year or so. Marie's small
breasts, not yet half formed, were soft cones of flesh,
too immature to jiggle, much less sag. Yes, the girls
were indeed lovely, she concluded, in their half naked,
savage state. But she resented Higgin's undisguised
ogling.
"Need you stare so?" she demanded angrily as they stood
apart from the girls who frolicked together a few yards
away.
"It is an innocent look upon an equally innocent sight,
Miss Meron," the man replied with a new confidence, now
that the girls had joined him on the ledge. After all,
<he> had not been the one to fetch Marie here naked!
"May I weave a skirt for you?" He almost smirked.
"You presume too much, Mr. Higgins," Belle responded
with a venomous hiss of such intensity that the man was
taken aback.
"In the islands," he said quickly, reassuming a
penitent tone, "the display of breasts is not
considered obscene."
"That may be, but we are only transients on this
island, sir, and while we must accommodate ourselves to
the circumstances, my sisters and I shall not revert to
savagery." Belle was seething.
"Yes, of course, ma'am," he hurried to agree,
addressing the young woman as if she were an imperious
aunt.
"Mr. Higgins," Belle continued in the same tone,
looking sternly into Jake's well-worn face, "it is
unacceptable for you to build your shelter up here on
the ledge so close to ours. I would prefer it down
nearer the beach."
Jake lacked the credible authority to protest her
decision, and so he just nodded. Belle noted with a
measure of satisfaction that his face had lost its aura
of pleasure.
"We'll move in tomorrow," she announced, "if you'll
finish our roof. Will that be today, sir?"
"Yes'm," Jake mumbled. "But won't you ladies please
have some more fish?"
Belle shepherded her sisters again to the fire,
gratified by Higgins ready submission, but wondering
how long it would last.
CHAPTER 5
Cross-currents
--------------
A week passed and then another. Belle came to dread the
morning, the return from slumber, because the day
promised nothing. Each was like the one before, equal
in the squalidness that she had to endure. She had no
chair to sit on, no books to read, no one even to talk
with whose ideas had not already been expressed many
times, except perhaps the man, and Belle was queasy of
<his> ideas. As for music the girls had begun to sing
naughty ditties taught by Higgins, who seemed ominously
to be always near them.
"The Boston lass has learned the knack
"Of catching doodles in her crack.
"Though easy to flee from her hot pen,
"It has to be hard to first get in."
Jill's piping voice: "Is that a riddle, Jake?"
She was weary, very weary of her life, and she
despaired of ever leaving the island. She worried about
the girls, about Higgins, who though tame at the moment
had proven himself capable of excess, but mostly about
Higgins and the girls. She awakened each morning with
hope, only to find that it was reality which had become
the horrible nightmare.
The girls seemed happy enough, however, playing all day
at the beach and in the trees, fully tanned now and
bare breasted as savages, with Higgins always about,
playing with them, often caressing their arms,
shoulders and buttocks in a presumably fatherly manner,
to the neglect of his work on their camp. To her the
odious man seemed a wild cat stalking small game; he
was deciding which of her sisters was more vulnerable
to his lust.
She had not bathed in days. Her garment was soiled with
the stain of her curse, and her hair was a tangle. At
least Higgins had cut short the hair of the girls,
using his huge knife. They were children and trusted
the hand that fed them not to harm them, reminding her
of the puppies she had fed tenderly in Hanchow. But she
knew better. She had vehemently refused Higgins'
gesture toward her own head.
* * *
"Higgins," Belle called to the man one morning as he
played with Jill and Marie next to the hut on the
ledge. "Higgins, when are you going to fix the roof so
that it doesn't leak? When will we have benches to sit
upon and perhaps a table?"
"I'll get to it soon enough, Belle," he replied
flippantly, deliberately using her first name without
invitation.
"Man, are you expecting a rescue?" she shrieked
suddenly, causing the two girls to look up in concern
at their elder sister. "Should we pile our meager goods
on the beach to await the coming of a ship?"
Jake sniffed disdainfully, shrugged and turned away
from the distraught young woman, but Marie rose to her
feet, went over and embraced her sister lovingly.
She looked back and admonished in a voice no longer
shy, "Yes, Jake, we must assume that we'll be here for
a long while. We have to make this place decent to live
in."
"I'll help," Jill offered in her little girl voice.
"Let's do it then," Marie responded, incongruously a
leader, if only for an instant. "Belle, go bathe and
wash your petticoat while we fix up our house."
Belle felt a spark of hope. At least it was not Higgins
giving the orders. She rose from the ground where she
had leaned against a rock and went down the path to the
beach. She removed her petticoat before plunging into
the sea, almost calm this morning.
She would soon be sixteen years old -- in the same week
that Jill would turn eleven, a date that she had
misplaced in their troubles and which was possibly
already gone. She splashed knee high in the sea and
rubbed her maturing body clean. The water was
refreshing, rejuvenating and she felt again gay as a
teenager should be.
She stooped and submerged her head in the cool water,
staying under until she needed to breath. She moved
deeper into the ocean until gentle swells struck her
neck and bounced her feet from the sandy bottom.
Looking back at the ledge above the cove she could make
out Higgins -- Jake -- working on the roof of her shack
at last. The sight pleased her and she grasped her
breasts, a generous handful each, and squeezed them,
causing a tingle between her legs. It was the perfect
time to do it, she said to herself, the most perfect
time. Belle allowed herself to cry aloud without
inhibition as her finger brought forth a tremendous
pleasure. Only the gulls in the sky above could hear
her, and they didn't care.
It was sufficient, that orgasm, to bring the young
woman back to her senses. She stooped again under the
water and then jumped up high with her lovely arms
above her head. She was almost young once more --
except for what that <Jake> had done to her! Well, if
she had to be so adult... In a fit of naughtiness,
driven by curiosity, she inserted first two fingers,
then three into her vagina, accommodating them with
ease and more importantly without pain. She would like
to feel something more interesting there, but Jake was
the only man about.
Belle scrubbed her petticoat near the sea shore and
then sauntered confidently up the beach to the small
fall of fresh water that emptied onto the sand. Above
her the man paused in his frond tying. She knew that he
was looking down at her nakedness, and her reaction to
that knowledge surprised herself. She walked slower and
thrust out her chest. She rinsed the salt off body and
garment in the chill spray of the fall, then stepped
back almost out of breath from the shock of it.
But the petticoat did not conceal her as she meant. It
was wet and clung to her breasts, her stomach, hips and
upper thighs. The shape of her was obvious. She set her
chin and ascended the path to the ledge nevertheless.
"Higgins," she called out to the man on the roof, who
gaped down at her with a slack mouth, "how's it going
with the thatch?"
He mumbled something which she did not bother to hear.
What she wanted from him was the unconcealed longing on
his face as his eyes raked her figure. Carefully she
avoided naming what she felt in response as she turned
away to pull down a banana.
* * *
The four of them worked together on the small structure
until it was decent, given the circumstances. Belle
continued to flaunt her body, letting him see her naked
from a distance or "forgetting" to lace closed the
upper part of her petticoat, tormenting the man she
despised but the only man available. He was three times
her age, hardly taller than she, with a body scrawny
although wiry and tough. His face was worn by time and
excess. But when she thought of his penis, of which she
knew the gauge, her body trembled. She gave her head a
sharp jerk to remind herself that she was still a
civilized, proper young woman.
Belle recovered from her depression once the hut was
finished. Jill and Marie came back to her, somehow
knowing how she needed them as they had once depended
upon her. For a few days Higgins was left out of their
doings, and they began again to speak Chinese among
themselves in his presence. No one mentioned Father's
prohibition.
One afternoon a blood-curdling scream rang through the
clearing. Belle, dozing in the shade of the hut, sprang
wide-eyed out the opening. She heard pounding footsteps
as Higgins raced up the path to the ledge. Behind him
came Jill. Where was Marie?
The scream sounded again, from the trees off to the
right.
"Marie's in trouble," she called to the approaching
man, and dashed through the underbrush toward the cry.
She pulled up short in the little clearing containing
the trench Jake had dug for the girls to relieve
themselves. Marie stood backed against the boulder
behind the hole, on the lip of which lay coiled a black
snake, its fat body circled with thin yellow bands, the
inflated head weaving before the girl in an S-curve.
Marie, flattened against the rock, threw back her head
and screamed again.
The man arrived, puffing for breath, and briefly
examined the scene. He grinned at Belle. "They've
trapped each other."
"Well, <do> something!"
He nodded, leaned across the narrow trench and caught
the reptile's neck just behind the head with one
accurate swipe of his hand. When he raised the hand,
curiously the animal seemed to relax so that its body
hung straight down into the hole.
Belle dashed around him and caught her sister up in her
arms. Marie hugged the elder and burst into sobs
against her shoulder. Belle turned to regard Jake.
"Kill it!" she ordered, eyes glinting.
His eyebrows rose. "But it's only a mangrove snake,
hardly even venomous, and it eats scorpions, which can
kill <you>."
"Then what will you do with it? Turn it loose to bite
one of us later -- as I did with you?"
The young woman's expression was fierce, her tone
contemptuous. The man shrugged. "Have it your way." He
drew the long knife from his belt, decapitated the
snake against the boulder, and threw the now writhing
body into the underbrush.
Marie freed herself from Belle's embrace and snuggled
against the man instead. "Thank you, Jake, thank you,"
she murmured. "You saved my life."
"Hardly that," he replied reassuringly, his arm
stealing around her. He looked inquiringly at Belle,
who turned away.
Jill regarded her from the path. "Did Jake really catch
the snake with his bare hand?" Her voice was expressive
of purest awe.
Belle bit back the retort that formed on her lips, to
the effect that one snake might readily catch another,
and pushed past the youngest. Behind her she heard Jill
declare breathlessly, "Jake, you must be the bravest
man in the world!"
Belle awoke late on the next morning and found the
girls gone. A quick survey disclosed them down on the
beach playing with Higgins. Both were naked. Even the
leaf skirts were becoming too much trouble. She sighed,
thinking she really must take them to task about that.
At least the man wore his tattered uniform britches,
though he had long since left off his shirt. The hair
on his chest was beginning to gray in the manner of his
beard and was nearly as thick.
Even at this distance she could see Marie flaunt her
immature body at the old man, sidling up to him in the
shallow water near the shore, rubbing her hand, then
her chest, across his bare back. Belle watched for a
long while but she never saw Jake respond to the
obvious invitations. He seemed to be more inclined to
favor little Jill, whose golden head did not reach his
shoulders, who was too innocent to know about flaunting
one's body, or so Belle thought -- though one could
never be sure about Jill.
Perhaps she should join their games herself and deflect
Jake's attention from her younger sisters. But what if
he overreacted?
Now was a good time to do something she had been
planning. In the hut, under her mattress that was a
litter of leaves covered by abandoned clothing, she had
hidden the pistol box. It had been saved along with
most of the other articles Higgins had left on the
beach when his mind had turned to rape. By now all the
rest had been shared with the man. She thought it was
curious that he had never asked about the pistol.
A last look down to the beach revealed the others
carousing in the relatively quiet waters of the cove.
Jill was perched on the man's shoulders while Marie
seemed intent on pulling her off. Belle resolutely put
from her mind the thought of so much naked flesh in
contact, went into the hut and retrieved the box from
her bedding. When she pried it open with her too-long
fingernails, the well-oiled pistol gleamed evilly at
her.
A year ago, with his wife dead, her father in sudden
resolution had shown her how to load the pistol he kept
in his bedside drawer, a breech-loader with ball, paper
cartridge and percussion cap, and even allowed her to
fire it a few times for familiarization. This one was
different, larger and heavier, a revolving repeater
made by the Colts Firearms Company, but it operated on
principles identical with her father's single-shot.
It was loaded. She proceeded to unload it, noting the
location of the parts of each load removed. Its hammer
had to be manually cocked, just like Father's, except
that the action of cocking it rotated the revolving
cylinder to place another ball-cartridge-cap
combination in line with the barrel. How marvelous! It
would shoot five times without reloading.
Carefully she restored the five loads to the weapon,
noting that the box contained spares adequate for three
full reloads. She knew how to use it and felt confident
of defending herself and her sisters against an animal,
though from the wild results of her previous shooting
she doubted that she could save Marie from a snake
without harming the child.
But <how> to use it was not the question. Could she
deliberately harm a man? More to the point, could she
shoot Jacob Higgins even to save one of her sisters?
* * *
The rising sun usually woke Jake from the hammock he
had woven of screw-pine runners and slung between two
palms on the edge of the beach. But not today. He
opened his eyes to the gray light of a solidly overcast
sky. Everything was motionless. The palm fronds hung
listlessly above him in the still air. Only the
relentless surf moved, thudding and splashing on the
strand. He had no way of knowing how much farther past
dawn he had slept than usual, except that the pressure
in his bladder could not be ignored.
He got down and strolled out on the beach to survey his
world. Though naked, he had not wandered far from the
spear and long knife still in the hammock. All colors
were muted. The clouds were an even dark gray, not a
storm portent, just bad sailing weather. He smiled
grimly as he lifted penis to make water well away from
his feet. At least he had no sailing to do. The other
problem with windless days was the biting flies, but
they had yet to realize their opportunity.
"Let me guide it," suggested a girlish voice. "I know
how."
He turned quickly to see Marie nearly upon him, also
naked. Her tanned skin was dark as a wahine's in this
light.
"What do you mean?" he asked her.
She slipped behind him and pressed against his left
hip. Her hand covered his own on the flaccid manhood.
"Let me do it," she said again.
With a shrug Jake left her a clear field. She grasped
the organ behind the glans, withdrawing the foreskin
and directed the stream up and down. As is common in
men who have just held their water for many hours, his
flow was thin but enduring. She described rounded block
letters, joined together at the bases, before the
stream became a useless dribble.
"C M M," he read. "What does it mean?"
"Clister Marie Meron, my initials," she responded in
her clear soprano, grinning up at him. Her fingers
gripped him and began to slide the skin back and forth.
He caught her wrist in his hand. "Your sister would
slip her hawser if she saw us."
"What does that mean?" asked the girl, flexing her
wrist to manipulate him despite his hold. He could feel
tendons working in the small arm -- and a tightening in
his groin.
"If a ship slips its hawser -- in a storm, say -- it's
out of control. Better quit that, honey."
"I can feel it growing," she noted. "Belle's still
asleep."
It required an act of will to pull her hand away from
him, but at last he managed it. He took a shaky breath.
His organ stood straight out.
"Ooo, it's so big!" the girl breathed with wide eyes.
He grunted. "As if you never saw it hard before!"
"Only the time you put it into Belle. It was her first
time, you know. No wonder it hurt her!"
He sighed and shook his head. "I'd give anything if I
hadn't done that."
"Why did you?"
He threw out his hands. "Because I was drunk. I didn't
really know what I was doing."
Marie cocked her head at him thoughtfully. She stood
with one hand on a hip. In the windless air he could
smell her: a tantalizing hint of spice. This was very
nearly a woman, he realized: respectable tits even if
the nipples were yet tiny, along with a small tuft of
pubic hair. She had already bled at least once to his
certain knowledge.
"Is that what it takes?" she asked.
"For what?"
"Do you have to be drunk to put your thing into one of
us?"
"Wh-what?"
Her lip curled. "Wu Fong didn't need any rum. Why do
you?"
"I don't... You girls are..." His voice died in
confusion.
Did she truly want fucking?
"Huh!" she sneered, pivoting on her heel and running
lightly out of sight toward the cove.
* * *
Jake used a large slab of slate discovered earlier to
construct an impromptu griddle over the fire. He
patiently dribbled sea water over the hot slab while
the fire raged under it.
This was new and Jill was curious. She cocked her head
at the hissing dribbles, each of which dried quickly,
leaving a white ring, and asked, "Why are you trying to
cool it and heat it at the same time?"
"I'm not. This sea water leaves salt on the slate. Eggs
are no good without salt."
"Eggs! Do we have eggs?"
"Yes, my poodle. I found a cache of turtle eggs laid
just last night."
"Turtle eggs? Are they any good?"
"The best eggs in the world. You'll find out."
"Did you see the mother turtle lay them?"
"No. She covered them up but she was careless even so.
She didn't hide her tracks up from the water, which
were new since yesterday."
"Did you find enough for everybody?"
"Oh, yes: nearly two dozen. Damn!" The fire spat an
ember onto his thigh. He brushed it quickly off his
britches but the spot was smoking. He unfastened the
waistband and nearly ripped the garment from his body,
cursing the while. He bent and threw water onto the
source of the smoke, then inspected his leg.
The girl bent also. "Did it burn you?"
"No. But it would have." He put his hand into the
britches leg and pushed a finger through the new hole.
"If this keeps on," he groused, "pretty soon I'll be
naked as you."
"You <are> naked as me!"
He shook his head, turning his genitals away from her.
"I'm sorry, poodle. I don't mean to worry you."
"Worry me? I don't mind it. Why do you have to wear
britches all the time anyway?"
"It's... just better if I do," he answered after a
moment's pause, spreading the garment's waist before
stepping into it.
"I don't know why you think so. I like to see your
<klung> jiggle."
"You shouldn't notice such things. Especially you
shouldn't talk about them." He refastened the
waistband. "I don't mention how your crack ripples."
"Ripples? It ripples like water?"
"No, not like water. I guess a better word is 'flexes.'
Like a sail when the ship comes about."
"Like what?"
"When you walk, the sides stretch different. It's easy
to see from behind. Can't you feel it?"
Both the child's hands darted between her legs. She
looked up into the man's eyes. "Show me what it does."
He grinned and shook his head. "All you have to do is
walk."
She turned away and stumbled across the clearing, hands
pressed to her labia. At that moment Belle emerged,
stretching, from the hut, wearing her customary
tattered petticoat. Her eyes widened at sight of Jill.
"What's wrong, honey? Are you hurt?" She swung glinting
eyes toward the man.
The girl answered in Chinese without swerving from her
path. The eldest responded in the same language. They
conducted a short dialog consisting of obvious demands
from Belle and ever shorter answers from the child, who
turned suddenly and slunk past her sister into the hut.
Belle approached the man. "Higgins, did you tell my
sister that her vaginal lips <twist>?"
He stared at her, his mouth working. At last he
admitted, "When she walks. It's only the truth."
The young woman took a deep breath. Her eyes flashed.
"Can't you discuss something else with her?"
He drew breath also. "We did: turtle eggs."
"Turtle... eggs?"
"I found some. That's what I'm doing: getting ready to
fry them. We'll have a feast for supper."
Belle stared at him and visibly swallowed. When she
spoke, her voice was less harsh. "I'm so tired of
coconut and bananas!"
He dropped his eyes. "I've not had much luck with fish
lately. But I think you'll like these eggs. The
Hawaiians taught me how to cook them... And I'm about
ready to start. Why don't you call your sisters, Miss
Meron?"
The feast was a culinary success. Jake also grilled
sliced breadfruit for them to use as edible plates. All
the eggs were eaten, washed down with coconut milk and
fresh water from the cut in the rocks.
Distant clouds were crimson from the sun setting behind
the hill when Jake leaned his elbows upon the
unfinished storm wall beside Belle, who was staring out
to the sea's knife-edged horizon.
"Any ships?" he asked jocularly.
"No, more's the pity."
"Are you so anxious to leave our little paradise, Miss.
Meron?"
"Oh, god, if we could only leave!"
He sighed and mumbled glumly, "I'm sorry, ma'am."
She turned to regard him. "Please don't think me
ungrateful for all you have done, Mr. Higgins. I'm
aware that you have saved our lives many times over. We
couldn't live here without you. This delicious meal was
a strong reminder. I'm grateful also to the Hawaiians
who taught you."
"They are friendly people," he noted, smiling in
pleasure at her words, the warmest she had ever
directed to him.
"They must have been, to teach you so well."
"I owe most of it to their women."
"Their women?"
"They were the friendly ones. They cotton to a stranger
right off."
"I see." Her face hardened. "Did they teach you to
expect that from all women?"
"Well, no. I know better than that."
"Is that why you expected me to enjoy your attentions,
Mr. Higgins?"
He sighed. "Miss. Meron, I am very sorry about that.
I've told your sisters how I wished many times it never
happened."
"Especially since you can't remember it anyway!" A red
spot appeared suddenly on both her cheeks.
He dropped his eyes and suggested softly, "I think it
would be worse if I could remember it."
"Oh, no!" She laughed bitterly. "Then you could compare
me to your friendly Hawaiian women."
He gaped at her. "Would you like <that>?"
She turned her gaze back to the ocean, her lips forming
a thin line.
"Miss Meron, I... uh..."
"You have already apologized. What more is there to
say?"
He took a breath. "A lot, actually. May I understand
that you enjoyed the eggs?"
"Yes, thank you."
"I'm glad you did. Eating is a simple pleasure, isn't
it? But all we have now are simple pleasures. Would
you..."
"Would I what?"
"We could give each other a great deal of pleasure,
Miss Meron."
She did not look at him. "What are you suggesting, Mr.
Higgins?"
"You..." His voice softened almost to inaudibility.
"You are a very desirable woman."
She kept her eyes turned away. Her voice was bitter.
"And you might as well be the only man in the world."
He grunted. "A poor choice, is it?"
"<No> choice!"
"There's always the choice between 'yes' and 'no.'"
Her lip curled. "Haven't you already denied me that
one?"
"Perhaps I did once, Miss Meron." He shook his head.
"But you must have noticed: now I can deny you
nothing."
She turned at last to study his face.
He cleared his throat and took a deep breath. "I've
been thinking. I've stuck close to camp because... you
ladies might need protection, but we need to find out
where we are and what's here with us. I want to explore
this island but I want to take all of you with me. If
it doesn't rain tomorrow, I propose to climb our hill
to the top and look around. Will you come with me?"
The young woman nodded slowly. "Yes, Mr. Higgins. We'll
come."
* * *
The girls each wore a petticoat. The hill presented few
challenges to climb, but the often steep slope was
heavily wooded, reducing the reliable breeze to an
occasional flutter. Soon the two youngest were naked,
their petticoats left to adorn bushes for retrieval on
the return path. Belle pressed doggedly on, using the
hem of hers to wipe perspiration from her brow whenever
she thought the man's attention was otherwise engaged.
"Why don't you just take it off?" Jill asked. "Jake
won't mind, would you, Jake?"
Smiling, the man looked away.
Jill added, "She would if you would, too, Jake." He was
even wearing his armless shirt.
"That's enough!" barked Belle.
Jake suggested deferentially, "There's no reason for
you to be uncomfortable, Miss. Meron."
Belle's retort was acid. "Isn't there, Mr. Higgins?"
Eventually the trees died away to low brush. The two
youngest pushed through the tangle and arrived first at
the crest. The other two were right behind them.
It was apparent that they occupied the north-eastern
half of a pair of islands with a narrow channel between
them. From the pinnacle they could see the strip of
white sand that encircled their own islet except
directly behind them, where oddly the slope was
steepest.
Jill asked, "Is that really another island?"
"Yes, my poodle. About the same size as this one."
"What's wrong with its beaches?"
"She's right!" exclaimed Belle. "They're black! How can
that be, Mr. Higgins?"
"Not really black. Seen close to your eyes, the sand's
a mixture. It's caused by the kind of rock in that
hill. I've seen the same in Hawaii."
"The devil's work!" Belle declared.
"Perhaps you would know." Something in his voice caused
her to regard him suspiciously. He was grinning at her.
She smiled also. "Do you think I have his acquaintance,
Mr. Higgins?"
"No, but I wish I did. If so I would offer him a
bargain."
"Is your soul so unusual?"
He shook his head. "Whatever it's worth in exchange for
wafting you wherever you want to go."
"Mr. Higgins!"
Marie pointed. "Look! A ship!"
Everyone spun about to gaze as she had directed. The
sails in the north appeared similar to the last they
had seen: only the topmost. The ship's hull and mains
were well down below the curve of the Earth.
"Is it coming toward us?" Belle asked anxiously.
"No. She's moving to the east," the man stated.
"How can you be sure?"
"Because of the spread between the masts. If her path
was in line with us, the masts would be together."
"You have good eyes," Belle admitted.
"A sailor needs good eyes."
They watched it for a long while. Jake proved correct.
"What's wrong with that cloud?" asked Marie. Now she
was looking south. When the others turned, she pointed
to a small cloud low on the horizon. "All the others
are moving except that one."
"That's not just a cloud," answered Jake. "See the dark
smudge underneath it? That's the next island of the
Marquesas."
"How far away is it?"
He shrugged. "That's probably a hilltop like this one.
It could be as much as 30 miles."
"What's the name of our island?" asked Jill.
"I think this is the northern-most one. I'm sure I've
seen its name on charts but I don't remember it. The
Pacific has too many islands."
Belle sighed. "Now we know."
"Know what?" asked Jill.
"That we're stuck here. These islands are too small.
People will never come." Tears welled in her eyes,
overflowed her eyelashes and ran down her cheeks.
Marie came to her and incongruously gathered the larger
girl into her arms. "Remember, Belle, at least we're
alive. Out of all the people on the ship, we and Jake
are still alive. We can still laugh and cry. They
can't. That ought to tell you something. As long as
you're still alive, you should never give up hope."
CHAPTER 6
Marie's Success
---------------
Jake had located a passage around and behind the jagged
rocks that formed the south wall of the cove, leading
without difficulty down to the southern beach. He had
walked that beach, very like the eastern one except for
easier surf, as far as the narrowest part of the
channel separating theirs from the adjacent island,
about 300 yards wide at low tide. He had pitched a
coconut hull into the choppy water, hoping to determine
the presence of any current that would make swimming it
hazardous, but with uncertain results. Thereafter he
made it his practice to patrol this beach, too, every
two or three days.
Returning one afternoon from such a patrol he came upon
Marie, sitting naked in the shade of a palm bole. "What
are you doing here?" he demanded. "What if you run
across another snake?"
"I'll scream for you."
"Did Miss Belle send you?"
"No, Jake. No one sent me." She stood up beside him,
yawned and stretched with lifted breasts. "I almost
fell asleep waiting for you."
His eyes were on her tiny pink nipples. She smiled and
pinched one between finger and thumb. "It's about the
same size as yours," she observed.
"As <mine>?" He gaped at her.
"I mean the nipple," she retorted impatiently. "Why do
men have them at all? They don't suckle babies, do
they?"
"No. There's an expression: 'Useless as tits on a
boar.' In case you don't know, a boar is a male pig. It
applies to men, too."
"Then why do they have them?"
He grinned. "God's mistake. He didn't notice what was
hanging below. You want to talk about God? They say He
made women second. I claim that tits on a man proves He
made women first."
But theology did not presently interest her. She
smiled. "<I> would notice what was hanging below! Why
do you wear your britches when you come down here? No
one can see you."
He chuckled. "You want me to take them off?"
"Sure. I want to hold it again."
He shook his head and resumed walking toward the rocks,
from this perspective a barrier extending into the sea
with no suggestion of the hospitable cove behind it.
The girl hurried to walk beside him. Even the smoke
from the well-maintained camp fire was invisible from
here, dispersed by the breeze, which suggested a poor
likelihood that passing ships might notice it -- a
thought that he kept to himself.
"Don't you have to pee?" she asked.
He grunted. "Talk about mistakes! It was <my> mistake
to let you hold it before."
"Why do you call it a mistake? It was fun, and I know
you liked it. It feels good when it swells up, doesn't
it?"
"Oh, yeah? What do you know about that?"
"Wu Fong told me."
"You've mentioned him before. He was your father's
houseboy in China?"
"Yes."
"Played 'Show Me' with him, did you?"
She looked away, after a moment turning back. "I don't
understand, Jake. You're a man. Isn't a man supposed to
put his thing into a girl's... What do you call it? The
Boston lass calls it a 'crack.' Is that the right name
for it?"
Pleased by the change of subject, however slight, Jake
asked, "Well, what do <you> call it?"
She uttered a word of Chinese.
He shook his head. "You don't know the English for it,
do you?"
"We weren't allowed to talk about such things in
English. Will you teach me, Jake?"
"The names of the private parts?" He chuckled. "Imagine
this: Schoolmarm Jake. All right. Just don't tell your
sister."
He began a lecture on the subject but immediately ran
into difficulties over the male parts. She insisted on
being <shown>. When he had finally agreed to that and
proceeded onward with his britches draped over one arm,
she jumped in front of him and took the named objects
in both her hands at once.
"All right," he said, submitting with a gasp when she
grew vigorous, "but it's only fair I should point out
<your> parts!"
Nothing loathe, she laid herself down on the sand
before him and spread her legs so far apart that he
heard her hips creak. Her hands stretched the labia.
"Go ahead," she invited. "What's the part in the middle
that tingles?"
He knelt before her. "Is it tingling now?"
"Touch it and let me see."
Tentatively he put a fingertip against the well-formed
lump. She quivered. "I guess it is," he noted dryly.
"What's it called?"
"The clit, or clitoris. Some people say the 'love
button.'"
"And below that?"
He took a deep breath, staring at her. "Marie, do you
have any idea what you're doing?"
"I know. What do you call my hole?"
"Pussy, cunt, vagina... Marie, god damn it..."
She rose to a sitting position. Her hand caught his
painfully hard manhood. "I know that's where this goes,
Jake."
He twisted out of her hand and backed away to his feet.
They stared at each other. She sat on the soft sand
with her legs wide apart, her hand still extended
toward the fat penis. "It's really stiff," she
breathed.
He took a very deep breath and let it out. He grasped
her hand in his and pulled her easily to her feet.
"Marie, we've got to get going."
"Where?" Suddenly she pulled herself to him, her
breasts against his chest, her belly depressing his
penis so that the glans rested shockingly in the Y of
her thighs. She was only half a head the shorter.
He took her by the shoulders and set her back at arms'
length. "No!" he declared into her face. "I spoiled one
of you. Wasn't that hateful enough?"
He released her and side-stepped, almost running in his
haste toward the rocks. She turned and stood watching
him thoughtfully. When he was 50 yards away, he stopped
long enough to step back into his britches.
"Now I see," she mused incredulously. "It's not the
lack of rum.
He feels <guilty>!"
* * *
When Jake completed his morning swim and splashed out
of the surf, he was re-invigorated, ready to work again
on moving rock to the storm wall, whose lack of
progress had been nagging at him. It must definitely be
August by now, he thought, possibly even September. So
far they had experienced no storm at all like the one
that killed Fleeting Star, only one or two rain squalls
every few days, but another was certain to come.
But turning toward his britches where he had left them
above the strand, he found Marie sitting beside them.
As he approached she stared without shame at his
genitals. Feeling whimsical, he stopped just before the
pubescent temptress and thrust his hips forward.
"There! Is that what you want?"
She looked up to his face at last. Her eyes were
thoughtful. "Yes, but you won't give it to me."
He chuckled. "That depends on what you want it for."
"You <know> that!"
"It has a lot of uses."
She grunted. "I know of two: one for you and one for
me."
"Only two? Did you ever see a cow?"
"Of course. We had one in our garden. She had a calf
every fall."
"Sometimes a woman will play calf."
Her eyes, again at his groin, widened slightly. "Look!
It's getting fatter."
"If you wanted to play calf..."
She grinned crookedly. "You'd let me use it for that,
would you?"
"I was about to say, you might even get some milk."
Instead of the incredulity he expected, her reaction
was to rise on her knees and capture the entire
swelling head in her mouth. He twitched back in
automatic reflex but the compression of her lips, with
an ominous touch of teeth and the rasp of tongue, held
him before her.
He raised his eyes to scan the tree line guiltily --
and twitched again. A hundred yards down the beach
Jill, golden hair nearly white from exposure to the
sun, was rounding the curve from the cove.
"Here comes your little sister," he murmured
reluctantly.
Marie's answer was to cup a testicle in either hand.
She had managed somehow to work half the swollen shaft
past her lips. He worried that she might choke.
He sighed deeply. "Marie, you have to quit or Jill will
see you."
The girl's shoulders lifted in an expressive shrug. He
had to take her head in both hands and force it away,
breaking her suction with a distinct plop. "God!" he
exclaimed with a shiver.
She licked her lips. "Jill would like to watch, you
know."
"Probably," he agreed dryly, "then she would insist on
taking a turn."
Marie grinned. "Would you mind that?"
He stepped around her and took up his britches. "You've
sucked cock before, haven't you?"
The girl's eyes were unblinking on his. "And I will
again."
"Who was it -- your Chinese houseboy?"
She smiled slowly. "Yours is salty, Jake."
"It just came out of a salty sea."
"But I like it. It's so smooth and so big -- a real
mouthful!"
"I can't believe this." He shook his head as he
fastened his waistband. "To think of it in your little
mouth!"
She opened her mouth wide, a woman's mouth, and wiggled
her long tongue at him. "Is it so little, Jake?"
Jill ran up to them. She laughed breathlessly as she
stuck out her tongue. "Are we making faces for Jake?"
* * *
Marie lay on her pallet of fronds in the night, gauging
the wakefulness of her sisters. A full moon, its pearly
light slanting through the doorway whose thatched
screen had been removed for the sake of the breeze,
illuminated much of the crude hut's interior. Jill lay
on her pallet, spread wide as was her wont, hand at a
hairless groin, mouth agape in deep asleep. She had
openly masturbated without embarrassment after the
three of them settled in for the night. She had begun
touching herself like that on the ship, but Belle had
never once admonished her. In a way that was strange.
Though Belle was determined that they should always be
"proper," Marie realized she hadn't heard that word in
some time.
Marie had once awakened to find proper Belle pleasing
herself improperly in the cabin on the ship. The
eldest, believing her two companions to be asleep,
carried on under agitated bedclothes with her groans
and grunts for some time, longer than Marie had ever
done herself. But both sisters were awake. Jill had
looked at Marie, just inches away, with wide eyes and a
knowing grin.
Marie had always made certain that her sisters were
indeed asleep before she touched herself. At such times
it helped to think of Wu Fong on top of her, filling
her up and delivering more pleasure than she could ever
obtain by herself. Now she lay upon her pallet,
dreaming of her lost lover and rubbing herself gently,
but withholding her release. Tonight she wanted more.
She wanted the real thing once again. She looked over
at Belle who was curled on her side with a thumb in her
mouth snoring slightly, deeply asleep.
Tonight Marie would proceed without fear of
interruption. All she need do tonight was convince the
man, and she thought now, after the experience on the
beach this morning, she knew how to do it. She got up
quietly, careful not to make the dried leaves in her
pallet rustle louder than the breeze in the roof, and
tip-toed out of the hut.
In the full light of the moon she felt empowered,
exuberant, free of all inhibition. The man would take
her despite his guilt about Belle, because he was,
after all, just a man who could not prevent his manhood
from swelling to fill a woman. She strolled naked down
the path to the beach.
* * *
Jake awoke unwillingly to a shove against his shoulder.
He blinked open his eyes and was startled to see a
naked girl looming over him. He recognized her.
"Marie?"
"Yes," she replied, standing with her legs apart and
hands on her hips, looking down at him. "What happened
to your hammock?"
"The vine rotted and dumped me on my ass," he declaimed
wryly. He raised up on an elbow and looked through her
legs to the moonlit beach and the phosphorescent
whitecaps beyond. "What's the matter? Is something
wrong?"
"I couldn't sleep."
"You couldn't sleep? In this paradise?"
Instead of answering she knelt beside him, throwing her
shadow across his midsection. Her hand caught his organ
gently, eliciting a gasp of shock.
"It's wet," she announced.
"You shouldn't be here," he protested, pushing away her
hand and covering himself.
"I'm here now, Jake, and it seems that I'll be here for
years to come."
"Good god!"
"Maybe He's good for both of us. I know how a man gets
wet in his bed, Jake. You need <me>, too."
"But you're just a child," he replied with a plea in
his voice.
In the moonlight she did not look the child. Her body
was rounded and shapely. Her waist was not narrow as
Belle's but the undercurve of her belly had its own
appeal. Each breast was high but plump, already larger
than his clenched fist. The pretty, oval face, hovering
above him against the stars, was perhaps her youngest
feature. Its small nose and pouting lips made her seem
no more than the twelve, almost thirteen years, she had
admitted possessing. But her eyes, glittering in the
shadows, were not those of a child. Denied the shaft,
her hand slipped under his to caress his testicles.
Again he had to gasp.
"Wh-what has happened to you, Marie?"
"What do you mean?"
"When I first saw you, you could hardly speak without
blushing beet red. You were too shy to look me in the
eyes. Now you grab me by the balls. I can't believe
you're the same girl."
"You thought I was shy?"
"So did everyone else, I wager. Belle has mentioned
it."
He heard a smile in her voice. "They mistook shyness
for excitement."
"Excitement? How can you know about that?" His hand
slipped up the kneeling thigh, so smooth and inviting
of a lick. She opened her legs to him. His fingers
thrust forward, probing gently, parting her lower lips,
finding no obstruction. With a sigh she threw one leg
over his belly, hitching herself up onto his chest,
directly before his face. She had pubic hair but only
the beginning of a real bush.
Still unable to believe her nonvirgin state, he
protested weakly, "I don't want to hurt you, Marie."
"You won't," she responded shortly, slipping forward
onto her knees astride his face.
She lowered her body to the man's mouth. He could not
escape, could not resist the offering. Slipping his
hands under her thighs, he deployed his thumbs to part
the puffy lips that almost touched his nose. He began
to stroke the girl with his tongue as he had done for
many women in many ports. The delicate odor of her
filled his nose. His manhood hardened painfully.
She had longed for this touch since Wu Fong's
departure. She grasped her plump breasts and squeezed
them tightly, mouth silently agape as the magic thrill
suffused her body from that special place. It came on
quickly, the awesome pleasure, and she squealed as her
body shuddered involuntarily.
The man's tongue continued so nicely after that first
delirium, but the girl had something else in mind. She
scooted down his body and took hold of the magnificent
penis, positioned it and then squatted onto it. It felt
so huge! In an instant young Marie became an addict, a
slave of the man's fat cock. She lost control and did
not try to regain it. He caught her shoulders and
brought her down to him, where she shuddered in his
arms and stuttered in Chinese, gasping again and again
the name of Wu Fong.
Jake, who had masturbated just an hour previously, was
ready for a long, serious encounter. He thrust up into
her with rapid, powerful strokes as she quivered atop
him, crying out from time to time, each squeal weaker
than the last until her sweaty body shuddered and fell
limp.
Jake was not done. He slowed his plunging to relish his
encasement in the silken tight heat. His hands roamed
over the soft body, gently pinching the pliant flesh.
He kissed her slack lips and wondered if she were still
conscious. And then he felt his own pleasure announce
itself with that peculiar tingle of the glans. He had
to get out of her! his rational mind insisted, but the
beast in him let spew forth uncounted seeds of trouble
in exchange for the brief moment of ecstasy.
He hardly noticed her weight atop him as he lay panting
for breath. Her head sagged beside his. He felt a wet
tongue on the skin of his shoulder. She still clutched
his softening manhood in her belly as if she hated to
release it. His hands continued to fondle her, stroking
her back and buttocks. He could feel her sharp nipples
on his chest. Curiosity at her continuing collapse
impelled him to ask, "Are you asleep."
"No," she sighed. "Dead, I think." She added something
in Chinese.
"What does that mean?"
"It means... that you have sent me to the highest
heaven." He heard mild vexation in her voice. "But it
doesn't sound half so sweet in English."
"Who sent you there before?"
"You know."
"Your Chinese houseboy?"
"Not just a houseboy. He told me I was a goddess."
"He was your first, I take it."
"The one whose cock made me bleed, yes, but not my
first man."
"No? Honey, don't you know? The ones before you bleed
don't count."
"Oh, that one counted! But you are the best of all,
Jake."
"Because I have the thickest cock?"
"That, too."
He chuckled. "You're a sweetheart, my Marie. But what
am I going to do with you?"
"The same, I hope, only more so." Again she added
something in Chinese.
"Which means?"
"That I am your slave."
"My slave, are you? Then you must tell me the truth,
right?"
"If you ask for it."
"When were you born, Marie?"
"In 1835, on the seventeenth of September."
"September! Then you might already be... 13. 13! Good
god, I've done it again!"
"Done what, Jake?"
He sighed deeply. "What the law strictly condemns. But
not the French law, maybe... 13! That's awfully young
for what you are. Many girls are 14 before they start
bleeding. How many times have you had your monthlies?"
"My what? You mean my curse?"
He chuckled. "I guess that's how it seems, eh?"
"The curse of Eve, as Belle says. Four times, once
here."
"Four months! It started before you left China, did it?
I'm curious: was that after your, ah, worshipper made
you bleed?"
"Yes, awhile."
"Hmm. I wonder if fucking can bring on the courses
early. Can it hasten a female's growth?"
"I don't know. 'Fucking?'"
"What we just did."
"Oh. <Fucking>!"
"Ah, Marie, that's a very bad word. Don't use it around
your sisters."
"If you say so."
After a moment's thought, he prompted, "Tell me about
it."
"Tell you what?"
He smiled, conceiving a rare opportunity. "Everything.
Everything you've done about sex."
She responded deprecatingly, "Oh, I can't remember
<every> time!"
"I mean in general, what you did, who you did it with.
Who was the first to rub your clit? Was it Belle?"
She raised her head to look at him. "Never Belle. She's
not like that. It was my father."
"Your father?" Jake responded incredulously, having no
daughter and perplexed at the idea of lewdly touching
one.
"After Mother died and I was nine he sent the servants
away on bath night and washed me himself. It was so
nice, the touch of his soapy hands, especially between
my legs. When I was ten I felt the tingle for the first
time, and he was so happy. He said he was proud. After
that he would often come to my bed and give me pleasure
as he kissed me. I wanted to touch him, but he always
refused. Belle never knew about it, but Jill did. She
saw us once and climbed into the bed just as I cried
out, asking if Daddy had hurt me with his head between
my legs. Daddy never touched Jill or Belle, just me. I
was his favorite."
"Do you miss the feel of a tongue?" Jake asked,
remembering her delicate odor, wanting to taste it
again, even with his spunk oozing from her slit.
"No, I want your fat hardness in me once more," she
replied in a husky voice. "You can lick me another
time, when I'm more relaxed."
Jake took her again, on top, careful with his arms to
suspend his weight above her. The thought of his penis
replacing, indeed surpassing, her father's tongue
brought him to a surprisingly quick climax. He backed
away, thinking to spare her the weight of his hips, but
she protested, "You didn't last long enough that time,
Jake."
"But you cried out!" he protested.
"Only once," the young girl sniffed. "I need more."
CHAPTER 7
Raided
---------
The sun was well up when Belle awoke. Another empty
day, she groused as she stretched her legs and curled
her shoulders. Her face turned to Jill, who slept on
her back with her fine lips slightly parted to reveal
an upper row of even, white teeth. Belle never ceased
to be impressed by the child's wondrous beauty. She
reached over and placed fingers on the girl's right
breast as she frequently did, gauging her sister's
maturation. She felt soft flesh beneath the swollen
nipple.
Belle raised up on her arms and looked to her right.
Marie's pallet was empty. She took no alarm; that was
not unusual, especially lately. The middle sister's
habits were changing along with her body. Belle got to
her feet, stretched her arms again, yawned and went
outside to greet the day.
Almost immediately she spied Marie standing down on the
beach with Higgins. They were both naked, kissing, the
girl on tiptoes with her arms around the man's neck
while he impudently grasped her buttocks in his two
hands, pulling her pubes against his own.
As a chill passed through her, Belle immediately
suspected the worst. With an inarticulate cry she raced
down the path, wondering bitterly how a man, even
<that> man, could prefer an immature girl, almost a
child. She did not recognize the jealousy that her
anger concealed.
When they saw Belle racing towards them, her ragged
petticoat flying, Marie scurried behind Higgins and
peeped over his shoulder. The man covered his erect
penis with both hands and stared at the oncoming young
woman.
Belle stopped five feet away, breathing heavily because
of the race and also because of her emotional
intensity.
"Marie!" she shouted, her face contorting
unattractively. "Come with me at once!"
Marie did not move, although Higgins, a worried look on
his face, stepped aside and urged the girl forward. But
she clung to his hand and looked pleadingly into his
face, her eyes growing teary. The man's imposing
member, now in view, quickly lost its urgency. But
Belle did not give it a glance, because she stared at
the girl's labia, not yet concealed by pubic hair,
obviously inflamed from use.
"Go back up to the hut!" Belle screamed at her sister,
although she glared into Higgin's face.
"I want to live with Jake," Marie countered with wide
eyes, clutching to the man desperately.
"What have you done to her?" Belle raged at the top of
her voice to the man who stood seemingly relaxed before
her.
"She's been after me for weeks," he replied almost with
a smirk, "and when she came to me last night, there was
no way to avoid her."
"You filthy pig!" Belle screamed in outrage. "You low
born cur! The girl's still innocent, however much you
have used her. And you deny your part, your gross
complicity?"
"She's hardly innocent, Belle," he declared with an
impudent grin. "I wasn't the first."
"You dishonorable little man, I'll see you dead," Belle
growled convincingly, her face beet red, and she raced
away from them up the path.
Higgins moved from one foot to the other nervously as
he watched the young harpy rush up to the ledge.
"Jake," Marie implored, gripping the man's hand and
looking beseechingly into his face. "Let's go away."
He nodded. "That's a good idea. I've been wanting to
walk around the island. Would you like to go with me?
Let me get my britches."
Shortly they climbed the path to the ledge. He told
her, "No telling what we'll meet. Go find your
petticoat while I fill a water jug."
She dutifully veered away to the hut while he held one
of the boat's bottles under the falling water. Almost
immediately he heard a commotion behind him. Marie
screamed, "Don't, Belle! Jake, she's got a gun!"
He turned in time to see Belle rush out of the house
with the weighty Colts revolver in her hand, surely the
one whose case he had last seen in the boat locker.
"Where's she been" -- keeping that? he meant to say,
until the crimson glare of her face turned toward him,
clearly disclosing her intentions.
Higgins set off running down the path among the rocks
toward the southern beach. When Belle arrived at the
head of it, he was a distant figure who had almost
reached the sand. She lowered the pistol as the middle
sister caught up to her, crying convulsively.
"Come now," Belle said in a quiet voice, placing a
gentle hand on Marie's shoulder, the weapon dangling at
her side from the other. "Remember how I used to braid
your hair?" She spoke in Chinese.
"I can't, I can't," the younger girl mumbled, staring
at her feet. She sniffled a few times. "It's so
pointless here, Belle," she said more soberly, looking
up into the elder's face, "and he's all I got."
"You have Jill and me," Belle protested, deeply hurt by
the girl's words.
"It's just not the same. You've never felt it, not
really."
Nevertheless Belle knew exactly what the younger girl
meant, and a bitterness crept into her mind.
"I need it too much, Belle, now that I've started,"
Marie declared, looking straight into her sister's
anguished face. "It's maybe like those drugs in China
that Father told us about.
I can't get enough of it."
"Who was the first?" Belle asked, as if she were
keeping an official record.
"Wu Fong."
Belle nodded, knowing the answer before having posed
the question: the darling, beautiful Wu Fong who had
never even kissed her own lips.
"I have to go, Belle. I have to catch up with Jake."
Marie turned hurriedly away.
Belle watched her weave away among the rocks, becoming
smaller in the distance, and felt like putting the gun
to her own head. But there was little Jill to consider.
She was about to turn woodenly back to the hut, where
Jill stood rubbing her eyes curiously, when Higgins
suddenly reappeared on the sand beyond the path, racing
forward, yelling and waving his arms. Belle could not
make out his obviously desperate calls. Marie lifted on
her toes to race toward her man, but he made shoving
motions with his arms to ward her back.
A crowd of men appeared behind Higgins, mostly naked
bronze-hued savages with spears in their hands, running
more expertly than Higgins across the sand, gaining on
him. Their hoarse cries, like attacking wolves, struck
terror into Belle's heart, but she moved forward
automatically to protect her sister.
She saw Jake fall to the ground when he was struck by a
thrown spear. The savages raced past his body toward
Marie who had stopped instantly and stood as if glued
to the sand, screaming hysterically. They were soon
upon her, and Belle saw a large man throw her over his
shoulder and carry her away, wriggling violently and
striking at his head.
The others raced on toward her. There were eight or ten
of them, closely bunched. Belle raised her right arm
out straight and leveled the Colts. She closed her eyes
and fired. The recoil of the weapon threw her arm into
the air, much more fiercely than Father's weapon had
done, and she fell backwards onto the rocks. Though she
didn't notice, one of her attackers collapsed similarly
and sat up slowly in a daze.
The others came on, darting up the path like hounds.
Belle squirmed around on the rock, cocked and fired
again, this time to no effect except that the attackers
stopped short immediately. They were close enough for
the surprise on their faces to be recognizable.
Suddenly she understood: they were unfamiliar with a
gun that could shoot more than once without reloading.
They babbled furiously in a gibberish.
Grimly she cocked the hammer and braced the weapon in
both hands while sighting carefully on the nearest. The
pistol roared a third time and the man went down as if
kicked by a mule. Instantly they broke into a run -- in
the opposite direction, dragging their wounded comrades
with them, glancing fearfully over their shoulders at
the young woman lying upon the rock path with her magic
gun still threatening them.
When the raiders reached the sand and disappeared
beyond the intervening boulders, Belle dropped her face
to the ground and began to cry convulsively. Little
Jill, who had seen it all from her perch at the head of
the path, came running up and fell upon her oldest
sister.
"Where's Marie?" she screamed. "What's happened to
Jake?"
"The devil take Higgins!" Belle sobbed, thinking only
of her sister, surely lost to a fate worse than a
sailor's cock.
* * *
"There were maybe a dozen of them. I saw two outriggers
drawn up onto the beach," Higgins babbled as Belle
struggled to deal with the bleeding injury to his
skull.
"It's not my fault," Higgins insisted over and over
again, knowing that his previous guilt had been
superseded by this catastrophe. He assumed that the
lovely girl would be eaten before dusk. He had heard
about the natives of this island group. They sacrificed
only pig flesh to their gods. They ate people because
they liked the taste.
He grinned at her as she tied the shreds of a petticoat
around his scalp. "At least they proved once again how
hard my head is!"
Belle was not distracted by his humor. She was
insistent and apparently oblivious to the reality of
the situation. "You have to go after them. You must
bring her back."
"They've gone off to another island by now," Higgins
pleaded, knowing the truth of it.
"At least go look for smoke on the other island," Belle
insisted, restraining the hysteria that was just below
the surface.
"He's hurt, Belle," Jill observed, stating the obvious
fact.
"You can have the gun," Belle argued, not hearing her
baby sister. "You can have me, if that's what it takes.
But you have to try."
Jake would very much like to have the lovely Belle, but
he was in considerable pain, and besides Marie had
drained him the previous night beyond his capacity.
That pudgy girl was insatiable.
"I'll take the gun," Higgins announced, struggling to
his feet, suppressing a groan. "As for your other
inducement, I'll claim that upon my return."
Belle blushed deeply, for an instant thinking only of
herself.
"Do it, man," she said with great emotion, thrusting
the pistol box into Jake's hand.
From the remains of the petticoat he made a back pack
that he loaded with the water jug and the reloads from
the pistol box. The pistol itself went into his belt
beside the knife.
"Wish me luck," he said, staring into Belle's eyes.
"Oh, I do, I do," she declared fervently.
"Then kiss me."
Her face reddened. She took a breath but puckered her
lips and leaned forward. He chuckled and pulled her
against him, kissing her for the first time. She
resisted his tongue and he did not force her.
He stepped away and bowed slightly. "I'm going to the
hilltop. They won't come far from their boats, but they
won't conceal them, either. I can see the whole beach
from there. If they're still within reach, I'll catch
them." He paused. "I'll search as hard as I can, Belle,
as if I was searching for you."
He turned and went down the path. It was a vain effort,
he knew. But on his return he could claim Belle. He had
her promise, even though she had compressed her lips.
* * *
Jake pushed up through the jungle on a quest that was
fruitless, but certainly not thankless. He diverted
from the route that the four of them had previously
taken and came upon a sulfurous, warm pool where he sat
for some moments to rest. He became aware of the
chittering and chattering in the trees above him, which
he had previously dismissed as background noise. He
resented it suddenly and wished fervently to be back on
the quieter ocean.
It was midday when Jake reached the top of the volcanic
ridge and looked down on the shore below. He was amazed
to see immediately the two outriggers pulled up on the
beach to the southwest, so small in the distance.
He stood straighter. His chest expanded. He felt
himself again an officer, a first mate, second-in-
command of the ship. His revolver was fully loaded and
he had additional bullets in his back pack. He faced
savages armed only with hand-thrown weapons. With that
comfort he plunged down the jungle slope as fast as he
could.
It took him nearly an hour to plunge the mile to the
southwest beach. When the first flashes of open sky
appeared ahead, he slowed his headlong pace and raised
the pistol to hand. He came first upon a peculiar
clearing, an inward extension of the beach, littered
with burnt sticks and... white bones. Someone had built
fires here but not recently. Where were the natives
from the boats?
Crouching, he lurched onto the strand and finally saw
the two outriggers, now well beyond the surf, rattan
sails set, apparently making a course around the
western side of the basalt island looming to the
southwest. He stood erect, arms slack beside him.
Belle's instinct had been correct, but he was not in
time.
Jake then looked fearfully about, especially near the
old fire pit. Some of the sand was stained reddish-
brown, one spot of it as long as a man, but he found no
fresh human remains and no sign of earth turned for a
grave. His foot kicked a desiccated skull from the
sand, an object truly old. It grinned at him as he
raised it up. Was heaven so joyous? he wondered, as he
tucked it into the back pack and turned away for his
easier return journey along the southern beach.
* * *
Marie had ceased her hysterical screaming and was left
with just fearful blubbering when the large man sat
down on the sand and pulled her onto his lap facing
away from him. He was breathing hard from his loaded
run, but not hard enough to interfere with the commands
he shouted to the others who strove to lift the strange
boats beyond the surf. Marie had never before seen
outriggers, but it was obvious what they were. They
were gracefully slim, even though crudely made.
One man knelt beside her and her large captor. He was
bent over, holding his belly in both arms. Marie craned
her neck curiously and saw blood running steadily from
a huge wound in his middle back. She wondered how that
had happened to him. Was that what a pistol did to you?
As she watched, his arms relaxed and he pitched forward
onto his face. A moment later the remnants of a
breaking wave wet her feet and washed over the fallen
man's head. The elevated buttocks fell over, leaving
him on his side.
She raised her eyes to the others. One with a bloody
shoulder helped lift the boats with his good arm. It
seemed to her that she had heard three gunshots, but
she saw only the two wounded. Many of these men were
just boys, she soon realized, a couple of them hardly
older than she.
The bronze man held her tightly, one arm around her
waist and the other roaming her body, his fingers
pinching soft flesh here and there, grunting
appreciatively. He exclaimed aloud, when he pushed two
fingers into her vagina and found no barrier. The man
shouted something at the boys as they struggled to
straighten a boat thrust sideways by a contrary wave.
His tone was different, lighter, and his sally turned
grinning faces momentarily toward them. This one was
obviously the leader, Marie noted.
The man, whose skin was smoother than Jake's, nuzzled
his face against Marie's hair and cheek. His beard was
softer than Jake's, almost silky, but coal black where
Jake's was brown and white. He mumbled incomprehensible
words, then bit her shoulder painfully, leaving
toothmarks. He grabbed a handful of her tummy and
grinned evilly into her face.
Marie was very frightened, but she had liked the feel
of his fingers in her. She reached under his loin cloth
and grasped a flaccid penis. That produced a look of
surprise, followed by a big grin and an exclamation. He
shouted again to his crew. They responded with wild
gibberish. Some abandoned their boats to wade through
the surf toward Marie and her captor. The man growled
angrily at that and they returned to the craft
sheepishly, pushing them into deeper water, although
they frequently looked back at the girl.
He did not seek to communicate with the girl in words
as they sat on the sand, although Marie repeatedly
pointed to her chest and spoke her name. He finally
responded, taking his two hands off the girl's left
thigh, which he had been gauging like a gourmand, and
pointed at his own chest. "Tu'a-po!" he declared.
She touched his chest and repeated, "Tu'a-po," then her
own: "Marie."
"Marie," he conceded with a sneer. He added a few
words, thrust out a long tongue and licked his lips
hungrily.
Marie feared the worst. She was not entirely ignorant.
She had heard about cannibals. With a definite purpose
she invaded the man's cloth again and pulled on his
cock. She offered her face for a kiss as she pumped him
to erection. Perhaps they would not eat her if she
proved herself to be eager for sex. Were she not so
frightened, she might have dwelt upon that notion with
enthusiasm.
Tu'a-po jumped to his feet pulling Marie up with him.
Again she went onto his shoulder. He waded forward
toward the boats and loaded her into one over the bow,
levering himself in behind her with impressively
bulging muscles.
He did not take an oar, leaving the work to the boys.
He sat in the bow facing Marie, his legs over hers. He
pushed aside his cloth to reveal a semi-erect penis
that was thinner than Jake's but larger than Wu Fong's.
His hand came up to the back of Marie's head. She knew
immediately what the grinning savage wanted. She had
done this many times before for Wu Fong, even once
briefly for Jake. This time she assumed that she would
get a mouthful of male seed.
She leaned down, placed her hand on the shaft, eased
back the dark foreskin and took the purple glans into
her mouth. She sucked gently, using the tongue as her
Chinese lover had taught, with an eagerness that
suggested enjoyment, which, in fact, she felt. Marie
was a girl of simple tastes. She loved this part of a
man.
The four boys in the boat, who had been peeping at the
couple between thrusts of their paddles, laughed and
called out to each other and to their comrades in the
other craft. The ocean air filled with merriment as
Marie noisily sucked the cock. She was forewarned of
the man's impending discharge, when he grasped her head
and held it steady.
Then she felt thick fluid squirting into her mouth, not
a copious amount, but certainly enough for the man, who
roared to the heavens. Marie's first inclination was to
spit the stuff into the water, but on quick reflection
she thought that her captor might consider that
disrespectful. So she swallowed it and displayed her
empty mouth to the panting man.
After his agreeable orgasm, something which he had
perhaps not anticipated when he arose that morning,
Tu'a-po seemed more relaxed and friendly. He spoke to
Marie with a smile, and the girl felt a bit safer. She
would do them all, she knew, and more than once. She
only hoped that they would not prefer her mouth. Eight
of them! She shivered in anticipation, feeling cool
moisture on her thighs. Her previous two lovers had
never been able to give her all that she could want.
The outriggers pulled back onto the beach. Because land
had always been to her right, Marie assumed that they
were coming ashore on the same island. Tu'a-po was very
gracious as he help her out of the boat. The man barked
orders and the boys pulled the craft up above the
strand. She saw the wounded lad doing his share of the
work. The unconscious one was transported into a trashy
area well away from the water and dumped
unceremoniously onto his back.
The man called out and one of the youngest of them came
over grinning sheepishly. He was naked. Marie found him
to be absolutely beautiful. The only hair on his body
were a few wisps above his modest penis, which was
fully erect. He was perhaps a few months younger than
she.
Tu'a-po placed his arm affectionately around the lad's
shoulders. Perhaps this was his son, she thought. The
man reached down and wriggled the half grown penis. He
looked at her and shook his head negatively, indicating
perhaps that the boy was still a virgin. He then pushed
the suddenly bashful lad at her gently, turned and went
up the beach shouting orders.
Marie gazed at the lovely creature who stood passively
in front of her with a bowed head. He was not quite as
tall as she. What the father wanted was obvious. She
understood that she would certainly please the man by
initiating his son. She smiled. How agreeably novel to
play the teacher herself for a change!
"Marie," she intoned, pointing to the space between her
half developed breasts.
"Tu'a-kia," the boy responded shyly, similarly
pointing.
Marie held him lightly in her arms and kissed his
smooth cheek. Gradually they lowered themselves to the
sand and embraced. Would the boy want her immediately,
she wondered, or did she have time to explore his
lovely body? He remained passive, so she kissed his
face, his lips, relishing the feel of it, of being in
charge, with a boy her own age. She kissed quickly down
his sleek body and then took his penis almost fully
into her mouth. It fit so much more comfortably than Wu
Fong's larger member. It was salty from the ocean
spray. Tu'a-kia wriggled in excitement and uttered some
words in a soprano voice.
Marie rose to her knees and began to tickle her young
lover, and he responded in kind, giggling. They played
like children for a short while, tickling and
wrestling, until Marie, on top of him, sat down on the
boy's cock. She could feel it inside of her, but it was
not impressive. Not so for the boy, however, whose eyes
opened wide in surprise. She delighted at the open-
mouthed expressions on the lad's pretty face,
registering the approach and then the arrival of his
orgasm.
* * *
They came to her in an orderly fashion, one after the
other. Tu'a-po's barking voice kept even the most eager
under control.
The first was a swaggering lad little older than she
who finished in no more than ten strokes. The next two,
about Belle's age, lasted longer but only whetted
Marie's appetite. The fourth one, a young man, brought
her off and set her on a high which allowed her to
experience orgasm with almost every one who followed.
Tu'a-po caused her to scream aloud. Some of them came
back for seconds, and Tu'a-kia visited her a third
time.
Then, it seemed, Tu'a-po called a halt to the
festivities. His pretty son pulled Marie to her feet
and led her to the water's edge, semen streaming down
her inner thighs. He washed her with great gentleness,
and they then frolicked in the surf like the children
they were. She looked back to the sand once again. All
the others were gathered tightly around something in
the trashy place. She could not see what they were
doing.
The boy later brought her something to eat. "Noni-
noni," he declared, taking a bite of pulpy fruit. At
his urging she took a bite of her own. Heavenly! The
sweet juices dripped onto her nipples. Tu'a-kia sucked
it off, which she found most agreeable. He showed her
the tree where the potato-sized fruit grew. She ate
until she was gorged. Something to tell Jake. Would she
ever see him again?
She watched her group of lovers relaunch the boats. At
the last the still one was brought aboard from his rest
in the trashy place. Marie climbed aboard to lean on
Tu'a-po's shoulder. It had taken ten of them, some more
than once, but she was sated for the first time in her
life. And she was no longer fearful. She kissed her
abductor's neck with genuine affection and dared to
feel optimism about the future.
* * *
They put ashore again shortly before dark. Many went
off with Tu'a-po into the jungle. Three or four stayed
with her above the strand. The state of their cocks and
their hands on her told her what to expect. She felt a
bit sore and actually thought of refusing. But the
first few strokes of a penis soon deadened all pain.
Curiously the boys seemed to be less aggressive, as if
they felt soreness, too.
The first one took her in the common manner but the
second knelt in the sand and pulled her buttocks up
into his lap, her legs passing to either side of him.
This made her work harder for her own pleasure, but a
little experimenting revealed that steepening his angle
caused the knob to compress her clitoris from the
inside, which promised the desired result.
Settling in to work for that result, she was surprised
when another one squatted over her chest, presenting
his erect organ to her face. Two at once? Well... What
could it hurt?
He hitched forward. It bumped her lips. She admitted
it. Some quality of the combination titillated her. Her
juices flowed and the penis in the other was suddenly
much more pleasant.
Apparently the afternoon's restraint and paddling down
the shoreline had rejuvenated them. She shortly
obtained her third mouthful of semen in that eventful
day, plus another uncounted vagina full, the sum of
which had begun with several of Jake's the night
before. Two more eager lovers took the places of the
first pair and on it went. Her excitement peaked. She
cried out. Her hands, clutching the hips of the one on
her chest, opened and her arms spread apart and fell to
the sand on either side of her. She reached the state
of blankness that she had with Jake, her whole being
saturated with unspeakable pleasure.
When she came to her senses, Tu'a-kia was helping her
to her feet.
She noticed immediately that he, at least, had lost his
erection. He led her into the surf and helped her wash
the sticky fluid off her legs, thighs, belly, chest and
face. His fingers in her vagina stung. Or perhaps it
was the salt water.
He indicated that she should lay down among the puddles
of the strand, where he scooped up wet sand and rubbed
it briskly in her short-cut hair. She raised up and
regarded him in wonder. "What are you doing?"
He understood her meaning. Reaching into the hair just
above her forehead, he withdrew a finger trailing a
white stringer.
"Oh," she acknowledged, lying down again with her head
in the puddle. How much seed can you get from ten men,
she wondered, and how many times?
They brought her meat, hot from the spit. She
recognized the taste of liver. She had never liked it
before but now suddenly it was delicious. She thanked
them profusely while she chewed, red juices dripping on
her nipples. Again Tu'a-kia sucked them clean to the
approving comments of his companions. The watchers,
especially Tu'a-po, seemed appreciative of her appetite
for reasons of their own. She decided that they meant
to keep her alive and contented. Apparently she was the
only one given liver. Another thing to tell Jake: the
southern island had pigs.
* * *
They left her to sleep that night, cuddled against
Tu'a-kia, and the lot of them remained on this beach
long after sunrise, holding to the shade during midday
but always keeping a watch up and down the coastline.
She was very sore in her groin, but thankfully the men
hardly molested her. Only Tu'a-po, who made her suck
him, while his son and two others of the youngest took
her vaginally. If they failed to arouse her, at least
their small organs caused her little distress.
When the three boys had long finished, he still sat
beside her, her neck twisted awkwardly to suck on his
cock. He seemed unconcerned with achieving his own
orgasm. After a long while her neck grew stiff. He did
not object when she turned over on her belly, her arms
over his legs, and took him back into her mouth. She
found that he didn't even require suction, only that
her lips enclose the knob. She fell asleep in that
position and was awakened, some significant time later
by the evidence of the shadows, by a blow to the head.
She raised up, startled, to find the man pulled back,
glaring at her, his hand raised to strike again.
"What is it? What's the matter?"
He shook his half-erect member at her, said something
unintelligle and gnashed his teeth together.
She hung her head, murmuring, "I'm sorry. I didn't mean
to bite. I just fell asleep." She pantomimed falling
asleep.
He grunted. She realized it was a chuckle. He called
out something to the others lying around them and was
answered by laughter. He stood up, scowled at Marie and
took himself in hand. Suddenly an endless gush of
smelly, yellow fluid struck her face, her hair, her
back. She rolled aside with an exclamation of disgust
and bounced to her own feet. A storm of laughter
erupted all around her. Tu'a-po laughed so hard that
his water fell on himself.
She tasted her lips as she raced to the surf, where she
was careful to gargle with sea water as she rinsed her
body. The two liquids struck her as oddly similar.
Piss in the face at least didn't hurt, whereas she had
actually bitten the master's cock! She wished she could
remember doing it. After all, she still had his tooth
marks on her shoulder.
* * *
Her soreness was almost gone the next morning,
apparently that of her companions as well. After a
breakfast of coconut and cold ribs, they took her
again. They tried variations on their theme of two. Two
lay on their backs in the sand, testicles together,
while Marie, kneeling over them, vainly tried to suckle
both at once -- while a third took her from behind. The
two on their backs were unfulfilled, though much ribald
comment occurred among the watchers.
They tired of the game quicker this morning, though not
before a sequence of them gave Marie her strongest
climax yet, complete with flashes in her vision, bells
in her ears and near somnolence. Then they let her be.
Again Tu'a-kia had to scrape her hair clean.
He seemed to enjoy it. Afterwards she lay before him in
the shade with his little penis in her mouth. Unlike
his father, he soon spurted richly and powerfully.
Surprised at herself for letting it surprise her, she
strangled on the semen and coughed up a glob, which
occasioned wild laughter all around and the elevation
of the blushing lad to his father's shoulders.
Late in the afternoon the whole scene repeated, though
at a slower pace and without strangulation. Marie
weathered that storm with less vaginal sensitivity and
thought perhaps she was "toughening up" as Sheng-jou
had advised her could happen.
They began the third day on that island with another
thorough penetration of Marie. She was coming to expect
it, to anticipate it, and to enjoy it immensely. For
the first time in her life she was the center of
absolutely <everyone's> attention. That in fact she was
being raped repeatedly, treated far worse than Jake
with Belle, never occurred to her.
But when the sun was half-way up the sky, Tu'a-po
shouted orders and the pleasant lethargy of the last
days was ended. The two boats were swiftly back in the
water and she was sitting in Tu'a- po's lap on the bow
thwart of the lead outrigger. She scanned around
carefully. Only the dead man -- she was now certain
that he had died -- was missing. They must have buried
him on the island. She couldn't ask.
Beyond the surf Tu'a-po issued further orders. The
paddling ceased and a rattling sail was erected on each
boat's single mast. The pitching motion smoothed as the
wind filled them and both boats surged ahead. The beach
lay behind them. Straining her eyes around Tu'a-po's
wide form, she could see nothing ahead but restless
water.
CHAPTER 8
Saved
---------
Naval Lt. Pierre LeContreau, commanding the French
sloop of war <Ellette>, adjusted the focusing ring on
his telescope, curious that the natives should try to
outrun him on a day with such a fine, steady breeze.
The two outriggers, paddles flashing furiously despite
well-filled rattan sails, barely overflowed the
instrument's field of view.
They were pulling crosswind at their best rate, drawing
away now but maintainably so for only a few minutes.
This maneuver was surprising, if flight was indeed
their objective. He would have thought that the
Polynesian sailors, their craft fore-and-aft rigged as
the sloop, would understand that while sailing due
across the wind was the fastest tack for them, it was
also best for his far taller sails that caught the
stronger wind.
Lowering the telescope he gave the helmsman his new
course and ordered the sailing master to adjust the
lines. The sloop heeled sharply as it turned and its
master smiled, pleased as ever by its nimble behavior.
The new bearing gave him a better view of the
outriggers' interiors.
"No cargo but people," he mused aloud. He stiffened.
"But perhaps <that> is the contraband."
Bou-bou, hanging from a nearby stay very like a monkey,
asked impudently, "What do you see, my father?"
"I'll treat you as a father!" the lieutenant declared.
The helmsman barked a laugh. "As a father!"
The lieutenant smiled. "Your father never plugged your
ass, Carle?"
"Not my father, sir."
"Poor, lonely fellow! As to what I see, Bou-bou my
young, I see a boy in the starboard craft with his head
resting in the lap of the big one who sits in the bow.
The boy, though tanned as well as you, is lighter
skinned than all the others, and his hair is bleached
almost light as yours. That is a white boy!"
"A white boy, is it? How is he dressed?"
"Not even so much as your ragged britches, my young. As
the others: only his tanned skin."
That news failed to please Bou-bou. He scowled at the
officer, his beardless face contorted, and asked, "Who
needs another boy?"
"Oh, I can think of uses for another boy," the
lieutenant smirked, "especially if the captain sends us
to Papeete next week."
The helmsman grinned. "Especially if that one is doing
to the big one what Bou-bou so enjoys."
"I can't quite make out what he does -- Ah! He has
raised his head to look at us. Brown eyes in a pretty
face, Bou-bou, and about your age, I would guess. My
god, what a cock on that big one! I would say our
little one has been doing exactly that." The officer's
mouth twisted. "But, yes, a white boy! That big cock
has enjoyed its last lick."
He declared, "This has endured long enough." He leaned
over the poop rail and shouted, "Gunner! Round shot in
the swivel!"
Shortly a cry rang down the deck, "Swivel ready,
master!"
The officer shouted back, "Put one in the water ahead
of him. Fire when ready."
The cannon in the bow roared with a flash, belching a
cloud of gray smoke that the crosswind blew cleanly
away. Two seconds later a plume of water splashed ahead
of the racing outriggers. After an exchange of gestures
their occupants deciphered the message. The ragged
sails descended and paddles on both craft sank into
users' laps.
"Prepare to come about to starboard!" shouted the
lieutenant. Acknowledgments returned from the helmsman
and the sailing master. "Break out the accommodation
ladder," he added.
When the much larger craft was nearly upon the
outriggers, now motionless except for the tossing
swell, he added the order of execution. Shortly the
sloop lay with her stern to the wind, sheets trailing
before it, temporarily dead in the water.
"Marines to the rail!" shouted the lieutenant. His
squad of marines, deliberately visible in their gaudy
blue uniforms, took station along the erstwhile weather
rail, muskets at port arms but only too ready to lower
upon the outriggers.
The lieutenant leaned over the rail and pointed down at
the white boy, huddled wide-eyed against the big
native, who held him securely with a muscular arm
around the chest. He shouted one of the few native
phrases known to him, the one that meant "Come here!"
and made sweeping gestures toward the Ellette's main
deck with the pointing hand. "Here, here!" he added,
reinforcing his motions. The natives had necessarily
learned a bit of French in the six years since France
had invested these islands.
The big one's face twisted. Obviously the prospect was
less than favorable to him.
The lieutenant barked to his own crew, "Lower the
ladder."
Deckhands sent it over the side with a rattle. One of
the natives dipped his paddle, turning the outrigger
and pushing its bow against the side of the larger
vessel.
The big one released his captive, pointed towards the
dangling ladder and made climbing motions with his
hands.
"Curious," observed the lieutenant. "They don't speak
each other's language."
To the watchers' disgust the white boy threw his arms
around the big man's neck and kissed his mouth.
Apparently he wanted to be rescued no more than the big
one wanted to lose him. Meanwhile the bow of the canoe
was scraping up and down on the Ellette's side. His eye
locked with the lieutenant's, the big one looked over
the boy's head and spread his hands apart, clearly
signaling, "What can I do? He doesn't want to go."
Lt. LeContreau drew his sword. He had often seen how
the length and glitter of the well-polished blade
affected native attitudes. The big one's eyes widened
satisfactorily.
He said quietly to the nearest marine, "Sergeant, take
a bead on the forehead of that big one but hold your
fire."
With the sergeant's musket following the big one's face
as it rose and fell with the swell, the man sighed
visibly. He took the lad by the armpits, forcibly
removed the clinging arms from his neck, lifted the
smaller body against the ladder and when it cleaved on
automatically, slapped its bare bottom stingingly. Up
the ladder came the boy.
Watching from his position beside the rail, the
lieutenant noted how the body exerting itself on the
accommodation ladder was still unmarked by muscle
lines, how girlishly wide and round were the buttocks,
and smiled, glancing at Bou-bou, now leaning over the
rail himself. The youth was scowling fiercely.
Obviously he had noticed the same qualities.
The two nearest marines caught the lad's arms when he
reached the rail, helped him to stand on the deck and
turned him to face the commander, who noticed their
gaping mouths and wide eyes before he understood the
reason.
The lieutenant's mouth also fell open. This was hardly
a lad! Conical breasts larger than oranges thrust
toward him above a split female groin mature enough,
despite thin pubes, to exhibit from this angle the
slightly protruding labia that are the mark of
womanhood. "Name of God!" he cried, aghast. But as a
commander must be, he was quick with his decision. He
snapped to Bou-bou, "Take her into my cabin and wrap
her in my bed sheet."
Bou-bou recognized the baleful look and jumped to obey.
The officer turned back to the outriggers and raised
his sword. He found that the natives had anticipated
his reaction. Both boats were already twice their
length away from the sloop, occupants paddling like
madmen.
To the sergeant still holding his bead, the lieutenant
shouted, "Kill the big bastard! Now!"
The marine fired his weapon, but the target was already
removed beyond reliable musket accuracy. Water splashed
behind the man, who immediately ducked into the bottom
of his craft. The paddlers all sank lower on their
knees but churned the water to froth beside the boats,
which shot away as if borrowing from the strength of
the sergeant's gunpowder.
"Sir, should you order a volley?" asked the sergeant.
The lieutenant sighed. "I should, but to wound several
might spark another uprising. Perhaps the right
response should be to unlimber the main battery and
blast them to splinters. But then I'd have to write
reports for both the captain and the admiral. No, this
is their lucky day. Let them go for now, but when I
next see that big one, he had best again be running
away."
He raised his voice in a shout. "Marines, secure from
quarters!" To the sailing master he ordered a course
for Timuata, waited to see the ship appropriately
trimmed, then repaired with anticipation to his cabin.
* * *
When Bou-bou had conducted the strange girl into the
lieutenant's cabin and closed the door, he stripped the
top sheet from the officer's bunk, which he himself had
put there that same morning, and held it up to the
girl. She adopted a sneer, however, and struck it out
of his hands, while protesting in some foreign
gibberish.
"What's the matter with you?" demanded Bou-bou. "Didn't
you hear the master's order?"
She crossed her arms over her plump belly and stared
down her nose at him.
Bou-bou, though the cabin boy on a French warship and
therefore expecting to accommodate those above him
literally and figuratively -- potentially everyone in
the crew -- was in fact as lustily enamored of female
flesh as any other male, a fact already proven among
the young girls of Timuata and proven now as he stared
at this one's prominent breasts. His lips parted and he
needed to lick them. He also felt an increasing
tightness in his britches. Her eyes dropped to that
region and rose again. A grin stretched her lips and
she spoke anew in her meaningless rattle.
Bou-bou shook his head. "I have my orders," he declared
resolutely. He took up the muslin sheet and pressed it
upon her with a grip sufficient to withstand the
renewed resistance. But she simply transferred the
battle to another front: his. Her hand popped loose the
single button that restrained his waistband and forced
his britches down to his knees. He succeeded in
sweeping the sheet around her shoulders by hugging her
within it, but his victory applied only above the
waist. Below it her hand caught his half-erect manhood
in an ominously tight grip.
He froze, eyes and mouth wide open. Her other hand
promptly slipped past the sheet and clutched his
testicles.
Retreat seemed to be his only option. He backed away,
letting the sheet fall to the side. She followed,
demonstrating a firm grasp of the issue. His legs
struck the bunk and down he sat. Again she followed,
dropping to her knees, plunging into his thighs and
sucking fully into her mouth the small morsel of his
pride. Clister Marie Meron had learned very well how to
pacify a choleric male.
"I can't believe this," he said without conviction as
her head began to bob. But his penis believed it. This
was the first female mouth to touch him there. Somehow,
perhaps due to this one's lack of authority over him,
it was instantly stimulating. The night before no one
had returned the several favors he had distributed,
leaving him even readier than the usual adolescent hair
trigger. Though not quite at full erection, he spurted
the first dribble.
At that moment Naval Lt. Pierre LeContreau threw open
the cabin door, drenching the scene on the bed in
afternoon sunlight. The girl's head pivoted in
startlement toward the interruption. Bou- bou's second
and most generous squirt laced her eyebrows, eyelashes
and cheek, while its producer groaned in frustration at
the loss of contact.
"My God!" exclaimed the officer, hurriedly pulling the
door shut behind him. The girl released Bou-bou
completely, leaving him squirming and dribbling on the
bunk.
The lieutenant leaned forward with fist raised against
the lad. "You snake! You little waterfront bastard! How
dare you force yourself--"
"I didn't!" the lad cried, scurrying to the far end of
the bunk. "I swear I didn't! She wouldn't have the
sheet. See it? I tried to put it on her but she pushed
me down."
The officer paused, recalling the big one's very erect
penis, upon which the girl must have been sucking or at
least licking before the Ellette closed with the
outriggers. Had the natives perhaps <trained> this
young woman to greet men so? He'd heard of similar
cases among black slaves in Haiti. If it were so, what
remedy might one adopt? And how soon?
He waved his hand at the lad. "I understand." To the
girl he raised a corner of the sheet. When she drew
back, he said, "Hold still, miss." She froze
inquiringly at his tone of command and he wiped Bou-
bou's leavings from her face, but not before her
curling tongue had tasted the dribble from her cheek.
"How are you called, my dear?" he asked kindly, but she
only stared.
"Don't you speak?"
Bou-bou sniffed. "She speaks, all right: gibberish."
"You don't understand French, is that so? Well, perhaps
English?" He delved into his memory of diplomatic duty
in London and essayed in that language, "You speak ze
anglais -- ah, Engleesh?"
* * *
Was he asking if she spoke English? "Of course," Marie
answered, standing straight before him, not yet
remembering that her nakedness should be cause for
embarrassment.
"Ah, but, yes! Are you English, then? Or perhaps
American?"
Marie found that if she strained, she could understand
him. "American? Yes, sir, <I> am, but my little sister
is both American and Chinese."
"Ah, yes. Your sister... she is not with you. I am
sorry."
"So am I. She would love it, too, I know. Another whole
ship full of men! Well, this time I know what to do."
The bearded man in the resplendent uniform blinked
several times, studying her. Then he gestured to the
boy with the small cock and said something
incomprehensible. The boy replied in a manner that
Marie recognized from her sisters' behavior: calculated
impudence. The man raised a hand as if he would strike
the lad but smiled instead. The boy jumped off the
bunk, scooped up his britches and flew out onto the
deck without bothering to don them, but not failing to
close the door behind him.
The man took her arm and led her to stand beside the
bunk. "Please sit," he told her.
She complied, crossing her hands in her lap and looking
up at him. "I like your side whiskers," she remarked.
"I'll bet they tickle."
He leaned closer to her and touched the side of his
beard. "Side whiskers?"
"Yes, sir."
He nodded and said with a grin, "Then I comprehend
'tickle.'"
He removed a gaudy coat and hung it on a rack attached
to the bulkhead. Under it he wore above the waist only
a wide cravat of bunched silk that he quickly unwound.
Even so Marie was surprised that he could tolerate his
coat in such a warm climate.
"We must find out about you, miss. What do you call
yourself? I mean, what is your name?"
"Clister Marie Meron."
He smiled at her as he unfastened the many hooks on his
waistband. She noted that she would have never found
them all. "Please, not all that! What does your mother
call you?"
"Marie. Sometimes Pumpkin. Before she went to heaven."
"Ah, to heaven! I am sorry. Then I shall call you
Marie, if you please."
She shrugged. The motion caused her tiny nipples to
bounce charmingly.
He added, "You may call me Lt. LeContreau, or Pierre,
when we are alone." At the close of that announcement
he hopped on one foot while removing the opposite boot,
then switched to hop on the other.
Marie had to laugh at his antics. But she remembered a
small part of her manners. "Pleased to meet you,
Pierre."
"At your service." He clicked bootless heels and
winced. "You are sharming, Marie."
Sharming? Did he mean "charming?" The thought that he
did made her smile. No one had ever called her charming
before.
He peeled his white uniform britches down his legs,
looked up at her and asked, "How did you come among the
indigenes -- ah, among ze brown men?"
"Indigenes? Is that what they call themselves?"
"No. They say 'Hivans.' How did they take you?"
"Belle ran Jake off with her gun and I had to go with
Jake. The brown men killed Jake and maybe Belle, too. I
didn't see. Tu'a- po threw me over his shoulder and
carried me off and made me fuck. I think Belle killed
one of them. She shot three times and hit at least
two."
"The brown man... Tu'a-po? Made you... fuck, you say?"
"Oh, yes. Many, many times! Every day in the morning
after breakfast and the evening after supper."
The lieutenant, all under- and over-indicators of his
rank now consigned to hooks and shelves, stood in full
hairy nudity before the seated girl. She looked
knowingly at his drooping manhood. It twitched slightly
upward.
"Tell me what this Tu'a-po did to you."
She grinned at him. "Everything you're about to do."
"Ah, Marie, I must know exactly for my report to the
captain." He took one of her hands from her lap and
placed it on his penis. "Did he make you do this?"
She grasped him gently and withdrew the foreskin with a
chuckle. "No. I was the one who thought of <this>!"
"Indeed!... How about this?" His fingers tweaked her
nipple.
"Oh, they did that, all right -- with their teeth,
even!"
"They? My English is so poor... Marie, do you mean more
than one, ah, fucked you?"
"I'll say! All of them."
"My god!" His hand dropped to her thighs and probed
into her labia. "Here, too?"
"Everywhere. Well, no, not quite everywhere."
"Are you not sore?"
"I was at first, but I toughened up."
"How long had you been among them?"
She paused in retrospection. "I think three days."
The man nodded. "So. But they fucked you every day, is
that right? All of them? Two at the time, perhaps?"
"Oh, yes." She chuckled reminiscently. "And three. Once
I took two in my mouth together."
"Is that right! In the mouth like this?" He leaned
forward, his nearly erect member touching her chin. For
answer she simply lowered her mouth and accepted him,
pushing back his foreskin by skillfully tightening her
lips on the partly exposed tip as it entered, then
letting them expand around the entire knob.
The man noticed. "Ah, a lady of experience, aren't you!
You did this often for Tu'a-po?"
She nodded without releasing him. With her mouth full
she could not tell him how Fu Wong had held her hands
and taught her that trick.
"Just before I saved you, you did it for Tu'a-po,
didn't you?"
What did he say? She withdrew from her mouthful,
eyebrows rising. "<Saved> me?"
The lieutenant chuckled. "Doesn't it seem that you are
saved?"
"I didn't want to be saved. The brown men were... very
nice."
"How many years do you have, Marie?"
"Years? I'm not sure. Jake said I was 13. What is the
date?"
"29 September."
"Oh! Then I <am> 13!"
"Is it true? You seem much older."
She smiled. "You're nice, too, but I'm only 13. Do you
think I am charming?"
"But certainly! Lie back on the bed, Marie, and open
the legs. I must see how they have harmed you."
She did as she was told. At least she could understand
this one. Almost. He talked funny but it was better
than Tu'a-po's growls and gestures that sometimes meant
the opposite from what she thought.
She let this hairy fellow poke his fingers into her
pussy, as Jake had named it, and was pleased to feel no
soreness at all. His fingers strayed below and entered
her again. She twitched. "That tickles!" But it was not
so unpleasant.
"Did the brown men fuck you here, also?" he asked.
"No. Only Fu Wong."
His eyebrows rose inquiringly. "Did you say, 'Only for
once?'"
"No. Only when I had my curse."
"Your... curse?" He shook his head. "That is the puzzle
we can solve another time. Now we must make the deep
test."
He rose to his feet, took her ankles and pulled her
hips to the edge of the high bunk. She felt his manhood
touch her nether lips. He brought her feet up to either
side of his head and leaned further forward, resting
some of the weight of his chest on her calves and of
his belly on her thighs. The obvious prospect before
her and the work of his fingers had somewhat prepared
her. He entered her with only a little difficulty,
merely requiring two or three shoves for full
penetration. At least his was slimmer than Jake's, but
then so was everyone's so far.
This way to do it, with her legs up before him and
bearing some of his weight, allowed him to push very
deeply. She arched her back, rolling her hips in
counterpoint to his thrusts and was rewarded by thrills
both deep and shallow. She moaned as the separate
thrills merged into a rising wave of pleasure.
"This one truly loves it!" the man breathed in French
and increased his efforts.
A head appeared, inverted, in the top of the stern
porthole: Bou- bou, dangling curiously from the
flagstay, but neither man nor girl noticed. When their
moans rose to crescendo and the man fell back dripping
and panting to take a seat in the desk chair, Bou- bou
discretely withdrew.
That night Marie found herself in a hammock, legs
raised in the identical manner against Bou-bou's chest
while he straddled the cloth and pounded her internally
with enthusiasm but far too briefly. The off-duty
helmsman, however, and the several others in the funny
tapered room at the front of the ship proved more than
adequate compensation, though they nearly persuaded
Marie that such "underneath" fucking was all the French
knew how to do.
One of the sailors spoke her language clearly. In their
brief moment together he told her that 106 men occupied
the ship, all of whom loved her -- or at least hoped to
do so. She decided that she was saved after all.
Then shortly after daybreak they sailed into the harbor
at Timuata. First bathed by many hands and wrapped in
the lieutenant's bed sheet, she was handed over to the
care of women. Her life had changed forever.
CHAPTER 9
Domestic Bliss
--------------
Belle sat in the shade while Jill played in the small
waves a hundred yards down the beach. It had been
almost a week since Marie was carried off by cannibals,
and while she could not forget her middle sister, Belle
had to go on. She had to look after little Jill.
Jake came up and sat beside her silently. No words were
required because she knew what he wanted, that he had
come to claim his reward after a decent interval of
mourning. She sat with her back against the bole of a
tree, her legs stretched straight before her. She
shuddered slightly in apprehension when he touched the
flesh of her leg just below the hem of the petticoat.
She turned her face to him, and as they stared at each
other, she felt his hand move slowly on her skin, under
the petticoat to her knee and then up her thigh.
"Please don't," she said. "Jill will see us." But she
did not stir, did not interfere with his hand.
"She's too far away, Belle, and she's busy with her
sand castle."
"Please, Higgins, not just yet." But the young woman
spread her legs just enough to allow him access to the
inside of her upper thighs, which were soft and warm.
Belle closed her eyes, after a quick glance down the
beach at Jill, and relaxed completely. She did not
return the kiss which he placed on her lips, nor did
she seek to touch him.
Jake's head rested on the tree trunk next to the
girl's, so close that his breathing was audible. She
clenched her eyes tighter when she felt his fingers
begin to explore her feminine parts and finally
concentrate on the magic spot.
"Oh, God!" she gasped and bit her lower lip as fingers
invaded her vagina more and more deeply while a thumb
continued to excite her clitoris.
"You like this, I see," the man observed smugly as he
nuzzled the her head with his face. "I have so much
more for you, darling."
Belle's body trembled slightly and her mouth dropped
open to emit a series of shrill groans. She soon
quieted and opened her eyes when the man removed his
hand. She watched him lick his fingers lasciviously and
leer openly.
"Come, Belle. Let's scoot behind this tree and do it
properly."
"No, no, not now." She got to her feet, a bit wobbly on
her legs, avoiding his eyes. "Later. Tonight, when
Jill's asleep. I'll come to you." With that she turned
and walked out onto the sand in the direction of the
little sister who was playing so innocently.
* * *
They lay naked together in the warm, dark night. Jill
nestled in her sister's arm as she rubbed herself to
get that pleasure which was so delightful, which helped
her to sleep. Belle embraced the little sister when she
began to groan and felt a vicarious pleasure at her
squeaks.
"Good night, Belle," Jill whispered in a sleepy voice,
kissed the lips of the older one gently and turned onto
her side.
Belle caressed the younger's slender thigh, rubbing her
hand lightly up and down its softness until she heard a
snore. After waiting a few more minutes to be certain
that Jill was indeed asleep, she rose carefully and
eased herself out of the small hut.
She had to do it, she thought as she picked her way
carefully in the darkness. She had to do it for Jill
who otherwise would fall easy prey to the dirty old man
at the bottom of the path. In the absence of a regular
concubine, Higgins would not hesitate to take the
child, as he did Marie, who had been but little older.
She would sacrifice herself, her body, to his lust --
casting aside the troubling realization that it would
not, in fact be a sacrifice. She was eager to reach the
bottom of the path. However much she disdained the man,
she yearned to experience this part of life fully for
the first time.
* * *
"Higgins?" she called as she groped in the darkness of
the overcast night.
"Straight ahead, darling," he responded cheerfully, not
far away. She cringed at the familiarity in his voice;
he was not her equal.
"There, I have you," he crowed, grasping her hand and
pulling her to him, their naked bodies touching. "Ah,
Belle, you feel so soft." His arms went around the
barely mature young woman, almost as tall as himself.
"Give me a kiss."
"I didn't promise kisses, Higgins, much less
affection!" She snapped her face away from the touch of
his beard.
"But I shall kiss your lips tonight, Belle, if not the
upper ones."
The once proper young woman, modesty long forfeit in
the savage environment, cringed at the crudeness of his
words, yet felt a tingle of anticipation.
"Will this take long?" she asked sourly in a tone she
would normally reserve for a tardy bootsmith.
"We have all night, precious," he replied, palming a
magnificent breast that was soft, pert and modest. "I
will give you pleasure."
"I'd rather not, if it will take all night with you.
Get on with it and assuage your lust."
"Perhaps we shouldn't talk so much," he murmured,
smiling in his beard at the tell-tale nipple coming to
a point in his palm. Licking her neck, he pulled her
gently to the ground with him.
"I wish it were light enough to see your body closely,
lovely Belle. Your pale flesh is so beautiful. Why do
you avoid the sun?"
She did not respond. She felt a mouth on one breast and
a caressing hand on the other. She tried to imagine
another man doing this, but she could think only of the
boy, Wu Fong. She relaxed and fantasized an adult Wu
Fong, nibbling her thighs, pushing them apart and...
"Oh, God!" she cried aloud when a tongue licked her
magic spot. The fantasy in her mind disappeared as
blown fog in the reality of the crude, physical ecstasy
that overwhelmed her body. She did not hold back, could
not, could only surrender totally to it. She did not
know that she rolled her head violently and squeezed
her breasts almost painfully. She did not hear the
scream that rushed from her open mouth. The exquisite
pleasure was simply unbearable.
"Please, please," she gasped, pushing at the head
between her thighs, which afforded a momentary respite.
Before she could relax and collect herself a body's
weight pressed atop her, and she screamed in abandon
when something monstrous, something alien, pushed into
her body, then out, then in again with a forceful
thrust. It was unrelenting in its determination to undo
her mind. With an awesome, frightening rush her body
was assailed by a sensory explosion that was totally
indescribable, that convulsed her in unimaginable
physical bliss. As it abated she had time just to
shudder before she was overwhelmed by another wave of
it. She had thought she understood the meaning of
ecstasy. This was the reality.
Belle was aware of the man's kisses and the tickling of
his beard on her face. She had never before felt so
relaxed and at peace. Her body was limp.
"You liked that very much," she heard a voice speaking
into her face. How smug it was, she thought, and its
breath was sour.
Higgins! She pushed him forcefully away and struggled
to rise, but succeeded only to hands and knees. She had
no strength.
"Stay here, pretty one," Jake purred, pulling on a
rounded buttock. "We can do it again quite soon."
She felt moisture leaking down her thigh. Heavenly
Father, she groaned inwardly, the creature has
impregnated me! She crawled away from the man on her
hands and knees until she was able to rise and stagger
back up the path.
* * *
Belle slept well into the next morning. When she
finally awoke, memory of the night's inconceivable
pleasure was at the front of her mind. Involuntarily
she twisted her legs together and discovered a soreness
that only strengthened the feeling. The fat penis had
pounded something deep within her that had never been
touched. In so doing it had washed her mind away in
unmitigated ecstasy. Her hand went to the source, then
flew away. She wanted the entire experience again, not
some pale imitation.
But in the light of day, when she came out onto the
ledge and saw Higgins playing some incomprehensible
game in the dust with Jill, she was aghast that she had
given herself to that wretched old man.
"Jill, come here!" she barked, glaring at the man whose
smirk that morning was bold beyond precedence.
"But Jake and I are about to go swimming," the little
voice responded with a pout.
"You'll bathe with me. Higgins has to work on the storm
wall."
* * *
That night, when Jill was so soundly asleep that she
did not stir even to the gentle sucking of Belle's lips
on one of her swollen nipples, the older girl got up
and left the house. She despised herself as she walked
down the path naked in the moonlight.
"Belle, I've been awaiting you," Jake said softly from
the darkness of a shadow, startling the young woman.
"I want to be on top," she declared.
"I know your fear, dearest, but trust me to pull out in
time."
Belle did not trust him in the least, but she would
submit to anything, to whatever humiliation, to
experience that awesome pleasure once again. To what
had Marie likened it: a Chinese opium addiction?
Every night after that she left the ledge and visited
Jake. He pulled his fat member out of her before
spewing forth, usually. She relished the onset of her
next curse. She had dodged a bullet, she thought.
Jake eventually persuaded the girl to lie with him in
the afternoon also, when Jill was playing on the beach.
"I want to see your beauty," he argued. But Belle
disliked the sight of him.
She achieved another curse with a sigh of relief.
* * *
"Have we been here for a whole year, Jake?" the
beautiful young girl asked as she absent-mindedly dug
at the sand with a toe.
"No, poodle, just about nine months. I think."
"Nothing ever changes," she complained.
"That's not so, sweetheart," Jake replied and cupped
one of the girl's small breasts. "You didn't arrive on
the island with these. And you're inches taller also."
A wave of excitement rose in the man, pumping blood
into his penis. He had never openly fondled the girl
before, although he had wanted to, especially during
the last months. He was gratified that she did not
protest or move away from his touch.
"They're getting bigger every day," he continued,
placing both hands on Jill's chest.
The pointy conical breasts did not fill his palms, but
the feel of them aroused him. Forbidden fruit is oh, so
sweet, he thought. Her legs had grown longer and her
thighs had filled out invitingly, yet there was not a
trace of hair around her nether lips. She stood beside
him quite relaxed in her nakedness, having just come
from playing in the surf. The nearness of the beautiful
girl and the touch of her grew too painful to bear. He
needed sexual release in the worst way.
"My poodle," he said, standing erect, "I'm going up to
the hut. Would you play down here for a while?"
"I know what you're going to do," she replied with a
knowing smile.
'Yes, I'm sure you do," he answered, placing his arms
around her for a slight hug and the quick palming of a
perky buttock. Her head now reached to his shoulder.
"I'll come down and get you later," he said, releasing
her and turning toward the path to the house.
"Why can't I ever watch?" Jill called to him in
protest.
Jake did not answer but dashed up to the house, to
Belle.
* * *
Belle, standing on the ledge near the entrance to the
house saw him coming, and she knew the reason for his
hurry. She was not at all in the mood and she would
have to fake sexual arousal. She resented being the
stand-in for Jill who seemed, so innocently, to drive
the man increasingly into a sexual frenzy. But she
would continue to do it, for Jill, although she knew
that before long Jake, being the sort of person he was,
would take the girl.
"Belle, darling," Jake said with a wide smile on his
bearded face as he approached her, "you look so fresh
and lovely after your nap."
Those were the exact words he had used the previous day
to announce his need for sex, Belle groused to herself
as she turned and entered the hut with him. No further
words were needed. Belle took off her petticoat and
Jake stepped out of his britches. He was an
unattractive man in every way except for that "cock" of
his, Belle mused not for the first time as she reclined
onto the pallet. She would not really have to fake it,
she understood. That member of his never failed to
excite her eventually, if he lasted long enough. Jake
got down on top of the young woman.
"Not so fast," Belle complained. "I'm still dry."
Jake rolled off her body and sought to kiss her lips as
he grabbed a handful of tit.
"Lick on me, Jake," she barked, turning her head aside
abruptly. "You know that's the only way <you> can get
me ready.
"Don't be so cruel, Belle darling," the man protested,
although he quickly positioned his head between her
lovely, young thighs.
He parted her pubic jungle with his fingers and found
his target. God! how he wanted to lick on Jill's
hairless cunt, he thought as he worked his magic on the
young woman.
Belle liked this part very much. Without having to see
or smell the man she still got wonderful pleasure. She
squirmed in delight at the feel of the man's tongue.
She decided that she wanted him to take her all the way
with his licking.
"Don't stop," she commanded.
Jake knew the code and continued his efforts as Belle
became increasingly agitated. She squeezed her tits and
moaned from an open mouth and then uttered shrill gasps
when her orgasm struck.
Then he was quickly atop her, embedding his shaft in a
single thrust. It felt huge inside her, and she knew
for a certainty that she was to have another pleasure
that afternoon, and soon. She gave herself up to it
without worry. She was already pregnant, although she
had not yet informed Jake. The ecstasy suddenly hit her
and she cried out as he continued to pound and pound.
Then another! -- relished and gone just in time,
because he began to grunt forth his seed.
Jill, peeking unseen through the doorway, also took
pleasure from her own finger, although it was not, she
thought, as great as her sister's.
* * *
"Jake," Jill said quietly as they walked along the
beach an hour later. "Jake, I peeked."
"What did you peek, poodle?"
"I peeked at you and Belle a little while ago."
Jake was startled by the girl's confession but not
unduly troubled.
"Did you learn anything?" he asked, taking her hand in
his.
She just giggled and squeezed his hand. Then she asked,
"Why did you have your head between Belle's legs?"
"Why do you think? he replied, looking slyly at her.
Jill's eyes grew large and her lips formed a perfect O.
"Were you kissing her there?"
"Something like that," he responded, suddenly amused by
the conversation.
"You were licking on her!" the girl exclaimed,
realizing the truth in an instant.
Jake said nothing.
"Belle really seemed to enjoy it."
"Can you imagine what it must feel like?" Jake blurted,
going recklessly into dangerous waters.
Jill stopped, pulling Jake to a halt with her hand.
"I can't really imagine it, Jake. Would you show me?"
Jill said this in complete innocence, not realizing the
effect that her words had on the man.
Jake was stunned at the opportunity the beautiful girl
offered. He lightly rubbed the back of his hand across
one of her small tits, and she shivered in the humid
afternoon.
"You know it's naughty," he told her.
She nodded her flaxen head vigorously, looking up into
his hairy face with an open mouth.
"Do you want to play naughty?" he asked softly as he
gently fondled her head with both his hands.
Again she nodded her head with an expectant look on her
face.
"You can't tell Belle, you know."
"I know."
Jill was extremely excited at the prospect of playing
naughty with Jake, and the man was almost trembling
with lust for the young girl.
"Let's go into the shade," he suggested with a husky
voice.
They walked over to the trees and sat upon a cushion of
fronds.
'I've never kissed you properly, Jill," he said softly
with a palm on her cheek.
"Teach me how, Jake," she responded and presented her
face with her eyes closed.
Jake took the girl into his arms and the two of them
reclined slowly to the ground. The touch of his lips to
hers was the sweetest kiss of his entire life, he
thought.
"Your beard tickles!" Jill giggled, pulling away
slightly but then going back for more.
They kissed for a long time, with increasing passion.
Their tongues eventually engaged. All the while Jake's
fingers fondled the girls left breast, so soft and
small. He then nibbled her neck and her shoulder and
finally that little nipple. He almost said that he
wanted to eat her up, but stopped short because of
Marie and the cannibals. Jake rose to a sitting
position while Jill remained reclined, looking at him
with an eager smile. He undid her leaf skirt and put it
slowly aside.
"Are you going to do it now, Jake? Are you going to
lick on me?" Her voice was expectant.
"Very soon, darling. First I want to look at you and
touch your beauty."
The man placed his two hand's on her nearest thigh and
fondled its young smoothness lasciviously. He poked a
finger gently at the girl's vaginal lips and she
started with a nervous giggle. He leaned down and
kissed those swollen lips with a passion and then began
to lick them.
"It tickles," Jill protested weakly, but she was
becoming aroused.
Jake could discern just pin hairs down there. Then he
set to it. With trembling fingers he parted the lips
and began to lick on the small clit he found. From the
very first touch of his tongue Jill began to squirm and
then moan.
"Oh, Jake," she cried, "it's scary. Go easy!" And then
a bit later with a gasp she cried, "Don't stop!"
The writhing of her body and her ecstatic cries
occurred three times. She fell suddenly quiet. Jake was
enflamed. He pulled down his britches and climbed atop
the young girl, who lay beneath him with her eyes
closed, her lips slightly parted. When he pushed his
hard cock at the girl's bare vagina, her eyes popped
open.
"What are you doing, Jake?" she asked with a plaintive,
frightened voice, the man heavily upon her.
"I was just touching you with my cock," he replied half
truthfully, pulling his body back from hers.
"Can I play with it?" she asked eagerly, although still
a bit woozy from her tremendous pleasure.
"Of course, poodle," he replied, reclining next to her.
"We'll play with it together."
With his left arm he pulled the lovely girl's head
comfortably onto his shoulder. Leaning slightly on his
side, so that his cock head could brush lightly against
her thigh, he began masturbating slowly. He did this
for a minute or so, kissing the girl all the while. He
stood before the Gates of Heaven, which were ajar. He
would have to be patient; he was confident of having
the beautiful creature before very long.
She rose to a sitting position, grasped his organ and
said, "Let me play with it."
"Sure, darling," he replied, lying flat on his back,
his head resting on his left arm bent behind it.
The curious girl's small fingers did not encompass even
half of his fat circumference. She brought her other
hand into play, and with a gleeful cry began to pump
him up and down awkwardly. He could watch her intent
face. After a moment of this exercise she frowned
thoughtfully, brought her nose down to the cock and
sniffed. The tip of her tongue flicked the end of the
swollen glans as she held back the foreskin with a
small hand.
"It smells kind of funny, Jake, and it has a strange
taste," she said, turning her head to look over into
his eyes.
"That's because just a little while ago I had it inside
Belle and I haven't washed it yet."
"You had all of this inside her?" she asked in
amazement, gauging the heft of the organ again with
both hands."
"That's right, sweetie, all of it."
"It must have felt good for her, because she made so
much noise."
"Yes, poodle, she really enjoyed it and so did I."
Jake stared with pent-up excitement at the beautiful,
slender girl who continued to examine his cock. She was
not the least bit shy about what they were doing, he
saw. Taking her all the way would present no
difficulty.
Drawing her legs under her, she rose up and straddled
his body, positioning the turgid penis at her bare
slit.
"What are you doing, Jill?" he demanded, grabbing her
thighs with his two hands, feeling both apprehension
and anticipation.
"I want to put it inside, Jake," she replied with a
defensive pout. "I want to feel the pleasure that Belle
did."
"I think that I'm too big for you, darling. You're too
small," but he did not attempt to stop her.
Jill knelt above the man and pressed her body against
his massive cock, at first diffidently but then with
one strong thrust. She bounced away, wide-eyed, and
cried, "That hurt!"
"You aren't ready for it yet, poodle," Jake said in
disappointment. "We'll do it when you get just a little
larger."
"Promise?"
"Yes, I promise."
Jill sat on the man's knees and lower thighs and began
once again to play with his cock, which aroused him to
the point of pain.
"Jill, baby, do you want to give me pleasure?"
"Oh, yes, Jake. Tell he how."
"Suck on the end of it."
The girl looked suspiciously down at her friend, but
nevertheless leaned forward, pulled back the foreskin
and forced the engorged glans within her lips. His
right hand crept to the back of her head, urging it to
bob, while the left caught hers around the shaft and
urged it to pump, as she sucked. He fell back and
sighed, one foot inside the Pearly Gates, relishing the
pleasure, enjoying also the slurpy sounds of suction.
It did not take long before he felt himself about to
explode. He deliberately did not warn the girl. The
first dribble caused her to pause, eyes widening in
surprise. The next full spurt strongly flooded her
mouth. Her head jerked back, leaving his remainder to
wet her face, neck and chest.
Jill sat up beside the man and looked at him from a
twisted, unhappy face. Her tongue push his seed through
pursed lips. It drooled down her chin.
"I'm sorry, poodle. I should have warned you," the
sated man declared without any sincerity.
"Yes, you should, and please warn me next time." She
grinned. "But I wouldn't have stopped."
* * *
Jill returned to the house naked carrying her skirt
across an arm, quite excited by her outing with Jake,
by having played naughty with him.
"Where have you been all afternoon?" Belle growled
angrily at the girl. "I've been worried sick."
"Jake and I were playing naughty down the beach a
ways," Jill replied with an animated face that seemed
to be so innocent.
"Playing what? With that low-born Higgins? That dirty
old man?" Belle's face was flushed with outrage. "How
exactly were you playing?"
When the girl only stared, Belle tried again with a
softer voice. "What did he do to you, dearest?" She
pulled the little girl against her for a hug.
"We just played naughty," Jill said in a low voice,
almost a whisper with her cheek pressed against her
sister's shoulder.
"Did he hurt you? Did he put his awful thing into you?"
Belle demanded, again stern, holding the scarcely
pubescent girl at arms' length to stare into her pretty
face.
"Oh, no. He said that I was too small. But I tried to
do it and I thought I might when I pushed myself at his
thing. But then he said I would have to grow bigger."
"You tried to put his penis into yourself?" Belle
shrieked, horrified at the extent to which Jill and
Jake's friendship was getting out of control.
"Yes," her sister answered with a mild blush. "I tried
to sit on it when Jake lay on the ground. But it hurt
awfully so I stopped."
"Here, let me see if you have damaged yourself."
Belle knelt before the naked girl whose vaginal lips
seem irritated from obvious sexual play. There was also
a small amount of dried blood in the crack. She saw
more blood, when she spread the lips. The girl had
indeed injured herself somewhat, but her hymen seemed
to be at least partly intact. Belle climbed to her
feet.
"And what else were you doing with him?" she demanded
in a gruff voice.
"Oh, I had so much fun. I played with his thing and
sucked on it, even though it was just about too fat. I
had to stretch my lips until it almost hurt. Then it
squirted into my mouth and all over my face.
"That's absolutely disgusting!" Belle stated with a
sick look on her face. Things had indeed gotten out of
control, and the worst part of it was that Jill enjoyed
sex play with the old man.
"Yes, I suppose, perhaps. It didn't taste very good so
I spit out most of it."
"<Most> of it!"
"I swallowed a little," the girl admitted sheepishly
looking at her feet. "It surprised me."
"You're making me ill!"
"It was kind of fun, Belle. It made Jake holler and
bounce. But that wasn't the best part."
"And what was the best part?" the young woman demanded
rolling her eyes upward.
"Well... that was when he licked on me," Jill replied
almost breathlessly. "It was not at all like when I
touch myself." She looked earnestly into her sister's
face as if trying to convey a difficult truth. "It was
absolutely marvelous. I never felt anything like that
ever. He did it three times until I thought I'd go
crazy."
Belle blushed deeply, because Jill's words brought
forth a memory long suppressed, a recollection of the
naughtiest act in her entire life. Years before, when
she was little older than Jill, she had gotten naked
with a playmate, Su Lee, and they had licked on each
other for an entire afternoon. They did it just that
one time, because, afterwards, Belle was consumed by
profound guilt. She knew that the seriousness of a sin
is proportional to its pleasure; therefore she had
committed an absolutely monstrous sin that day.
"Jill, I wish you would stay away from that awful man,"
Belle pleaded, although she knew that any effort to
keep them apart was fruitless.
"But, Belle, it felt so wonderfully good! I want to
feel it again."
"Little girl!" Belle replied in great anger, blurting
forth her words without forethought, "If you so need to
be licked upon, then I'll do it!"
"Would you do that, Belle! Really? Would you lick on
me?" Jill wriggled against her sister's body in
jubilation.
Belle was absolutely aghast at what she had just said,
at least at first. But then she began to appreciate the
possibilities. She was so in need of another's touch,
of intimate pleasure, something more than the crude
rutting she did with Jake. And it wouldn't be sinful,
she assured herself, not with her own sister.
"Yes," she replied laconically in a very low voice,
pulling Jill's golden head to her chest.
"When?" the girl asked in a muffled voice.
"When, what, dearest?"
"When will we do it?"
Belle breathed deeply and let the air out in a long
sigh. "Tonight, darling, after dark."
"I'll lick on you too, Belle."
"Yes," the young woman said. "I'd like that."
They had become heathen savages, Belle thought. Things
were totally out of control. Even she herself. She
yearned for the pleasures awaiting in the coming night.
In the dark of that evening the sisters became gentle
lovers, and Belle was the most enthusiastic of the two.
* * *
"Jake," Belle confronted the man who had arrived at the
door for his daily fuck. "Jake, we need to talk"
The man shuffled his feet, imagining what the problem
was, because he knew that Jill could never keep their
secret.
"You went too far yesterday, you cretin," Belle
stormed. "Don't you have a heart? Don't you even care
about the girl? She's not yet twelve and acts like ten,
and you tried to put your ugly thing in her."
"She was on top," Jake protested lamely
"And when that didn't work, you stuck it into her
little mouth! You're disgusting. How can you live with
yourself?" Belle was in a full rage. "I let you have me
only to keep you away from her."
"You seem to enjoy it," the man retorted reasonably.
"You bastard! Whether or not I'm so weak a person to
enjoy your body has nothing to do with this. Just stay
away from her. No more 'playing', no more swimming
together. Just stay away. I'll keep her with me all day
from now on."
"She won't like that."
"Perhaps not, but that's the way it's going to be. I
won't have you getting her pregnant too."
"Too?"
"Yes, and I dread the coming of it because I'll
probably bleed to death in the sand. But then, you
would like that, wouldn't you? Then you could do your
nastiness on little Jill."
"You're not being fair, Belle. I care for the both of
you."
"Only one part of you cares for us," Belle shrieked,
grabbing his penis and giving it a painful yank.
"Ow!" Jake howled, jerking back.
Belle's rage abated and she stood before the man,
wordless, panting from her emotional outburst.
"I'll suck on it, Jake," she then said in a low voice.
"You've always wanted me to and I can do it better than
Jill."
Without the least indication of enthusiasm Belle sank
to her knees, took hold of the man's fat cock, pumped a
few times and then engulfed its head and a couple of
inches more.
The quiet air was filled with sucking sounds, slurps
and pops. Jake's anger at the young woman withheld his
climax, but it finally arrived. When the preparatory
tingle announced his point of no return, he grasped the
woman's head tightly and held her forcefully in place
while he spewed all his fluid into her mouth. With all
her strength she forced him away at last to fall
backwards and choked out white foam. She barely managed
to restrain her gorge.
"You filthy bastard!" she growled softly, looking up at
him, her face twisted in hatred. "If only I still had
the gun!"
* * *
For the next week or so Belle did not let Jill out of
her sight, and each night she exhausted the girl
sexually. The younger one realized that there was great
trouble between her sister and Jake, that she was at
the center of it. But she did not complain.
Despite this tension Jake would visit the house each
afternoon. After Belle sent Jill away to play or to
roam the beach, she would take off her last petticoat,
now frayed and ragged, and lie on her back for the
man's pleasure. To Belle the worst of it was that she
enjoyed sex with the odious creature; she caught
herself anticipating it from first awakening in the
morning.
Jake continued to provide them with food and an implied
measure of protection, but they communicated with each
other only in begrudged words and phrases. Jake saw
Jill rarely and then usually at a distance.
They endured an unrelenting tedium that lasted week
after week. Belle's belly grew large after four or five
months of this existence, and she was very fearful of
the future. Jill's breasts became more full, clinging
to her chest modest and pointy. She added another
couple of inches to her height, and pubic hairs began
to appear at her groin. Jake remained a part of their
life, although he would sometimes disappear for days at
a time.
Belle was consumed with increasing despair and
depression. She would have thrown herself into the sea,
had it not been for her need to protect Jill from the
loathsome beast who roamed the island and who appeared
frequently to give her shameful pleasure.
One morning on which Belle could not bring herself to
rise from her pallet, Jill stuck her head through the
doorway and said loudly, breathlessly, "Belle! A ship!
Just outside the cove! They're lowering a boat!"
The young woman swooned where she lay on the filthy,
uncomfortable pallet of rags and palm fronds.
CHAPTER 10
Truth
----------
The young naval officer clicked his boot heels together
and saluted smartly. "Lt. Pierre LeContreau reporting
as ordered, my captain."
Maurice duValier, naval captain despite his present
command of one company of marines, one sloop of war,
and a dozen islands containing some 12,000 Marquesan
natives -- plus a few French priests without whom
captain, marines and warsloop would be basking in the
vicinity of the Seine or at least Marseilles instead of
this god-forsaken outpost of ungovernable cannibals,
looked up from his desk and nodded to acknowledge the
salute. His sweeping handlebar mustache drooped further
in a scowl. "You are late, lieutenant."
"Because of the storm, my captain. The rocks protect
this harbor but make navigating it chancy when the wind
is high."
"That excuse is getting old, lieutenant."
"Oh, have I used it before?"
The captain smiled. "But I admit it is a good one.
Without orders to risk it, the safety of your ship
comes first. If word got to Hiva-oa that it had gone on
the rocks, we should have an uprising in no time."
"Yes, we should. Thank you, my captain."
"I do not complain very much today. Why I have called
you is not urgent -- that is, it is not urgent today
though it might have been a year ago."
"A year?"
"Yes. You no doubt recall the white girl, ah, Clister -
- what an abominable English name; you would think the
Americans had learned better -- Clister Marie Meron.
Good French family name, that. But she insists on being
American. And Chinese." He shrugged.
"Has some ill befallen her, sir?"
"Not as it is normally reckoned." The captain smiled
sourly. "Three months ago she gave birth, quite easily,
thanks to God, to a healthy male infant who suckles the
breast lustily as you or I might. As the child of a
white mother born in the Marquesas, I am constrained by
the admiral's sentiment to record it properly after due
and diligent investigation, especially considering the
mother's age and circumstances."
"I see. I wrote a report on her rescue, my captain."
"Yes, including a copy for the admiral." Capt. duValier
scowled again. "Too bad you didn't misplace that one."
His face cleared. "Or maybe not. There is more to this
business than you knew. Look at this paper, the part I
have circled. You read English, don't you?"
"Yes, sir, a little." The lieutenant took the offered
item. It was a clipping from a Lloyds shipping journal.
<Fleeting Star, 6,000 ton clipper of U.S. registry, out
of Canton bound for New York, cargo tea and misc.,
overdue six months in mid-Pacific, Harvey G. Norris,
Master, ins. cat. 8. Notable passengers the Rev. Hosea
Meron, Argentian Synod of China, and three minor
daughters.>
"My god!" The date had been retained at the top of the
clipping. It was about three months old.
"Meron is a good French name," the captain remarked,
"but not so common as all that. This girl, though
discovered in an indigenous outrigger, is nevertheless
a link to that ship's disappearance."
"What does 'ins. cat. 8' mean?"
"That's the English abbreviation of 'Insurance
Category.' It means the ship and cargo were insured for
at least eight million pounds sterling."
"That sounds high."
"So presumably would be the salvage." The captain
leaned back in his seat. "Lt. LeContreau, pull up a
chair. Then I want you to tell me everything that
happened on your ship relative to this girl and
everything she told you about herself. And, lieutenant,
when I say everything, I mean <everything>!"
* * *
"You actually saw her sucking his cock?"
"No, my captain, I did not see it in her mouth. Her
back was toward me and I was spying through a
telescope. But when she raised her head and turned to
me, his cock was standing like a flag pole."
"Then she told you that <all> the natives had fucked
her?"
"Morning and night, she said. And I believed her. When
I entered the cabin, my ship's boy sat on the bunk
while she sucked him to climax on her knees. In fact my
sudden entry -- I am not accustomed to knocking at my
own cabin -- startled her so that she snapped back. He
was just spending. His spunk streaked her face and
chest."
"Ha! I suppose you congratulated him."
"I prepared to thrash him savagely -- not for the cock
sucking; he was familiar with it and everyone knows...
well, you understand. But for the arrogance of seducing
her so swiftly. She had not been aboard the Ellette
longer than five minutes. He defended himself by
claiming she pushed <him> down and gobbled his cock. I
had to believe him, of course, because of witnessing
her service to the big native and because she was much
too calm and nonchalant to have just taken cock into
mouth for the first time. I proceeded to test my
theory."
The captain suggested dryly, "But yes, with your own
instrument?"
The younger man coughed. "May I first ascertain whether
my captain entertains the British sentiment against
congress with young girls?"
"Against? Who said the British are against it? In fact
they <love> it! It is only that they love making such
things illegal so much more. Their national sport is
not cricket; it is catching each other in these
specious crimes.
"Seriously, what is the ancient advice? 'Old enough to
bleed, old enough to breed.' And that is my rule in
this matter."
"Ah, thank you, my captain. Then, yes, sir, I did
perform such a test. She mouthed me with only the very
least encouragement."
"What encouragement?"
"It had only to touch her lips."
"You had her tied down at the time?"
"No, no. I had laid hand -- actually the bedsheet --
upon her only to the extent of cleansing off the cabin
boy's spunk."
"Ah, so you consummated in her mouth?"
"Not at all! Mouths and bums are everywhere available
on a warship. Here was a unique opportunity. Which I
seized."
"Thank you. That is very interesting." Something about
the captain's tone reminded his junior of a cat playing
with a mouse. "And who else seized that unique
opportunity among your crew?"
"As a matter of fact, sir, <I> personally know only
that Bou -- ah, the cabin boy, took her again that
night. In his hammock, I believe."
"You personally know. Ha! You are too good a ship
captain not to know everything that happens on your
ship. Who else, lieutenant?"
"I believe she spent the night in the fo'c'sle. The
duty watch was quite incensed at such scandalous
occurrences, or so I was told. Its members, and the
marine contingent, expressed many hard feelings when
she left the ship the next morning in Timuata. To
prevent a mutiny I had actually to dispatch my marines
for a bevy of native whores."
"You what? You let those scurvy creatures on your
ship?"
"No, no, my captain? What do you take me for? We strung
canvas around the dock, of course."
"Of course. My apologies, lieutenant. You interviewed
Marie in your cabin, I believe. Did your report include
everything she told you of her history?"
"I believe so. It was very little that made sense. For
example, she said that the natives never took her
anally, then amended it to claim one time only."
"I refer to her life <before> taking up with the
natives. How did that happen, do you know?"
"I gather she was captured in some sort of gunfight."
"A gunfight." The senior nodded. "That is most serious.
It means that somehow some of the natives had acquired
guns."
"Sir, didn't we always suppose they had some remaining
from the sandalwood boom of 20 years ago?"
"We never sighted any. Perhaps the guns belonged to the
defenders?"
"I think that is a reasonable conjecture. By the way,
Marie told me the leader's name: Tu'a-po."
"Yes, your report noted that. But again, what did she
say about her life before Tu'a-po? Did she mention the
Fleeting Star?"
"No, sir. You understand, sir, at the time she knew no
French and my English was learned in the diplomatic
service. It's not the type young women speak."
The captain grinned sardonically. "Only those of a
certain kind."
The lieutenant grinned back. "Well, yes. Despite her
love of the cock, I don't believe Marie was that kind.
I knew of some slave girls in Haiti trained at about
her age to prefer oral service." He coughed and
continued, "She has been among us for twelve months.
Has she learned to speak our language? Excuse me.
Assuming the captain has reason to know."
"The captain has reason. She lives in my household."
"Indeed! Then has not the captain, ah, spoken--"
The older man waved a hand negligently. "Certainly we
have spoken. She has demonstrated youthful adeptness
with the accent. In addition to her arrival in the
Marquesas, about which as you say her information is
more than slightly confusing, we have discussed the
identity of her son's father."
The lieutenant shrugged. "How can she know? I counted
nine full grown males in the two outriggers, as I
reported, plus an adolescent boy. All of them fucked
her many times. Of course, that was rape. No disgrace
may attach to her."
The ruler of the Marquesas got to his feet, the
lieutenant necessarily following hastily. "Come with
me, Pierre, I want to show you something."
After a word with his marine guard the captain led his
subordinate into the private part of station, through
two rooms at that moment being tidied by female natives
dressed only in skirts, to a closed door on which he
knocked. A muffled voice bid them enter. It proved to
be a frilly feminine bedroom.
Clister Marie Meron sat in a rocking chair, her blouse
open, holding a bundle to her breast: a babe, the
lieutenant saw as he neared. She evinced no
embarrassment that the other nipple was exposed, a drop
of milk hanging from the tip. A second female, a native
from her skin and features, rose from the bed and bowed
toward the master. She wore only a full skirt plus a
shell necklace. Though a young woman, she exhibited
large and heavy breasts too full to jiggle as she
moved. Milk trembled on the tips of her nipples also.
Another, larger babe kicked dark feet in a basket
behind her.
Marie smiled for the captain, but her eyes widened in
recognition of the lieutenant. "The ship master!" she
declared. Her eyes twinkled. "Have you come to save my
baby, too?" Her French was quite good, only slightly
tainted with the English accent the lieutenant had
always found initially charming in women, however much
it cloyed after a few days.
"I am enchanted to see you again, Miss Marie," he
intoned, "but desolated that you have forgotten my
name."
The captain smiled at her. "This is Lt. Pierre
LeContreau, Marie, master of the Ellette and my
adjutant, when not rescuing beautiful maidens. Do you
credit him with saving you, then?"
She repeated the name, "Lt. Pierre LeContreau. But,
yes, I remember. I may call him Pierre only when we are
alone." She smiled roguishly at the lieutenant then
replied to the captain, "He thought he was saving me
from the Hivans."
The captain grinned sardonically at his junior. "Marie
and I have discussed this. She remains unconvinced of
the benefits of French -- I should say <western> --
civilization."
Marie's eyes on the younger man were definitely
twinkling. "Capt. duValier has told me it is because I
am a girl of very simple tastes."
The lieutenant clamped his mouth shut, bowed and
clicked his heels.
Her face lit as she peered down past the form in her
arms. "Oh, do that again!"
"Eh?"
The captain chuckled. "Marie finds our military habits
amusing -- some of them. You must keep in mind that she
has only 13 years."
At that moment her baby emitted a squawk. She deftly
transferred him to the full breast, leaving the other,
fully formed and supporting a large puckered nipple,
exposed to view. Both parts had been significantly
smaller the last time he saw them. He admitted,
staring, "It is hard to keep that in mind."
"For both of us. Marie, will you unwrap your son and
permit me to hold him for a moment?"
"Of course, sire." The swaddling cloth fell away and
she raised the child to the man. He took it and turned
it for the lieutenant's inspection. "What do you think
of this?"
The younger man found himself the subject of bright
blue eyes above a milk-filled mouth. Of its masculinity
no doubt might be entertained. "Remarkable! But he has
taken nothing at all from his father."
"Not of color or feature," agreed the captain. "And
yet, consider the babe's chin. Have you ever seen such
a prominent cleft on an indigene?"
"No. Obviously it arrived through the mother."
"If so, she has no sign of it."
"Do you infer..."
When the lieutenant's voice died away, the captain
nodded. "Yes, I do. This is a white man's child."
The junior gulped. "But, sir..."
The captain smiled and asked the mother, "Marie, whom
do you know with such a cute chin?"
The answer was immediate. "Jake, under his beard."
"Is that a name?" asked the lieutenant. "<Jacques>?"
"Almost. Marie, who is the father of this child?"
"Jacob Higgins."
"And who is Jacob Higgins?"
"<Was>! I think the Hivans killed him when they took me
away. He was the man who showed us how to get water
from the lifeboat. He was the first to love me in the
islands, and his cock was fatter than all of yours."
"Thank you, Marie." The captain returned the babe to
her. To his junior he said, "I ask you again, what do
you think?"
"Quite a testimonial!"
"Yes, from a girl of simple tastes. Here is one other
item for you to consider."
The captain went to the basket, pushed the cloths aside
and raised the darker babe aloft, presenting its
frontal appearance, also masculine, to the lieutenant.
It stirred restlessly. "Racial differences aside, what
other obvious disparity with Marie's son do you see?"
The junior studied the infant then chuckled. "Using
Marie's expression, I believe her son's cock must be
twice as fat."
"Of course a babe's equipment may not hold to manhood,
but it is an indication that perhaps Marie's son did
get one or two things from his father after all."
He gave the dark baby, now fretful, to the native girl
and continued, "Marie can tell but little more that
would be helpful in verifying her story, though she is
indeed one of the three Meron sisters recorded by
Lloyds and a survivor of the Fleeting Star. It
foundered in a storm somewhere nearby, as distances are
measured in mid-Pacific. My guess is the shoal above
Eloa."
He turned back to the native, who had put the dark babe
to her own breast. "Lt. LeContreau, this is Ko'u-e,
Marie's personal maid and wet-nurse. No, don't get up,
Ko'u-e."
The girl, who had started to rise, bowed her head and
said softly, "At your service, sir."
"Enchanted," the lieutenant intoned perfunctorily.
The captain said, "Ko'u-e, however, has been most
helpful. Until Marie the natives had never had
untrammeled sexual access to a white woman. Her, ah,
youthful enthusiasm was noteworthy among them. It
caused a lot of talk. Also, as you know better than
anyone, quelling the uprising two years ago nearly
eliminated the outrigger canoe in these islands. Most
natives must still put to sea in rafts. These facts:
stories of the insatiable white girl, <two> outriggers
on a mission, and the name of Tu'a-po, enabled Ko'u-e
to find the information we need. Tu'a-po abducted Marie
from the southern beach of the north island of the Eloa
pair. His scavengers may have killed a white man,
probably this 'Jake,' but a white woman shot two of
them, one fatally, and drove them off with a magic
gun."
"A 'magic gun?'"
"Apparently a repeating pistol."
"So a white woman remains on the island?"
Marie spoke up. "My sister, Belle."
"As may be," said the captain. "Marie, thank you for
seeing us unannounced."
The girl smiled contentedly over her suckling babe. A
drop of milk had already appeared on the free nipple.
Her eyes twinkled. "The captain is welcome in my
bedroom at anytime."
The man coughed behind his hand and turned toward the
door. "Come back to the office, Pierre. Marie has <two>
sisters. I want you to find them, if they still live."
He added over his shoulder, looking at the maid, "Ko'u-
e is at your disposal, if you care to interview her."
As they walked through the intervening rooms, the
lieutenant made bold to recall, "She said 'fatter than
<all> of yours!'"
"So she said," admitted the captain with a chuckle. "I
have yet to meet a young girl more enthusiastic in that
comparison or more adept at the measure."
"I am amazed, sir, that the priests have let her
continue so!"
"And rightly you should be, Pierre. A Protestant child
in the home of the Catholic French commandant?
Scandalous! And why do you suppose she resides here?"
The lieutenant retorted dryly, "She obviously <enjoys>
your protection, my captain. But may one ask how your
lovely wife regards that?"
"One may not, but I am certain that you, along with the
rest of the staff, understand my wife only too well."
The lieutenant choked and followed his superior into
the office.
* * *
"These are so full and heavy, Ko'u-e."
"Why not? My son arrived only two weeks before Marie's."
"Where is the father?"
"Shit."
"They ate him? Why?"
"Because he loved me, a whore of the enemy. It is good
you are not Hivan."
"And good for me that you are."
"Oh? Are you tired of the captain's wife?"
"Isn't everyone? What amazes me is that <she> has not
tired of Marie."
"In color and body they could be mother and daughter.
And in opinion."
"Ah, but of course. My poor captain must put the best
face on it that he can find."
"Oh, he is accustomed to her whip!"
"So true, Ko'u-e, but what a thing to say about the
commander of the Marquesas! Did you forget that it was
the captain himself who put you at my disposal?"
"For an interview, I believe he said. Well, what are
your questions, my lieutenant?"
"I have been wondering about the flavor of your milk,
Ko'u-e."
"You should ask at the source."
"My god! Does merely the thought of a mouth cause them
to spray so?"
"The cry of a babe can, anything at all when they are
full. Oh! I love the feel of that. A man's mouth is so
vigorous! And your mustache tickles divinely. Do take
some more... From the other one, too."
"Perhaps later. Remember, I can hardly question you
with my mouth full."
"Then we should try another contact. But do take off
your undershirt, too."
"Yes, if I would keep it dry, eh? The bed is a bit
cramped, but if you raise this knee... Ah, yes, yes!
Oh, my dear, you do fit so perfectly!"
"Thank you, sir. How nice that a babe does not stretch
one permanently! Now you may ask your questions. I hope
you have a great many."
"Your French is almost perfect, better I believe than
any other Hivan. How do you manage that, Ko'u-e?"
"Come up just a little. My French? You may thank the
captain's wife. And her coach whip. She is a stern
taskmistress, especially of grammar and accent."
"Have you been with her long?"
"I had eleven years when I came here. That was four
years ago... Don't you have some more questions?"
"Only the one. Shall I discharge into your womb?"
"We believe that it is harmless so long as the babe
sucks. Oh, my god, Pierre! This I love the most. Oh, do
me! Do me!
CHAPTER 11
The Long Way Home
-----------------
The long boat came right into the cove, past the last
breakers. Wet oars flashed in the sun as the oarsmen
raised them out of the water with that uniformity for
which military crews are noted. Jill, jumping up and
down at the edge of the water, marveled at that, too.
It was all just too wonderful! Strange faces, even if
all but one were bearded, filled her heart with the joy
of novelty. She could not suppress her cries of
welcome. "We're so glad to see you! We're so glad!"
The boat's way was sufficient for it to glide to the
sand almost beside her. The leading oarsmen jumped out
into the shallow water to lift the bow high and dry,
the beardless one among them. Why, that one, wearing
only ragged but tight britches, was not much more than
a boy, not much older than Jill herself! She studied
his sleekly tanned back and supple muscles with
increasing interest, unaware of the spectacle she
herself represented, bare above the waist, wearing only
the tattered leaf skirt Belle had insisted she don
before sailing down the well-worn path. Her golden
hair, sun bleached almost white, danced below her
shoulders. Her breasts were yet just beginning their
development, but the nipples were already prominent.
With the boat stopped, the beardless oarsman stood
before her, returning the scrutiny.
A man in a blue coat stepped between them. "Do you
understand me, <mademoiselle>?" he asked.
Jill reluctantly tore her eyes from the beardless one.
"If you say something, I will."
"Ah, yes." He coughed. "Do I have the honor of
addressing Miss Jill Meron?"
He formed his words strangely, but she understood him
nevertheless. "I'm Jill. How did you know?"
"And I am Pierre LeContreau, lieutenant of the navy of
France. As to how I know, I am happy to tell you, your
sister Clister Marie survives. She told me your name."
"Marie!"
"Very much alive. I cannot believe you have succeeded
so well alone, Miss Jill. Where is your older sister,
Annabelle?"
"She's coming. She went to get Jake."
* * *
The man, as had become his morning habit, was soaking
in his dank "bathtub," which was in fact little more
than an eddy in the creek that fed the falls. Huffing
from her climb, Belle swung her massive torso around a
palm trunk and stood before him across this wide spot,
with hands on hips, wearing her last tattered remnant
of a petticoat blouse over a leaf skirt, a strange
light in her eyes as they rested on the man, who was
submerged except for his head.
"What do you want?" he asked coldly.
"Didn't you hear Jill screaming?"
"Screaming?" He lunged to his feet. Her lip curled at
the sight of his erection. So he preferred a fist to
her swollen belly, did he? At least Jill had not
succumbed yet to his further blandishments. She smiled
secretly. All those worries were about to vanish.
"Is she hurt?" he demanded, climbing out of the pool to
face her. Grudgingly she gave him credit for the real
anxiety in his voice.
"Not yet," she retorted, "no thanks to you."
"To me? I would never harm a hair of her head."
"It's not her head I'm worried about."
Jake shook his head impatiently. "What are you talking
about, Belle?"
"A ship's boat is coming ashore in the cove as we
speak."
"A ship... a <what>?" His mouth sagged and his eyes
glared.
"It flies the tricolor," she added, studying his
reaction.
He stared at her. "My god!" Suddenly he spun about,
leaped over the creek and dashed away toward the ledge
below.
"We're saved!" she shouted to his back. Unaccountably
she had to fling tears from her eyes as she stumbled
after him.
* * *
"<M'sieur> 'Iggins, do I understand correctly that you
refuse to be removed from this otherwise uninhabited
island?"
Lt. LeContreau and most of his men by now had met all
three castaways. He had kissed Belle's hand to Jill's
annoyance and inspected their pitiful accommodations on
the ledge. He had made notes while Jake related the
general circumstances of the Fleeting Star's demise.
Returning to the beach, the lieutenant had asked if
they wished to remove anything along with their persons
to his ship. Belle's answer was an uncompromising,
"No." Jill wanted to keep a small iridescent shell.
Jake wanted to retain the pistol and his long knife.
When LeContreau agreed only on condition they be
surrendered to his keeping, suddenly Jake declared an
intention of staying behind.
"I'll wait for the next ship," Jake added, hands on
hips. He had pulled on his extremely ragged uniform
trousers but was otherwise naked.
"That may be a very long wait," the lieutenant argued.
"Only French nationals are permitted to bear arms in
the Marquesas, Mr. Higgins, but your property will be
returned to you when you depart French territory."
Jake's chest swelled. "That has an ominous sound,
Lieutenant. Would you leave me unarmed in this cannibal
hell-hole?"
The officer shrugged. "It's the law."
Jake backed away. "Then good-bye to you all. And don't
try to stop me."
LeContreau said something in French and Jake found
himself facing two pistols and a musket, leveled with
hammers cocked, while his own weapon was still in his
belt.
The lieutenant said softly, "I know about your
repeating pistol, Mr. Higgins, but do you think you can
fire it faster than three others at point-blank range?"
He added something in French and the beardless oarsman
swung wide around Jake, approaching him from the side.
The lad reached gingerly toward Jake's belt. Jake
gritted his teeth but let the pistol be removed and
brought to the officer.
Another word of French caused the weapons to be
lowered. The lieutenant studied the Colts revolver
curiously, then shoved it into his own belt. He said to
Jake, "Very well, Mr. Higgins. I shall not force a man
to be saved. It is stretching the rule a bit, but you
may retain the bayonet.
"If you keep your wits about you and stay in the woods
to avoid projectile weapons, you may take comfort from
knowing the natives have no better knife. Of course,
sir, you may yet change your mind and come to Timuata
with us. When you then depart our realm, I can return
this interesting piece."
Jake glowered at the man and took another step back.
The lieutenant grunted and said to the wide-eyes girls,
"Come, ladies, my men will help you take seats in the
boat."
"Hold!" cried Belle, raising her hand imperiously. "Mr.
Higgins should not be left alone here to the danger of
other women who may land."
The lieutenant nodded. "I can see that you might have a
valid interest in his accountability. But do you think
he is dangerous to women?"
"I know he is. He raped me."
The officer drew back. "Madame, that is a most serious
charge!"
"Nevertheless it's true. If he denies it, both my
sisters were witnesses. He got drunk on a floating cask
of rum and took my virginity quite against my will."
"Did that happen here, Miss Meron?"
"Yes, sir, on this island."
A volley of French led the three weapons to menace Jake
again. "In that case, Mr. Higgins," the lieutenant
declared, "you will come with us after all. In fact you
shall have the seat of honor in the bow, where your
hands can be tied with the painter." He added a phrase
of French and two husky oarsmen advanced upon Jake,
securing his arms and holding him while the others
boarded.
Jake shook his head as Belle passed before him. "I
can't believe you would do this to me."
She sniffed. "Did you think you'd get away from me so
easily?"
* * *
The Ellette docked in the harbor at Timuata the next
morning. Though it had been especially equipped with
two oversized cotton shifts in aid of the girls'
modesty, wives of the commandant's staff came aboard
with servants bearing boxes from which decently
European if less than glamorous clothing was found for
Belle and Jill. They were led onto the dock in a gay
procession past the staring waterfront idlers and into
the common room of the stone fortress still abuilding.
Behind them stumbled Jake, now restrained in chains and
manacles, still wearing only his ruined uniform
britches, having spent the night in the warship's
prison in grim reflection on the ironies of fate. "I
can't believe I was saved from the storm for <this>!"
Marie met her sisters just inside the raised
portcullis. The whole procession stopped and milled
about, the marines holding Jake well back, waiting
stoically for the female passion to dissipate. She
hugged and kissed them together and separately, all
bending over Belle's belly, about which she said one
word:
"Jake!"
Belle sighed. "Yes, of course. It was the only way to
keep him from doing to Jill what he did to you."
Marie's eyes sparkled. "Instead he did to you what he
did to me."
"Well, don't forget he injured me first."
"Is that the word for it?" She turned and shouted over
her shoulder, "Ko'u-e, <apports-moi mon enfant>!"
The hovering women parted to let the dusky maid,
skirted but barefooted and holding two infants to her
breasts, approach. When she was near, Marie took one of
the babes from her and held it up for Belle's
inspection, saying with a smirk, "I think this shows
who was injured first."
Belle's eyes grew large and her lips parted. "You
<can't> mean..."
"That this is my son, John Jacob Meron."
"My heavens!" Belle's hands went to her cheeks.
"<Jacob>? Do you claim only Jake -- That chin!"
"And that's not all. No, I don't claim only Jake. But
he was first."
"Wu Fong was your first!"
"Well, yes, but Jake put my son in me the night before
I was taken away. Where's Jake? Obviously the Hivans
didn't kill him."
"Can I hold your baby?" asked Jill, staring enviously.
"For a short while, but give him back to Ko'u-e or
he'll start crying. Where <is> Jake?"
"Back there." Jill twitched her head to indicate
something behind them while gently gathering the
swaddled babe into her arms. Two pairs of blue eyes
stared into each other with instant love.
Marie turned away, twisting through the crowd, her wide
skirts swaying. "Jake!" she squealed when she spotted
her objective, standing with hanging head between two
marines. The guards moved to intercept her but stood
aside in recognition of the personal nature of this
attack.
She almost leapt upon him, throwing her arms around his
bare shoulders and showering his beard with kisses.
"Jake," she squealed repeatedly. "Oh, Jake! I have so
much to tell you."
The man smiled, too. "You did live! I'm sorry I
couldn't protect you."
"I'm not!" She stood back, suddenly appreciating his
manacled state. She glared at the nearest marine and
demanded in French, "Why is this man chained?"
Marie, now in a Parisian gown, was very much the woman
grown and important. The marine gulped. "Lieutenant's
orders, <ma'm'selle>."
"Release him at once!" Her namesake, queen of France,
could not have glared more imperiously.
"But, madame, he is a prisoner, charged with rape, to
be shown to the captain. He is a dangerous man,
especially to women."
"Belle!" Marie sniffed. "I know this man. He is not
dangerous to me. I am the captain's ward. Release him
in my custody."
She locked eyes with the marine sergeant. He himself
had seen this one on the beach in the captain's arms
and knew well whose career nestled in whose hand. He
took the key from his pocket and struck the manacles
off his prisoner.
"But, sergeant--" began his comrade.
"Shut up!" was the sergeant's response. "You heard the
lady." He said to Marie, "Tell him to mind you. If he
breaks away I have orders to shoot him."
Jake, who had understood only Belle's name of the whole
exchange, stood with mouth hanging open. He flexed his
freed wrists and ankles and stared at Marie in a
mixture of disbelief and awe.
She took his hand, smiled up at him and reverted to
English. "The soldier has given you to me. Come on. The
captain wants to see you." She frowned. "You need a
bath. Where did you spend the night?"
He grunted ruefully. "In prison again."
"Belle told them you raped her?"
"Yes, she did."
"And you did it to her again?"
"No!"
"Then who put that baby in her?"
"It was not rape!"
"I'll bet <she> thinks it was! Don't worry. I'll get
you out of this. I know someone who's going to love you
as much as I do."
* * *
The assembly did not have long to wait. It fell silent
when a soldier grounded his musket and cried for
attention. Naval captain Maurice duValier marched
through a door at the back of the raised platform and
took his seat at the elevated desk. Lt. LeContreau
accompanied him, smiling at the ladies, frowning when
he saw Jake's clearly unfettered state. The marine
sergeant, expecting that reaction, pointed
ostentatiously to Marie, still holding Jake's hand. The
lieutenant's eyes narrowed but he nodded almost
imperceptibly.
Into the silence the captain intoned, "I extend the
hospitality of the Marquesas to Annabelle Celeste Meron
and to Jill Anna Meron, as previously done to their
sister, Clister Marie Meron. These three, and one
other, are the only survivors of the Fleeting Star, an
American clipper that foundered on the shoal above Eloa
during the great storm of July last. To them I say," --
he switched to fluent English -- "You ladies are
welcome here in Timuata and in my home. My wife and I
shall be pleased to receive you informally after this
assembly."
He continued in French, "My wife asks me to announce
that when our new friends have recovered from their
ordeal, we shall hold a reception for them. All
officers and their wives are invited. We hope they will
relate to us some of their history in America and, ah,
China."
He took a paper from his pocket. "Four people survived
the wreck of the Fleeting Star. The fourth one is the
man, Jacob Lester Higgins." In English he added, "Mr.
Higgins, please step forth."
Jake took a breath, squared his bare shoulders and
walked forward before the platform, Marie still holding
his hand.
"Marie," the captain said not unkindly, still in
English, "please step back."
But Marie spoke in French. "This man is the father of
my child. I ask you, Capt. duValier, to think what
reason my sister might have to accuse him."
The captain's eyes narrowed and he responded similarly,
"Very well, but for this he must stand alone."
Marie released Jake's hand and backed away.
The captain stared down at the disheveled man, who
sighed but returned his stare. In English he asked,
"Mr. Higgins, Miss Annabelle Meron has charged you
before the French navy with drunkenness and rape of her
person on the night of 3 July, 1848: that is, the night
after your mutual deliverance from the shipwreck. Do
you deny that charge?"
Jake's mouth twisted. "Honestly, your hon-- ah, sir, I
don't know."
"You don't <know>?"
"I was, I admit, very drunk, sir. And Mar-- one of the
girls told me later that she struck me in the head with
a coconut. That may also have affected my memory of the
event."
"But you do not deny the charge."
"I cannot, sir."
The captain regarded him thoughtfully. "Your speech is
that of a man with some education, Mr. Higgins,
apparent even to one whose native tongue is not
English. What was your position on the Fleeting Star?"
"On the voyage to Canton I was first mate."
"And on the voyage to New York?"
Jake hesitated.
The captain suggested, "You were no longer first mate?"
Jake squared his shoulders. "No, sir. I was imprisoned,
charged with barratry."
"And were you guilty of barratry?"
"The captain thought so. But he was wrong."
"Can you account for your arrest?"
"Yes, sir. Some of the cargo was wrongly marked, and
the second mate wanted to be first."
"Captain, cargo and mate now at the bottom of the sea?"
"I believe so, sir."
"Your barratry, if any, occurred beyond the
jurisdiction of this command." The captain swung to
Belle's attentive face. "Miss Meron, you have brought
the charge of rape, which occurred on an island of the
Marquesas. Do you wish to see this man loose his head?"
Belle's eyes rounded in horror. "No, no, sir! Please
don't kill him."
The captain's hand rose to his beard to conceal his
smile. "Then what compensation do you expect from
French justice?"
"I... don't know, sir. He is the father of my unborn
child."
"He can hardly deny that, either! And clearly it
results from acts that he undertook well after last
July. Do you charge additional rape, Miss Meron?"
Belle blushed, lowering her eyes. "N-no, sir. I...
accepted him to spare Jill."
"He offered you a choice, did he?"
"No, not in so many words. But she was curious, and I
feared..."
"The worst, did you? But he did spare her, did he? Very
well, then, do you perhaps wish him to marry you?"
Belle raised a strained face toward Jake. She took a
shaky breath. "I would... m-marry him for the sake of
my -- our baby, if he wished it."
The captain opened his mouth to direct an obvious
question to Jake, but Marie spoke first in English.
"Hold on! He's the father of my child, too!"
The captain frowned slowly, looking from one girl to
the other. At last he turned to Jake. "And did you
also rape Marie?"
"No, sir, I did not!"
"Very sure about that, are you?"
"Captain, I swear I never had lewd designs on her."
The officer's eyebrows rose. "Do you claim to recall no
sexual contact with her either?"
Jake dropped his eyes. "No, sir. We had... one night
together."
The captain sneered. "No doubt <she> seduced you, is
that it?"
Jake stood straighter. "Sir, I did not rape her."
"Aha, I see! <She> raped <you>!"
Excited voices among the audience translated that
charge into French. The captain looked about him with
disgust, brought a reversed pistol up from beneath the
desk and struck the surface with its butt. "Silence!"
he roared and received it instantly.
Lt. LeContreau, standing behind the captain, leaned
forward, tapped him on the shoulder and engaged him in
a whispered dialog. When the captain again faced
forward, his eyes sought Marie. He stated in French, "I
understand that this man was brought here in manacles.
How is it, Miss Meron, that he appears unfettered now?"
Marie's high voice did not lack confidence. "I ordered
him released in my custody."
"<You> ordered?"
"Yes, sir, as your ward."
Knowing smiles appeared on several faces in the
audience, after a moment on the captain's likewise. But
only for a moment. His eyes narrowed as the smile
vanished and he said to Marie, "You may regret that."
He studied Jake thoughtfully as the latter's head
swiveled anxiously from him to Marie, then addressed
Jake in English. "Mr. Higgins, I offer you a choice.
While awaiting the final disposition of your case, you
may choose to languish in the Timuata dungeon. To be
frank, sir, that <might> be the better alternative! On
the other hand, Miss Marie Meron has taken it upon
herself to have you released into her custody. If you
will give your oath to serve her faithfully as a
manservant, to obey her in all things, you may choose
that she continue as she has begun. What is your
choice, Mr. Higgins?"
The captain allowed the excited translations to proceed
unhindered while a wide-eyed Jake stared at Marie, who
winked at him provocatively. When an expectant silence
fell, the captain asked, "Your decision, Mr. Higgins?"
"I... I..."
"The dungeon awaits if you cannot decide otherwise."
"No, no! I swear... I swear I'll serve her."
"Very well. I'll erect the guillotine for you in front
of this building if you don't." The captain switched to
French. "Marie, take possession of him. And get him a
bath."
* * *
Marie led Jake by the hand through the rooms and
corridors to the connecting personal quarters while
other women cared for Belle and Jill separately. Among
her familiar servants at last, Marie called out orders
right and left. Reaching her bedroom, she bade Jake
stand in the middle of it. "Don't touch anything," she
said. "You're filthy!"
He stood as if dazed, hands dangling at his side,
watching as two husky and dark women, dressed only in
long skirts, brought a tin bathtub into the room, then
returned again and again with buckets of steaming
water. A third woman, thinner, attended Marie,
assisting her in removing the gown and all her
voluminous undergirding.
They spoke in French, apparently ignoring him. He
understood not a word. But he could not ignore the very
shapely woman -- no longer a mere girl -- revealed as
Marie's last petticoat passed over her head. Her
breasts and hips were large and heavy but her waistline
was narrow. The dark tan she had acquired following him
about the northern island was long faded. Her body hair
was silky and the hair of her head was lush below her
shoulders.
A young dark woman, similarly skirted, came to the nude
Marie with a baby on each hip: one light, one dark.
Marie took the light one and put it to her own breast.
Obviously male, he suckled hungrily.
Jake inquired hesitantly, "Is that... maybe..."
"Your son," Marie declared positively. "John Jacob
Meron. You can play with him when you're cleaned up."
She grinned. "I've only done the C with him."
"The... sea?"
"Remember C M M? He doesn't pee as long as you do. Not
yet."
She added something in French. One of the husky women
came to him, hands extending to his waist. Marie said,
"Your bath is ready, Jake. Give her your britches."
He shrugged and peeled them down his legs. Marie backed
away, making a face. "You are <ripe>! You never went so
long without a bath before."
"It's not that," he explained. "Ship prisons all
stink."
"Well, I think you've seen your last one. For rape, at
least. Is the water too hot?"
Almost, he wanted to say. He stepped over the tub edge
and sat down gingerly. In a moment he began to relax.
"Ah-h-h!" he breathed.
A woman set a chair before the tub and Marie settled
into it, her babe cradled in her arms. "We'll let you
soak awhile, then my women will scrub you. Tell me what
happened on the island after the Hivans took me away."
"'Hivans?'"
"That's their name in their own language. Were you
badly hurt?"
He grinned sourly. "About the same as what you did to
me. Nothing happened to <us>, but look what happened to
<you>!"
She smiled. "I'll tell you all that later. I'm having a
very good time, Jake, and now with you here it'll be so
much better. If I could just find Wu Fong, too, it
would be perfect. Ah, well! Even I know you can't have
everything."
She rattled in French. Another chair was placed beside
the tub. The thin woman sat in it with a tray across
her lap. Jake found a goblet of wine pressed to his
lips. Marie continued in English, "But <something>
happened on the island. Look at Belle!"
The wine was cool and sweet. He took several grateful
swallows. "Well, yes. We, ah... You know, Marie, to be
honest with you, I always wanted Belle."
"Why? She hated you, you know."
He sighed. "With reason, I admit. She hated me until I
touched her. Then she loved me."
"Huh! I think I know what you mean. You've got a part
that's hard not to love. Tell me: did you put it into
Jill?"
He coughed. "Marie..."
"Tell me."
"Dear, I'd rather not talk about Jill. She's too young
for us."
"For <us>? How old do you think I am?"
"14, aren't you? Lot's of girls marry at 14."
"Yes. I need to, so the captain says. But, Jake..." She
waited for him to accept the confection pressed to his
mouth. "Do you remember when I told you I was your
slave?"
"Well, yes." He chuckled grimly around his mouthful.
"Things have got a little mixed up."
"You think so? Just that you're my slave, too. A slave
has to obey his master. Did you fuck Jill?"
He sighed as he swallowed. "She learned my weakness,
and she wanted it as bad as you did. I meant to give it
to her, too, but when it hurt her, I backed off. She
was so young I was afraid it would <really> hurt her."
"You didn't put it in her?"
"No. She did bleed, but I left her maidenhead intact."
"How do you know?"
"You can tell that with a tongue."
Marie smiled lazily. "Well, she may still have it now,
but she won't when she leaves here."
He agreed dryly, "I know the French reputation."
"They deserve it. They don't think at all like my
father did. But you don't either, Jake."
"Yes, I do." He dropped his eyes. "I just don't live up
to it."
She shook her head. "Bet he never heard of the Boston
Lass."
He took more wine. "Maybe not. But let's talk about
you. What's going to happen to you now -- you and your
sisters?"
"Oh, we'll be all right. I'll stay here. Capt. duValier
wants to adopt me as his daughter. <Marie duValier>! I
rather like it. He's far sweeter than most fathers, I
gather, but I like that, too. As for Belle and Jill,
well, did you know we're all rich, Jake?"
"Rich?"
"My sweet new papa has told me all about it. Father
owned 23 per- cent of the Fleeting Star, which means
that we sisters own 23 per- cent of the insurance
proceeds, and that's over eight million pounds."
"You don't mean pounds sterling!"
"But I do!"
"Good god, 40 million dollars! Your share would be
three million apiece."
"More than that." She grinned at him. "Want to marry
me, Jake? Or do you prefer Belle?"
"I... Good god!"
"You could marry both of us. The law here is whatever
the captain says it is. Of course, Belle would never
agree, despite that little speech she made in the
assembly. She'll go back to Massachusetts, after her
baby is born, and take Jill with her. Belle is not
going to get along with the French any better than
Father would have." The girl chuckled. "They're too
much like the Chinese."
She said something over her shoulder. All three serving
women came forward with brushes, cloth and soap. They
scrubbed him tenderly, back and front, cupping their
hands with water for head and beard. Marie watched with
a slight smile, the woman with the dark baby looking
over her shoulder.
When the women paused, Marie called, "Stand up, Jake."
Their hands had already fondled his genitals more than
a little. He rose to his feet with some trepidation,
exposing a fat manhood almost erect. The women sucked
in their breath, commenting among themselves in short
barks and giggles. One leaned over the tub and scrubbed
the admired object vigorously between well-soaped
hands. He felt other soapy fingers enclosing his
testicles and penetrating his anus.
Marie laughed. "Do you know you're blushing, Jake? Next
time I'll have a mirror so you can see your face." She
added something in French and the fast hands fell away.
Involuntarily his hips moved to follow them.
"Oh, no, Jake. We'll save that for a better use, but
I'm glad you liked it."
At her commands in two languages he stepped out of the
tub. Two of the women dried him while the third
scrubbed his feet, lifting one at the time. Again Marie
laughed. "Does it tickle, Jake?"
They enclosed him in a silken robe and sat him in a
padded chair. He realized that a man had come into the
room, apparently a barber from the tools he bore.
Neither Marie nor the other women, some equally naked
to spare their skirts during his bath, seemed concerned
for modesty.
"This man shaves the captain, Jake. He'll cut your hair
and shave you. You've gone pretty shaggy, my love."
Jake sighed. "I suppose. Did you say, 'shave' me?"
"That's right." Her voice hardened. "I want everyone to
see that cleft in your chin."
His face clouded up but only for a moment. He shrugged.
"Yes, mistress."
"Jake!" She lifted her chin. "You know my reason. Look
at this boy. Would you deny him?"
She stood over the man and thrust her baby against his
chest. His arms rose hesitantly to support it. He
stared at the child's face, then between the legs. He
admitted shakily, "No, I... guess I can't." He smiled.
"John Jacob, eh? Where'd you get the John?"
"He needed another name, but my father always hated
his."
Jake cocked his head. "You know, this is not a bad
looking lad!"
"And neither will you be. Now let the barber proceed."
A woman knelt to cut low upon fingernails and toenails
while the barber danced around her, snipping high, a
hot cloth softening Jake's beard the while. In the
background he heard the tub first emptied then removed.
He twitched when someone took his flaccid manhood,
insecurely covered by the robe, in hand and peeled it
back.
The inspection, though repeated twice, was brief.
Whether barber or a woman he could not tell, though he
suspected -- and hoped -- the latter. Not a word of
English passed any lips around him. When towel came off
and razor took its place, all the women stood close to
watch the operation, volubly commenting in French. He
wondered what afforded them so much entertainment.
Finally the barber dusted him with talc and rose water
before departing. He sneezed, then smiled contentedly
at the hovering Marie, who nodded. "The exact same
cleft! In fact you're much more handsome without the
beard, Jake. Didn't you know that?"
"Uh, thank you. I used to shave, but it's such a lot of
trouble."
"Not any more. Could you get accustomed to it, Jake?"
"I don't know. I wonder if heaven is like this."
"Isn't this close enough? We'll try a bath together
soon. Right now someone wants to see you up close."
He grinned. "What else can you do to me?"
She arched an eyebrow. "Quite a bit, in fact." She gave
her baby to the dark woman and extended her hand to
Jake. "Come along."
He stood up. Suddenly aware of his exposure, he pulled
the robe closed and asked, wide-eyed, "Where are we
going?"
"Through that door."
"Don't you... have something more for me to wear?"
"No, unless you prefer to dress as I do." She stood
stark naked and smiling. A drop of milk trembled on one
of her nipples.
She led him to an unfamiliar door that opened to her
knock. An older serving woman, heavy breasts sagging
above an ample skirted belly, stood holding the door.
He followed Marie into a larger, fancier bedroom. A
very large four-poster bed occupied the center, veils
obscuring its occupant. As they approached the veils
were drawn from the inside, and Jake found himself
presented to a woman sitting on the high edge. She
regarded him from sparkling dark eyes in an unsmiling
Gallic face, black hair loose to her shoulders though
beribboned in pink. She wore a filmy pink garment
through which heavy body, dark nipples and pubic
triangle were discernible.
Marie spoke in French, from her tone a set speech
containing his name, then followed in English: "Mme.
Nanette duValier, my patroness, may I present Mr. Jacob
Higgins, my lover."
She nudged Jake, who stammered, "Uh, ah, I am very
pleased to meet you, Mrs., ah, duValier."
The dark eyes twinkled. "Nanette," she directed.
"Nanette," he corrected himself. "And I'm Jake."
She extended her hand, palm down. Though he had never
done such a thing before in his life, he was inspired
to raise it to his lips and bending over it, kiss the
back. Her response was to rotate it and rub the ball of
her thumb along the cleft in his chin. She smiled at
him and said something in French.
As he straightened up, Marie translated: "She agrees
with half the evidence of little Jake's father."
To his discomfort Marie suddenly parted his robe. She
struck his hands away when he moved with a start to
cover himself. "Surely you're not ashamed of it!"
He felt heat on his face that spread down his chest
when she dropped to one knee and took him in her mouth.
He stood with sagging chin and dangling fists, staring
into the woman's amused eyes, while Marie suckled him
noisily and cupped his testicles.
In a moment she released him, now rampantly erect, and
turned to see the effect upon the woman, who took an
audible breath. Her eyes were no longer amused. She
spoke animatedly in French.
Marie looked up at him. "Jake, how long since you made
spunk?"
"Ah, uh, since day before yesterday."
After an exchange in French she added, "Nanette wants
to taste a man so potent as you."
The woman shrugged out of her peignoir and backed fully
up onto the bed. She took Jake's hand and gently pulled
him after her.
"Would you like to taste her, too, Jake?"
From that he understood what was wanted. The woman lay
back, arms and legs spread, and he reversed himself
atop her. He felt her hands grasp him, followed by a
rough wet stroking, then wet contact along the entire
shaft. He gasped involuntarily, wide eyes on the
grinning Marie. But the aroma below his face drew his
own tongue. He found the woman more than expectant. The
wine sang in his veins and he applied himself with a
will. Shortly her hips were moving in response to his
strokes and she groaned nasally behind him.
"I knew it," murmured the hovering girl complacently.
"And you'll love Nanette, too. Just wait till you fuck
her properly."
She peered under the man's torso at the woman's face,
beet red, nostrils flaring for stentorian grunts, eyes
clamped shut, mouth relaxing as a thick stream of
seminal fluid escaped a corner of the lips.
She smiled with a distant look. "Nanette likes to sing,
too. Between times you can teach us all the rest of 'The
Boston Lass.'"
END
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This story was written as an adult fantasy. The author
does not condone the described behavior in real life.
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Kristen's collection - Directory 50