39. Pippi
Alistair might have truly broken my brain. Because time mashed itself into a big, steamy vat of potatoes during the second half of my stay at Niverwick.
Jackson refused to talk to me.
We shared a cottage because we had to. But we’d become two strangers who occupied the same living space.
And I hated that.
Hated that this man I’d loved, and lived with for three years, suddenly seemed so estranged. As though the life we’d built together hadn’t happened.
I tried to talk to him. He ignored me. So I wrote him letters and tucked them in the drawer with his boxers. And I poured everything into my writing, articulating my feelings.
I think when we met, I hadn’t fully grasped who Pippi Long was.
I didn’t know what I wanted out of life.
But I do now. And I’m sorry I had to string you along on the quest to figure myself out.
Penning a hope for his future, and for mine: Jackson, you’ll be okay.
You’re smart and enigmatic and driven. This life is going to bow to you one day and give you everything you’ve ever wanted.
You’ll be happy, I promise, as will I, when we’ve been able to put this hurt behind us.
Time will give us clarity. One day we’ll look back on this and realize this decision was the best thing for us.
So much love and care went into those words.
He crumbled them up and threw them away.
In an effort not to dwell on Jackson, and the utter mess I’d made of our lives, I spent the last couple of days of my vacation… vacationing .
Chunks of time meandered by as I wandered the isle. Usually alone. And sometimes with Melany and Sarah, who knew what’d happened between me and Jackson, but were very careful to avoid talking about it.
On a soggy evening, when rain lolled in the air above our heads, threatening to fall, but never following through, they took me to a field on the northern part of the isle where they’d found the will-o’-the-wisps.
And I’d awed at those beautiful, fluttering spirals of light.
They were like jellyfish. The sort you’d see on an undersea screensaver, all glowy and ethereal, floating effortlessly through the air.
Cajoling us into following their dance with an unspoken promise (a lie) that we’d float above our problems too, if only we’d join them.
“I can see why people get wrecked, following these things to their doom,” I’d said.
“I’ve already tried to follow them.” Melany turned her guilty grin toward me. “They’re so pretty and squishy. I wanted to see what they felt like.”
“Did you touch one?”
“I did.” Another shamefaced smile. “And got the shock of a lifetime.”
“Her hair was standing on end.” Sarah laughed.
“Yeah, don’t touch them, Pippi.” Melany snatched my arm and tucked my hand against her side, as though shielding me from the mistake she’d made.
The next afternoon I went for a hike. Alone this time, although I met enough people along the path to whet my appetite for conversation.
It was invigorating, winding along rocky trails through the mountains, weaving around the curtains of fog and mist, and finding fields and valleys blanketed with the greenest grass I’d ever seen.
A spattering of flowers had begun to bloom, and the trees—all slanted and curved to accommodate the hilly and rocky terrain—were proudly showing off the first buds of their summer leaves.
It was a different world up there, on the northernmost point of the isle. And it was the first time things looked, and felt, magical .
Or maybe that was the spark of new love slipping rose-colored glasses over my eyes, making everything seem more vibrant and majestic.
Because my nights were spent with Alistair. And my heart was so far gone, lost to this creature from the sea, that I didn’t think I’d ever get it back.
Sometimes we cuddled, with his nose nuzzling me as we sat in silence. Other times we talked about the things that made us sad, as well as the things that uplifted us. About the unfairness of life and the cruel irony fate often teased us with.
Sometimes we played and laughed and teased. Sometimes we seduced.
And the sex .
Oh my goodness.
The s-e-x.
One night, I lay up on the cliffs and masturbated while he brushed his nose against my arm, talking to me.
Coaxing me. And I hadn’t been entirely into it at first. But his voice —when he dragged that husky timbre over my brain, murmuring nonsense words and terms of endearment—it was enough to have me shoving my hand between my legs and working myself until I reached that spine-tingling orgasm.
And, somehow, my voice did the same for him, even if I was absolutely horrid at dirty pillow talk.
“Er…I’m going to suck you dry, and…Oh stars, I sound like a vampire !” I grinned and thumped his nose when he choked on a richly amused laugh. “ ‘I vant to suck vur blood. ’ Goodness. I told you I’m awful at this.”
“You’re lovely, Pippi. Always.” Alistair whuffled. And then groaned, when I rubbed my hands along his nose and muttered, “I wish I could actually get you in my mouth, though.”
I couldn’t see how he pleasured himself, and me asking, or trying to envision it out loud, usually made him writhe, so I asked a lot.
He told me I was lovely. Again, and again, and again, as he worked himself into a release. I’d never be able to hear that word again without either bawling my eyes out or flushing in embarrassment.
We pleasured each other as well, the way we had that first night. And every time I orgasmed, I saw visions of that long-limbed man. The one I dreamed about. The one who held me so tenderly and lovingly, while he kissed and suckled and yelled my name as he came undone.
And I knew this was the man Alistair had once been. Before the curse had gripped the island and twisted its inhabitants into new forms.
This was where the cruelty of fate came in.
Because I wanted that man. Wanted Alistair.
I laughed more with him than I ever had with Jackson. I felt sexy and free and content, as I dreamed and played and experienced.
For the first time in thirty-five years, I lived .
I’d had to nearly die in the jaws of the sea to find myself. To figure out what my heart and soul wanted.
But the rapidly closing week was going to snatch all those discoveries away.
“I don’t want to go,” I whispered on my very last night on the island. The final time Alistair, as he’d lamented, would get to wear his “favorite hat.”
I hadn’t stayed on his head though, because I’d been too antsy to see him. So I treaded water beside him, suffering the cold, for a chance to explore his body.
Alistair twisted his neck, watching me.
“I could stay. You know…” I palmed his side.
“You can’t,” he said.
“Who says?” I traced my hand along the swell of his back. “I’m sure the isle is hiring. And I’d probably like working in tourism. Getting to meet new people every week. Listening to their stories and sharing their experiences.”
“Without ever living those stories and e-e-experiences yourself,” Alistair said.
I paused. “This week has been more experience than most people get in an entire lifetime.”
“But you shouldn’t settle for one week. You should want more.
If you stay here…the…they…the isle…” He shook his head, working at the words.
“The isle s-s-staff…they came here because they had nowhere else. They stay, because they can’t a-a-a-afford to go anywhere else.
They talk,” he added when I started to ask how he could possibly know that. “If you stay, you’d be trapped.”
“There are worse places to be trapped. I’d at least have you.” I peered up at him.
His nostrils billowed as anguish and longing curdled my insides. “No, Pippi. You freed yourself. Of that quagmire you spoke of. I won’t be the reason you become trapped in another.”
My nose twitched as tears tickled it.
He was right. Of course. A week on this isle, surrounded by the fog, had worn on me. A lifetime of staying on this little slab of rock, surrounded by the sea, suffocated by magic, never seeing the sun or the stars or the moon—it would destroy me. Eventually.
But leaving Alistair behind would destroy me as well.
“What will happen to you?” I whispered. “When I leave?”
“I’ll stay here.” He touched the tip of his nose to the top of my head in a soft, lingering kiss.
“Alone?”
A consoling purr tumbled out of him.
“Do you have other people you can talk to? People who can keep you company?”
“None who can hear me,” he said. “I’ll be okay. Pippi. I p-p-promise.”
But a deep sorrow hammered into my bones, nearly sending me sinking into the water.
Alistair hastily recalled his errant emotion, murmuring apologies as he nuzzled the top of my head.
“I’m so sorry, Alistair, I—” I yelped when something slithery and solid swatted my butt beneath the water.
Alistair’s laugh warmed my insides.
“What”—I puckered my lips at him—“body part was that?”
With a whoosh, the whip-like tip of his tail popped out of the water and waved at me.
“We haven’t ex…ex…experimented with this. Yet,” Alistair said.
“I’m not sure if we should. I’m pretty open-minded—” I squealed when Alistair snaked the tail along the water and gently flicked water in my face. “But I might have to draw the line at getting banged by a butt extender. Who knows where that thing has been?—”
“A butt extender ?” Alistair sonic boomed that laugh.
I hefted myself against him to avoid the angry onslaught of waves.
“You’re safe, Pippi.” He wrapped his tail around me to keep me steady. “Always. Even from my d-dirty butt extender.” The tip of his tail caressed my cheek as his mouth brushed the top of my head.
“Pippi…” He chawed on my name, savoring it until it gummed up his tongue, making it hard for him to get the rest of the words out.
“Pippi…Pippi, you…I…”
I craned my head, kissing his nose when I felt his aggravation burbling.
“I’ll miss you,” he finally said.
“Oh, Alistair.” I leaned into him, sighing when his tail gave my midsection a comforting smoosh. “I’ll miss you too.”