The Gift of Shame (26 page)

Since everyone at the table had immediately looked at her, Helen had no doubt to whom the last word had been intended. Under the flare of Carla’s steady gaze she found herself confused by feelings of resentment which immediately rose only to be instantly swamped in a contrary emotion of excitement. Inwardly aware that her shiny new armour of confidence was being exposed as only paper thin, she looked to Jeffrey for comfort, only to see that he seemed to be, not only aware of, but amused by the conflict that Carla’s words had created in her.

Quelled by Carla’s display of petulance, Helen took the first opportunity she could of escaping onto the deck. A multitude of seductive perfumes wafted on the evening breeze, reminding her of the short idyll that now seemed to have been irretrievably lost. She could barely summon the will to turn to greet Jeffrey as he joined her at the ship’s rail.

‘What’s wrong with you tonight?’ he asked.

‘With me?’ she asked. ‘What about Carla? Why is she being so bitchy to me?’

Putting a warming arm about her shoulders, Jeffrey laughed.
‘That’s
obvious. She’s eaten up with jealousy about your days alone with Qito. You should be flattered.’

‘Well, I’m not and she’s got no reason. Nothing happened between me and Qito on the island.’

Jeffrey smiled. ‘I believe you. But you don’t know what Qito’s been saying. He takes a great deal of adolescent pleasure in seeing Carla provoked.’

‘Then I’ll put the record straight the first chance I get.’

‘And spoil Qito’s pleasure? Surely not?’

Helen turned to Jeffrey angrily. ‘You saw and heard her in there. I was starting to worry in case she came at me with a knife!’

Jeffrey’s scornful laugh made Helen turn away with an unsettling feeling of anger. Still bristling, she was suddenly alert.

Out to sea, obviously approaching the island, she saw the lonely bobbing light that marked the stern of her mysterious lover’s dinghy.

Overwhelmed with a rush of warmth to the man’s loyalty – he must surely have seen the moored yacht – she, unawares, spoke her unbidden thought out loud. ‘He’s come back!’

‘Who has?’ asked Jeffrey before going on to answer his own question. ‘Your fisherman?’

Nodding, Helen pointed out the light on the moonlit sea. ‘That’s his boat.’ She hadn’t realised how silent and thoughtful Jeffrey had become until, turning to him, she asked. ‘Why does he have that bright light hanging over the water like that?’

It seemed Jeffrey had to wrench his mind to her question before answering. ‘To attract fish. The light excites them and brings them in close – like moths to a flame.’

Involuntarily, Helen found herself shuddering. ‘Weird!’ she murmured.

‘What’s weird?’

‘To be standing on the deck of this sophisticated pleasure machine in sight of a primaeval game of life and death.’

Jeffrey was silent for a moment as both watched the light getting ever closer to the island. ‘It seems fish aren’t the only creatures he draws to his lamp.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘You want to go to him, don’t you?’

Meaning to make a pretence at protest she turned to look directly at Jeffrey’s serious face and suddenly read there a complete understanding of the other, darker, impulse which had risen in her. ‘Yes,’ she said, flatly. ‘As a matter of fact, I do.’

‘Then go,’ said Jeffrey. ‘I won’t stop you.’

They were still making silent challenge and answer when Carla’s voice cut through the night. ‘But I will!’ she said, coming to stand close to the startled Helen. ‘One man – two men – aren’t enough for you, huh? You want to play the slut for some seaborne peasant!’

Bridling, Helen demanded, ‘What business is it of yours?’

Carla answered with an equally brittle tone. ‘Jeffrey is my friend and Qito is my husband! I’ll not allow you to insult either one.’

Startled to find herself angered but able to stand up to the formidable Carla, Helen flared back: ‘If you’re bothered by what might have happened between me and Qito on the island, you can relax. Nothing happened. But, in the second place, it’s downright patronising of you to appoint yourself defender of either Qito or Jeffrey. They’re both old enough to speak for themselves. In the third place, I don’t give a damn what you think!’

The resonating silence that followed Helen’s outburst was broken by a curiously disarming Carla. ‘Our little mouse has grown fangs!’ she cried in tones suggesting a delightful discovery. ‘It’s obvious that something must have happened on the island.’ Reaching out a hand she laid it gently to Helen’s face. ‘However shall we tame this wildcat?’ she asked of Jeffrey.

‘I don’t think I want her tamed,’ he answered.

‘Are you going to let her go ashore then?’

‘That’s her decision.’

‘And will you take her back without conditions?’

‘Yes.’

Smiling beneficently at Helen, Carla went on: ‘How wonderful young love can be. And you, lovely child, how did you mean to get ashore?’

Looking out to the seductively moonlit island, lying less than a hundred metres from the yacht’s anchorage, she turned back to Carla to speak defiantly, ‘Swim, if I have to!’

Carla laughed with delight. ‘I think you should. Life should never be too simple. And what of your return – what then?’

Puzzled, Helen asked, ‘What do you mean?’

‘All indulgence has a price. We shall have to punish you on your return, don’t you agree?’

Looking into Jeffrey’s face Helen could see the equivocation in his expression. Challenged and feeling that to retreat now would forever condemn her in his eyes to weakness, she braced herself to once more face Carla and, realising that Carla’s threat merely added spice to the excitement, said, ‘All right. I agree.’

‘Lovely!’ cried Carla and then, reaching forward, opened the single catch that held Helen’s dress, leaving her naked. Helen kicked off her shoes and turned to the yacht’s rail. ‘Did you think I wouldn’t dare?’ she asked Jeffrey.

‘Just remember to come back,’ he called as Helen, waving, turned to face the ocean and made as perfect an arc as she could in diving into the sea.

Jeffrey watched her strike for the shore, leaving a glowing phosphorescence in her wake, and tried not to think of this as rejection.

‘What a wonderful girl!’ breathed Carla in genuine admiration
as
they both stood watching Helen, clearly visible in the silver moonlight.

Jeffrey was about to reply when the First Officer appeared at their side and, leaning forward, peered into the water. ‘Did someone just dive over the side?’

‘Yes. Helen did. Why?’ asked Jeffrey.

‘Because this afternoon we spotted a bull-nose shark in the lagoon!’

‘Oh dear,’ said Carla. ‘Are they one of the dangerous kinds?’

‘Vicious,’ said the excited First Officer. ‘More dangerous than the Great White. Can you see her?’

It was then, scanning the beach, that they saw Helen rise from the surf and trot gently along on the dry sand.’

‘She made it!’ breathed Jeffrey.

‘She still has to get back,’ Carla reminded him as the First Officer moved off.

Seeing a teasing light in Carla’s eye, Jeffrey had a sudden insight. ‘You knew, didn’t you?’

Carla affected a casual air, ‘I do believe that someone did mention that we shouldn’t swim.’ Not even bothering to disguise her total insincerity, she went on, ‘It completely slipped my mind until that charming officer reminded me.’

‘She might have been killed!’ Jeffrey protested.

‘What is life without, at least, a little excitement?’ Carla asked. ‘However, nothing was lost.’

‘Yes, but what do I do now? I can’t let her swim back in the morning, but suppose she decides to come back before then?’

Carla shrugged. ‘It sounds to me as if you will have to maintain a whole night vigil.’ Leaning in, Carla kissed Jeffrey firmly on the cheek. ‘Pleasant thoughts,’ she said, before turning away to the boat’s interior.

Stooping to pick up Helen’s shoes and dress from the deck, he turned with them in his hands to look out across the glistening
waters
of the lagoon and tried not to imagine what was happening behind the screening shrubbery. His mind in conflict, he tried to rationalise what he had done and imagine what might have happened had he objected to Helen going ashore. Her words, spoken just hours ago, resonated in his mind: ‘Those that do …’ fought for pre-eminence with another, half remembered, maxim: ‘A man will never know what he truly owns until he gives it away.’ The question remaining was – would he ever regain her?

Standing at the rail on this warm sub-tropical night, Jeffrey recognised that it was the most important question he would ever ask himself.

Rounding the promontory of rocks and shrubs that separated her from the beached boat, Helen hesitated. She could see the man in the light spilling from his stern lamp, looking one way and then the other along the beach, looking for her and wondering if she were still on the island or on the yacht. What, she wondered, had brought him back to the island when he must know it was, given the presence of the yacht in the lagoon, more than likely she would be on board. How could he have sensed that she might do exactly what she had done – thrown caution to the winds and come, eagerly, to his side?

In considering his motives she was also forced to question her own. If she were to believe Jeffrey’s forthright denial of his being married then she, Helen, could no longer excuse herself on the grounds of inflicting punishment on him. The anger and frustration she had felt alone on the island with Qito was also no longer any kind of justification.

So she was left with pure lust. Lust for a totally unknown, silent man who came and went with the tides. In her dilemma she felt she was two separate personae. Her hungry body urged her forward but her mind whispered caution. The choices were
there
in stark contrast. The bright glare of the primitive gas lamp on his fishing boat was in front of her while, by turning her head, she could look back to the riding lights of the anchored yacht. She had also to ask herself why she had hesitated. How simple it would all have been, had the impulse that had caused her to dive from the yacht’s deck been enough to carry her forward to the man’s waiting arms. Rationality, she considered, was the ultimate passion killer. Either that, or the comparative chill of the waters had sobered her up somewhat. She had come to prolong the ‘wild child’ freedom of her days on the island but knew that it would be only for this one last night and as ephemeral as making a grab for a ghost.

Her indecision mounting to be almost physically painful, she had started to turn sadly away when there was a movement in the bushes to her immediate right. Looking there she saw the man’s face gazing, expressionless, directly at her. For a moment they stood facing each other before Helen felt forced to speak.

Unsure even of which language the man spoke or understood, she tried communicating with the universal shake of the head. ‘No,’ she said, her voice shaky with indecision. ‘I only came to say goodbye.’

If the man understood he showed no sign of it and came forward to face her directly. Looking at the fine definition of his muscular body, the quietly confident and totally impassive face, she wanted to turn and run from her own bodily urges.

‘He knows about you. They all know about you,’ she offered, and then as confusion engulfed her, pleaded, ‘They’re going to punish me if I stay.’ Mentally she added: ‘And even if I don’t’, and suddenly everything was excitingly clear to her. She had licence. All was possible – everything permissible. This magnificent man before her was to be had at a price and she had only to decide if the price was worth it.

The man, though so close she could feel the heat of his body, made no move to reach out for her and was making it clear that if there was to be a first move then it was going to have to come from her.

Perversely angered, as she always was by being made responsible for her own actions, and even while wishing he had resolved her dilemma by simply taking her, she reached out to take his ever-readied magnificence, first into her hands, and then, as it flickered and convulsed like a live creature, gently lowered her lips to him in supplication.

The man towering over her groaned his protest and reached to lift her to her feet and again she was forced to fight him off. ‘No!’ she told him as sternly as she could muster but, when he knelt, wrenching himself from her, and bore down on her shoulders, there was no protest that could be of any avail. Furiously she tried to roll clear of his grasp but it was hopeless. His sheer animal strength pinned her down, spread her and soared deep into her. Now able to tell herself that she had no other choice, Helen was able to surrender with dignity.

The man, suffering no such inhibition, went about seeking his own satisfaction and played her like the accessory to his own pleasure that she revelled in knowing she was. Her protests gave way to pleasured gasps and cries as he created turmoil in her, thankfully deadening all thought of right and wrong, as the sand played mattress to their heaving bodies.

Her body, writhing with satisfaction at finally getting its own way, hushed her mind, but it fought back with vivid images of Jeffrey – and Carla – as if they loomed over the writhing wanton bodies and smiled in satisfaction of the dreadful price they would demand for re-entry into rationality.

‘I’m to be punished for this!’ she gasped into the uncomprehending face of the man who ravaged her. ‘Beg forgiveness!
Humiliate
myself!’ but even as the thoughts lashed her she knew they were only adding to the pace of her rising climax. Soon she was screaming in orgasm as the relentless man thrashed on inside her. On and on. No longer caring whether she was willing or not, he brought wave after wave of exquisite torment, until she felt she could stand it no more and started beating her closed fists against his stone-like chest. She had never felt more helpless as he effortlessly picked her up and, standing, still locked deep inside her, carried her into the lapping waters where her extreme vulnerability to the man was apparent. To quiet her highly vocal protests he simply bent her backwards until her head went underwater.