a concussion, too.”
“Good thing I didn’t go to sleep right away then,” he winked, and she blushed. “I heard you’re not supposed to do that if you get a concussion.”
She playfully swatted him in the chest and sat up. Her small upturned breasts flashed at him, and she yawned. He ran a finger over the smooth skin of her stomach and she flinched, tickled by his touch.
“You really are beautiful,” he said, and before she could blush again, he sat up and kissed her on the cheek, then the forehead. She wanted to cry. Not for the old reasons – out of fear, or stress, or panic – but because of something else. Something she hadn’t dared to believe would ever happen to her, and which she still kept from entering her thoughts in any meaningful way.
Simply feels good to be loved, she said, and left it at that. Even though she knew that was just the tip of the iceberg. But what lay underneath that simple phrase was too much right now, especially when they had other things to consider.
“Chris,” she murmured.
Dylan nodded and stood up, and she couldn’t help but sneak a peek at his firm buttocks as he crawled off the couch from under the small quilted blanket and pulled on his pants again. “I checked on him a few hours ago… you were asleep again, inconsolably lost in a dream,” he laughed. “You sleep deeper than he does, after all.”
“Is he…?”
“Sleepy and disoriented. But good,” he said. “I’m going to make some breakfast. Can you do me a favor? He was in bear form for quite awhile so I think he should make a full recovery. But I am worried about infection… I was thinking I’d make him some yarrow tea. Do you know it?”
She nodded. “Feathery green plant, smells nice? I have basic knowledge of plants and stuff,” she said, standing up as well. It still felt odd to be naked in front of a man but there was also something refreshing about it. The skin around her crotch and legs still felt tight with the dried fluids of both of them, and she could smell it even now – pungent and sweet – and it made her shudder again with renewed passion.
What’s happening to me, she thought. I want him inside me again. The thought, so blasé and straightforward, shocked her. She pulled on her thong and discarded shorts, and found her tank-top as well, pulling one arm through even before she was out the door.
Outside the sun was bright, a call-back to warmer summer days. It was almost possible to convince herself that Chris and Dylan hadn’t been shot by poachers. They’ll be back, he had said, before they’d made love. She gulped, and focused on finding the small sweet smelling plants that would rejuvenate Chris.
And if they come, her mind asked, what then?
Two and a half kilometers away, moored to a small blasted hitch of land on a smaller island, the small fishing trawler Pygmalion rocked gently with the ebb and flow of the tide. It was a modest ship, renovated for long distance and long term trips, with a fully operational kitchen and facilities, and only the top of the line radar and navigational instruments; in every sense, a home away from home.
For Arthur Murcheson, it was both his hobby and livelihood. If it had been a woman, he joked, he would have married it years ago, and given the boot to the hard-edged woman who currently held that title. He was always the life of the party, even though that party usually consisted of his own kind: equally hard-edged men who shared his passions of hunting, women, and beer. Misogynistic tendencies aside, it had become a tradition among his small clutch of friends to go on a hunting or fishing trip every summer before the autumn struck in.
He’d heard rumors about a small island off the coast having some of the biggest bears that anyone had ever seen. Part of him regarded these sorts of tall-tales with a bit of skepticism. He was more than familiar, after decades of hunting in the bush, how a four point buck could suddenly become eight. Or how a one kilogram salmon could magically become six. Occupational liars, he said, but he didn’t hold them too stringently to account, since he knew he was at least partly guilty of the same thing.
Nevertheless, he’d taken it upon himself to look into the rumors and found