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CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

HANK

One week later...

I drag my fingers through my scraggly beard as I stand on a small cliff, urinating onto the land below. It’s early morning, and the island that has become our entire universe is just waking up.

Our island. The hellish paradise that is home to me and Elliot. The speck of land that ships near without ever arriving.

I feel like I’m stuck in a Greek myth. Tantalus with the fruit he can never eat, or Odysseus, with magical winds driving me to crash and never escape.

I must be the wilderness man now. It is the only way to survive and to keep castaway Elliot safe, too. He is everything to me here. Companion. Partner. Lover.

He is life.

I return to the shelter, and Elliot and I start our morning like every other.

Dwindling and shriveled violet greens, creek water, and a cold dip.

Together, he and I tend the wood and forage.

A storm has destroyed our dry signals and scattered the branches, so we work on constructing yet another.

The signal fires are ready to go at the first actual break in the weather, the wood stored under the original shelter spot to keep dry.

But the truth is that we never complete the signals and we never light the fires because it always rains on penis island. The rain is important. It reminds me that we are doomed.

After bathing, Elliot and I walk home, hand in hand. He’s naked, and I’m in my tattered suit pants, and we’re both damp from the swim and the steady sprinkle. My feet are covered in cuts, painful even with cattail shoes, but I’ve found a new way to walk on my heels.

“I’m excited about tonight,” Elliot says. His eyes are hollow, his face gaunt, and his hair is sticking out all over the place.

“It’s a good idea.” I’m very lightheaded, so I slow our pace as I heel-waddle. “I don’t know why it’s taken this long to have a dinner date.”

“Because someone works too much,” Elliot teases and bumps me with his hip, which almost sends me tumbling to the ground, but he manages to steady us.

Back home, Elliot and I stretch out on the dried needle bed. Decorative wildflowers are splayed by our heads, and a damp pile of seaweed rests on a rock, although it never manages to cut the hunger pains.

We stare at the forest for a while in silence.

Elliot buries his hand in my beard. “Do you think you’ll keep getting hairier as you get older?” he asks.

Even though I don’t like my beard, I like that Elliot likes it, considering I don’t have any option but to leave it unshaved at the moment.

On the island, I have a beard. I accept this along with everything else.

“I don’t know. I guess it seems to go that way in my family.”

“Cool,” Elliot says, delighted. “I like knowing that.”

I pull him to me, hugging him to my chest for the full-body contact we both love. We’re gritty and weak, but it still feels good to grope each other, kissing without having to think.

“You’re still so burly,” he says and kisses my neck. “Even without meals and stuff.”

His beard tickles my neck, and I let out a little huff as I push him gently away.

Elliot grabs my ass, rubbing my cheek. “Can I?”

“I’m only comfortable with that in the water.”

He takes my hand. “Then let’s go to the water.”

When we step out from under our cliff, the sun is emerging between the clouds. We get these glorious moments, at most an hour or two. The air warms and the birds all come out, and spring resurrects itself until the storms return.

We wade in the cove up to our waists, and the Orcas jump in the distance. We look between each other and the dancing, threatening whales. We kiss and jerk each other off, and our weak bodies shake with pleasure.

I wash myself with one hand, and Elliot gets down on his knees behind me. My breath jumps in my throat when he grabs my ass cheeks, and a zing shoots down to my base when he pulls me open.

His gentle moans remind me how much he likes this, and Elliot murmurs compliments about my hairy, tight hole.

I groan and play with myself, jerking off with a steadily increasing pace. The sun climbs toward the height of the sky, and Elliot buries his tongue in my ass, working me into a leaking mess.

My thighs burn, sweat pours down my chest, and I release my dick to avoid orgasming.

His mouth feels amazing. Elliot finds every one of my spots, opening me up to deep sensations. I groan loudly, and Oystercatchers sing and laugh on the rocks.

My hand lands on the back of Elliot’s head, and I pull him into me as he moans his appreciation. When I hit my climax, the sea waves back.

Cum in my fist, I feed it to Elliot, and then he pushes me to my knees, feeding his cock and his orgasm to me just as quickly.

No protein wasted.

We kiss in the water, then sit on the shore, basking in the sun.

“It’s not getting cloudy,” Elliot points out.

I look up, surprised. “Maybe we’ll be able to start the signal fires tonight. I wouldn’t be surprised if the small branches are already dry.”

“Oh!” Elliot says, excited. “The fern fiddleheads are ripe, right?”

“Yes, they should be.”

Elliot nods. “Then we’ve got a lot to do before our dinner date. Let’s split up to get all the foraging done. I need some private time to get ready, anyway.”

I nod back at him, proud of what a team we’ve become. “Sounds good.”

We make out for a while, then split up. I get the ferns, berries, and wild onions. Elliot handles clams and seaweed salad, but goes to flip the drying wood first. The sun does stay out, shining brightly, and as I pick the tightly curled fiddleheads of emerging ferns, I watch a boat bob far away.

Humming, I take the time to groom myself by the water. We’ve been prepping for this dinner date for a couple days now, and I intend to enjoy it.

I gather some particularly colorful cockle shells, shades of pink with purple stripes that I know Elliot loves, then head up toward the grasslands and forests to select a few choice, decorative flowers, buttercups and prairie-fire, brilliant yellows and reds.

When we reunite back home, Elliot is wearing his ruined suit pants, and a laurel of flowers and greens hangs around his neck, the white blooms of shadbush and soft grasses.

I reach out and touch the laurels. “I’d never think to make something like this.”

“I know you wouldn’t,” he says. “That’s part of why I like making it for you.”

Smiling, he offers me another laurel necklace, which he puts over my shoulders with a kiss.

Elliot ooohs and ahhhs over the pink shells, and then we light the small fire in our dry area, cooking everything in open flames.

When we’re done, we gather it all with some branches and head toward the dinner date on the beach.

We arrive to the rocky perch as the sun sinks to the horizon, and down by the water, the seals molt and call out with low-frequency honks. Elliot and I sit cross-legged on either side of a flat rock, now full of decorative flowers and our meager meal.

A gentle wind whips through the air, tossing some of the petals.

“To our impending rescue,” Elliot says, raising an imaginary glass.

I pretend to cheers him. “Surely, any moment now,” I say sardonically.

Elliot nods happily. “Let’s eat!”

Despite being small, it’s the biggest meal we’ve had, and we both devour it.

Clam juice and oily wild onions fill my mouth, and I savor each asparagus-like bite of tender, tiny fiddlehead.

We go into great detail describing each of the wonderful flavors while the seals play on the shore, our signals smashed beneath them and scattered to the waves.

“This meal is good enough, I’d love it off the island, too,” Elliot says.

I nod in agreement. “I’d serve this at a dinner party in a heartbeat. Just with actual portions. Silverware. Stuff like that.”

“Now I’m imagining a proper dinner party with you.” Elliot licks his fingers. “What embarrassing story would Angie tell about you, if she were here?” he asks.

“Maybe there are some benefits to being stranded away from everyone and everything. No humiliating anecdotes can follow you.”

He laughs. “Seriously. I’m sure you know what story she would tell. There’s probably one in particular she likes to pull out.”

When I don’t say anything, he leans forward, grinning from ear to ear. “I knew it. Tell me the story.”

“Absolutely not.”

Elliot purses his lips. “Please?” he asks sweetly. He reaches out and takes my laurel, pulling it gently. “I made you this.”

I cave like a sucker.

“Fine.” Secrets and modesty disappeared days ago. Elliot and I know each other now like few people do. “When I went to college,” I start, but he raises a hand, cutting me off.

“We’d like to hear it from your sister, please. As it’s meant to be delivered.”

I lower my voice to Angie’s monotone, because of course I know how to match it perfectly, just like she can match my voice.

“We went to college an hour apart from each other, and when I went to visit Hank freshman year, he’d tried to change his name to Neo.”

Elliot’s eyes light up, and I keep on with the deadpan delivery, enjoying the chance to entertain him.

“He liked The Matrix and wanted a fresh start. Like he told me at the time, Neo does mean new.” Elliot giggles, and I continue.

“The hitch was everyone in the dorm thought he was introducing himself as Neil, like Neil Armstrong, and Hank wasn’t decisive enough in correcting them.

When I got there, all of his new friends were calling him Neil.

It took him until halfway through the second semester before he managed to go around and tell everyone he was Hank after all.

“And that’s the story she would tell,” I say in my normal voice.

“Neo,” Elliot says adoringly. “Neo!”

I laugh. “Okay,” I say.

“I’ll call you Neo if you want.”

“That won’t be necessary, but thank you.”

Elliot glances around the table. He’s playing with one of the pink shells, and he turns it in his hand while he talks. “I don’t want to be rude and rush our dinner date, but considering how refreshingly dry the air is, maybe we should light the signal fires tonight?”

That rattles something in my brain. Could we actually get them lit again? It scares me to believe that.

How long have we even been here?

With food in my stomach, the fight to survive stirs in me.

“Right,” I tell him. I look up at the sky. A few dark clouds threaten, but they’re moving fast, drifting on the wind. “Once these last clouds pass, it looks like it might be clear beyond.”

“Exactly,” Elliot says, and leans forward across the stone table toward me. “I had another idea in the meanwhile. Want to smoke one of the joints with me on the beach? An herbal dessert?”

I snort. “I haven’t done that since college.”

Elliot nods. “No pressure. I thought it might be a fun way to celebrate the evening.”

The seals honk more, and something about the mood of the dinner date catches me. I did used to enjoy a nice hit of marijuana, especially when I was stressed out.

“You know what, sure.” I lean forward and kiss Elliot before standing. “I’ll take a couple puffs. And once the risk of rain has passed, we’ll get the wood moved and the fire started.”

I’m already stranded and sleeping with my boss’s son. What’s a little marijuana? It might even relieve some of this constant pain.

Elliot stands, too. “Cool.” He strokes the side of my face. “Thanks for taking a night off for the dinner date.”

I nod, satisfied to see him happy. “It’s a beautiful evening.”

“Best sunset yet.”

Elliot lights the joint as we make our way to the shore. There’s a spot we’ve both been liking lately, a sandy protrusion into the sea with a gorgeous, open view of the island, and we settle there.

I puff on the sweet smoke, and it makes me dizzy and warm. When I puff again a minute later, I sink into something pleasantly hazy.

Bird song. Sunset. Elliot.

We’re stuck in a total disaster, but we’re making it through together.

We kiss and quickly undress. Elliot leads the way, playing with my hole, whispering at my ear.

“I’m going to make you come so many times,” he tells me. “It makes me so hard when you groan.”

My rim tightens against his fingertips, and I throw my head back as my muscles go molten. I spit in my hand and grab his dick, pumping his shaft while he talks dirty to me. The sound of the sea is in my ears.

“I love how horny it makes you when I touch your hole. You’re pure wilderness man when you’re thinking about taking my dick. You’re like a force of nature, Hank, and all I want to do is play with your hole until you’re covered in cum.”

“Fuck, Elliot,” I huff out, grimacing and hot.

He turns me toward the waves, lets the water wash over us, and slaps his hard dick on my crease. Without penetrating me, Elliot rubs his shaft across my hole, thrusting between my cheeks.

On my hands and knees in the sea, growling and groaning, I thrust my ass back, burning with how good it feels. Nature is alive around us, and my body surges with dwindling reserves of energy.

Elliot leans down. His body is all over mine from behind. His hand finds my neck, my chin, my lips, and his other wraps around my cock.

I suck his fingers into my mouth, groaning and asking for more, and he thrusts across my rim, stimulating me without penetrating.

Slow, and then faster.

I’m fully embodied, connected with the setting sun and the throbbing biological life of the island.

Elliot and I are one, united, forged with the heat of nature. We come apart with lust and desire, consummated in the open air, serenaded by eagle calls.

We climax together, his wet heat splattering on my back, both calling out each other’s names for the universe to hear.

“What in the hell are you doing on my island!” a man with a British accent yells back.