Chapter 16
16
E zra
We walk for quite some time before she stops and points up, where the tops of tropical trees meet. Upon checking them, I indeed find papayas hanging from them. And they are at the top. Like at the very top of very tall trees, untouched by humanity or hurricanes.
I swallow, imagining myself climbing up there to get the fruits and scratching the shit out of my already bruised dick. Can I maybe put it in my back pocket for safekeeping? What are my options here ? I’ve got a big dick, alright, and I can’t just tuck it between my legs. It’s always in the way.
“Here they are. All you need to do is climb up there,” her index finger points at the top, “and get them. Maybe, like, shake it a little when you’re at the top, I don’t know.” She makes a gesture of shaking something with her hands. “We don’t have a knife, so maybe you can get a big, fat stick and beat them with it.”
“Beat them with a fat stick?” I blink. All I’m thinking is how I’m going to protect my stick. And I’m definitely not planning to beat anything with it. What is she talking about? “What do you mean?”
Her brows go up to her hairline. “Big stick.” She points at a twig by her feet. “Beat.” She makes a motion with her hands of hitting someone with a bat. “Papayas.” She draws the shape of the fruit in the air. “Many papayas.” She keeps drawing them. “Stick.” Her finger goes again to point at the twig. “Beat.” Repeating the motion. “Papayas.” She points at the trees.
“I got it,” I reply, annoyed when I finally understand what she’s trying to tell me, my head fuzzy from thinking with my own stick.
“Are you sure?” She sucks her lips in. “I can try and explain it again.” Her big, blue eyes blink rapidly, making me even more annoyed.
“I got it,” I rasp and walk toward the palm. Grabbing the tree with my hands, I place one foot on the side of it, testing if I can keep my dick from being squashed if I press myself too close. Then I place the other foot and start climbing. Shit, it’s easier than I thought.
“You’re doing great, Tarzan!” She chimes in from the ground, nearly making me slip. “Oops, sorry!” she yells. “I’ll be quiet.”
Rolling my eyes, knowing she won’t be quiet because she doesn’t know how to, I keep climbing up. Thank fuck for my five-in-the-morning gym sessions. I’d feel like I’m not man enough if I couldn’t climb this shit and get her the damn papayas.
When I’m at the top, I try to reach for them. They’re firmly planted, refusing to be separated from each other and the tree.
“You forgot the stick. To beat them with!” she suggests helpfully from the ground. “Maybe I can throw it at you. To you! I meant to you!” she quickly adds much louder.
Without waiting for my reply, she throws the damn stick, and it hits me on the shoulder.
“Oops! I’ll try again!” Sounding cheerful, she’s already picking up the fallen thing while I yell,
“No!”
But I’m too late, and the sharp side of her stick hits me in the cheek. “Fuck,” I growl.
“Oops! Sorry!” She giggles. “I’ll try again!”
“No!” I roar, but again, she’s not the person to listen. The stick is coming my way. For such a small thing, it packs a pretty decent punch. The only way she’ll stop hitting me with the damn thing is if I catch it, so I throw my hand in the air and catch it as its flying straight into my face.
“Damn, you are Tarzan. I’ll call you Tarzan now.”
Rolling my eyes—again—I aim and smack the fruits off the tree. They fall down like a charm from a broken chain.
“Oh!” she yells, running to the side. “A little warning maybe?”
I glance at her, standing on the ground with her hands on her hips, a little to the side from the fallen papayas. She looks all right, that’s all that matters. And she’ll get her papayas after all.
“Sorry,” I say loudly, not sounding sorry in the slightest.
“Yeah, sure you are,” she replies, scratching her nose with her middle finger and making me roll my eyes, questioning her maturity.
With that, she sits on the ground to inspect the fruits. “We should eat them faster because they hit the ground pretty bad, so they might rot if we leave them like that.”
“Okay. Step to the side, I’ll try something.”
This time she chooses to listen and gets out of the way in a second .
Holding myself glued to the palm, I somehow manage to take off my T-shirt. Besides my dress shirt, it’s the last piece of clothing I can wear around here. The black wool jacket I stashed in my shelter is not the best option for not frying under the sun. I tie the neck of the shirt in a knot, creating a bag.
Then I lift myself even closer to the top, and the tree makes a weird squeaking sound. Not good. I need to hurry up. So I quickly gather a few more papayas and stuff them into the bag.
Balancing myself, papayas, and the damn tree is not an easy task. By the time I’m back to the ground, I don’t want to eat the damn things. All I want is a banana and to lie on the beach. Surviving is turning out to be exhausting.
Before I even step foot on the ground, she grabs the shirt-bag from my hands like a kid grabbing candy. Her eyes are shining, and her shoulders are up like she’s about to jump in celebration.
“Thank you, Tarzan,” she says with a wide smile while her eyes roam over my bare torso. And she seems to be liking it judging by how her eyes are glued to my middle.
She clears her throat when she notices me noticing her and says, “Let’s eat.”
I glance up at the sky. “It’s going to rain soon for sure.”
“Yeah.” She follows my gaze. “We’ve got time to get back and enjoy it before it pours.”
She pulls one papaya from her shirt and sinks her teeth into the narrow part, peeling the skin away little by little to reveal the fleshy fruit beneath. “Do you want some?”
I shake my head because I don’t think I’ll ever want to eat it again—I’ve been traumatized enough.
We walk in silence the whole way while the only sounds are our footsteps and her sinking her teeth into the juicy fruit. By the time we reach our camp, my shoulders are begging for me to itch them, so I do. Then I scratch some more. And more. I even look to see what’s happening when she starts talking.
“You’re burning.”
“What?”
“Your skin is burning.” She takes another bite, pointing her finger at my shoulder. “You had the shirt on, but once you took it off, you got burned.”
“No way.” My head whips from side to side, trying to see what she’s pointing at. “It’s too fast. We’ve been walking for only maybe fifteen minutes.”
She snorts. “Dude, you’re pretty much a vampire. Your skin has never seen the sun. All you need to get nice and crispy is ten minutes.”
“It’s seen the sun,” I contradict.
“Alright, I’ll bite.” She smiles widely, showing off her teeth with a piece of papaya stuck in them. “When was the last time you went outside for a walk?”
“I walk plenty,” I grit through my teeth.
“From a building to a car, I bet,” she mumbles and then adds louder, “And when was the last time you took off your shirt playing something outside? Or even chilling, I don’t know.” She shrugs. “Grilling meat on your back porch.”
“I don’t have a porch.”
“Of course.” Her smile grows wider. “You have a penthouse. My bad.”
Her stereotyping, no matter how annoying, is actually spot on. I haven’t been on vacation for nearly five years, and even before that I didn’t go someplace warm. The last time my full body has seen the sun was… When was it? I don’t even remember. Maybe in college when I played football? We played in uniforms. Before that? I don’t remember. But that’s because I don’t have time. I’m growing an empire, and emperors don’t take days off. Their brothers do, but not the emperors. Never them.
“You need to put some dirt on.”
“What?” I blink.
“The dirt.” She nods at our feet. “We don’t have sunscreen here, unless you want to go and dive in search of nearby shipwrecks and their sunken goodies.” Thinking about sunken goodies and all the other shit that can be found at the bottom of the ocean quickly makes me choose her option.
“So what do you do with the dirt?” I ask, probably sounding like a moron.
She starts imitating putting sunscreen on herself, and she does it on her chest. “Put it all over, just like that. At least you’ll survive until rescue arrives.”
That’s what she was doing before, probably. Covering herself in natural sunscreen.
“And you need to do it pronto,” she notes, eyeing my shoulder. “Or you’ll burn to a crisp.”
Suddenly, her hand comes up to my waistband on the side of my body and pulls it away maybe an inch. I glance down too. She’s right. There’s a very definite line between the parts that were covered and exposed.
“The sun is the most treacherous when it’s hidden behind the clouds,” she continues. “You won’t feel it until you have a fever and start vomiting all these precious bananas we’ve found.”
I’ve never had heat stroke, but I’ve heard of it being vicious. Growing up, we never had a chance to go to warm places because our father always worked, and our mother didn’t want to go anywhere without him. Then I went to a college where I had to work my ass off to prove that I can be the best in the class. I had to be because I knew my father was going to make me a CEO. It was our family company. He inherited it from his father, my grandfather who, in return, got it from another male ancestor.
After that, I was busy trying to find a way to get back the ownership of the company my father didn’t leave to me and my brother. So yes, I haven’t had much time for leisure.
When we reach our camp, my shoulders are in pain. So are my arms and neck.
“Sit,” she orders, pointing at the fallen tree. “I’ll cover the worst parts so it will be easier for now. Then the rain will wash it away anyway, so you’ll have to reapply if it keeps hurting.”
I drop the papayas by our feet and plant my ass where she pointed out. She steps deeper into the woods and comes back with a pile of mud on a giant leaf.
“Your skin will feel dry. But it’s that or being a piece of smoked meat.”
“Do your worst,” I say, drawing my shoulders back like before a battle.
“Don’t threaten me with a good time,” she mumbles under her breath, making me bite my lower lip. Sometimes her expressions make no sense, but at the same time they do. I feel a sudden wave of gratitude that I’m not alone on this island.
She covers my most itchy parts, tracing her fingers over my hot skin. She’s careful and precise. Calculated. And while I’m subtly trying to move my legs because I get a little too excited from her touch, her brows are furrowed with concentration. Being able to focus is a very admirable trait in a person.
When she covers the last part on my neck, focusing a little too long at the bottom of my hairline and raking her nails over the sensitive skin, she steps back to admire her work. She’s clearly satisfied because she gives a short nod to herself more than to me and goes to the ocean to wash her hands.
The first raindrop falls on my nose when she’s back. She sends a sad glance at my used-to-be-white shirt currently being used as a bag for her papayas. “You probably want to put it inside your house, so it stays dry.”
“Yeah.”
I take the fruit out, grab the shirt, and head toward my house.
The rain stops in a couple of hours, and I climb out of the shelter to look around. My neighbor started fixing her poor excuse of a bungalow. I head toward her to help, grabbing a handful of palm leaves to put on her roof.
She meets me with a glare. I carefully place the leaves on the ground next to her and retreat back to my place to see what else I can fix. I add a few more leaves, spread the gooey mud on a few holes and secure anything that might fly away if the wind hits.
Then I go to get a few more coconuts and bring more water. While keeping an eye on my neighbor. She does the same, but her shelter is not looking good. I think tonight she’ll be soaking wet if it rains again. Judging by the sky, it will.
I’m contemplating if I should invite her over, but recalling her glare when I came to help, I don’t think she’ll be happy with my offer. So I go about my evening, taking a dive in the waterfall, collecting more water on the way back, and retiring for sleep.
When I’m inside my shelter, the first drop of the evening rumbles over the leaves on my roof without getting inside. I feel not exactly happy, but maybe content. I haven’t had a desire to check my phone in hours, there’s no itch to check my pocket. All I can think about is how to get food, stay dry, and maybe take a peek at my neighbor’s ass .
Speaking of food, I don’t know how long I can survive on sugary fruits. I need protein. I’m hungry. Tomorrow, I need to see what I can do about that. But for now, sleep. The days end early here, and I don’t remember having more restful sleep.