(I)
Why did she feel so unsettled? Weird night, Nora dismissed. She'd expected the sounds emanating from the woods to help lull her to sleep; instead, they'd annoyed her. She supposed they'd all need to be up early tomorrow, for Annabelle's shoot, but now, going on two o'clock, it would be impossible to get in a decent night's sleep.
The little polyester tent pressed in like a coffin. She'd tossed and turned in the summer-weight sleeping bag. Each time she tried to clear her head of the day's aggravations, her temples began to rage in a headache. She'd drifted off once but was then bolted awake by, of all things, a sexual dream.
You've got to be kidding me…
She never had sexual dreams… an odd fact for a virgin. The little bit of dating she'd done in college and grad school had always wound up getting torpedoed by a term paper, a stwly session, or a test. The academician in her always wound up walking on her womanhood, asserting the priority. Whenever a potential relationship would fail, or she'd miss out on a perfectly normal fling, she'd always be satisfied to tell herself: You're not in school to make whoopie. You're in school to get your doctorate. Objectively this was all true, but by now it left little to console her womanhood. Her sexuality felt like something moldering. Her desires were fruit whose seeds would never touch the earth to give root.
The dream:
The man's face reminded her of the door knocker at her grandmother's house. It had been mounted on the ornate door's center stile, an oval of tarnished bronze depicting a morose half-formed face. Just two eyes, no mouth, no other features. The peculiar knocker was one of Nora's earliest childhood memories, for whatever reason. Her parents took her to Grandma's house every Thanksgiving; she remembered the knocker but not the rest. Why would that be?
One sleepless night, at age four or five, she'd gotten out of bed to go to the bathroom. The darkness of the musty hall had confused her; she'd opened the wrong door. This isn't the bathroom, she realized. It's the room Mommy and Daddy are sleeping in. But-
Her big eyes stared out. Mommy and Daddy weren't sleeping. She didn't know what they were doing-just that they had their clothes off and Daddy was doing something weird on top of Mommy. Nora shuffled away, bewildered.
The day after Thanksgiving, they'd driven away, and Nora could see that scary door knocker shrinking in the distance. Grandma died the next day.
And now her dream. The man's face was just like the knocker: half formed, just two blank eyes. He didn't need any more facial features than that, for he was just a body to suit her needs. His arms felt hot beneath her; he was carrying her through teeming woods-these woods?-deliberate footsteps crackling over twigs. He laid her down naked on the forest bed, and stood between her spread legs, looking down. The moon glowed behind him, blocking out the unnecessary details of his face. A face would give him a persona, a humanity, but her desires had taken her so completely, she didn't care who he was, or even how he might feel about the real her. He was only a symbol-of deliverance-just as her body, in this hot, compressed dreamscape, was a symbol-of her own unbridled lust.
When he turned a moment, the moon cut him into a silhouette of raven black, the outlines sharp as newly cut glass-including a stout, erect penis. Nora whined, cringing atop fallen leaves. Her belly sucked in and out as she stared up at him almost teary-eyed. The sweat on her skin felt slippery as glycerin when she smoothed her hands up her stomach to her breasts and plied her nipples as if twisting screws out of a wall. The pain drilled the most delicious sensations through her belly to her groin, where they all settled like an overcharged battery waiting to be tapped.
The silhouette seemed content to watch for now. Was the faceless figure touching himself, so incited by her body? Nora hoped so because, next, those electric sensations summoned her hand back down the slick abdomen. She gruelingly held herself back, her fingers never quite being allowed to hit the final triggers that would flatten her right there in the leaves. More and more of those sensations mounted, and soon she was moaning to let them out, but…
Not… yet…
She wanted him to see it all, to bear witness, and then to spend himself on her from where he stood. The live-wire sensations mounted; the moon bathed her glistening skin. Then her guest began to lower himself.
Yes…
Callused hands began to massage her. The compounded sensations were driving her mad; the stars blurred in her eyes. As the rough hands kneaded her breasts, her nipples burned hot as embers embedded in her flesh. But just as she thought he'd lie atop her, he pulled back-…
The hands pushed her knees back to her face, and his mouth found her sex. His tongue did things she didn't think possible-she'd never known that the web of her sexual nerves was capable of feeling such things. She closed her eyes and let the frenzy take over. First, one finger entered her, then two, then three; she was biting marks into her knees. The ministrations went on and on. Was her tongue hanging out? Was she shrieking her pent-up bliss?
Now! her mind screamed. Now!
The coal-black shadow moved upward, arms like struts that kept her knees pinned back. She could feel his hot, muscled flesh slide against the backs of her legs, and then he positioned himself. The penis nudged the entry of her sex, teased her as it threatened to enter-
Now…
– but that's when Nora woke up.
Her first sexy dream in ages, and look what happened. I don't believe it, she thought in the deepest frustration. I can't even get laid in a dream! The hot night was compressing her within the cocoon of the sleeping bag. She'd been sweating so profusely, it felt as though someone had dumped a bucket of hot water on her.
She'd been sleeping in her swimsuit. The cooler air caressed her when she finally got out of the bag. This was maddening; it was the middle of the night and she couldn't sleep. Worse was the dream's aftereffects, which left her skin prickly, her nipples aching as if plucked. Gotta get out of here, go for a walk or something…
She grabbed a lantern and unzipped the tent, crawled out as if fleeing a hornets' nest. Once outside, she stood in moon-tinted darkness, caught her breath, and let the frustration beat down.
She kept the lantern dim. Loren's tent remained zipped up; she could hear him snoring. Sounds like a busted chain saw-jeez! But the other two tents…
The strangest curiosity seized her. She wanted to look into the other tents-she didn't, of course, but she wanted to. They both stood unzipped.
Are they… in there?
Trent and Annabelle would be foolish to sleep with their tents unzipped. Their exhalations would summon droves of mosquitoes. But where would they be at this hour?
Who cares?
Nora walked down a trail, not even really aware of any direction. Her flip-flops crunching over twigs could scarcely be heard over the night sounds that pulsed all around her. Lizards scattered wherever she pointed the lantern light. An array of multicolored winged creatures buzzed around her.
The head shacks stood dark now, a row of lonely bunkers. She got her mind off the frenzied dream-and the utter letdown of its conclusion-and thought back on the details of the day.
Those things in the shower…
There was little room for error after so close an examination. She and Loren were indeed the experts, and they both knew now what the things had to be.
Motile ova. From some species of tropical annelid.
A worm.
She sat down on a stump and pondered. Some worms were sexed, some were asexual, while others were hermaphroditic. The phenomenon of ova motility among species of worms was well documented. The ovum, via its own means of locomotion, would seek out its own place to hatch, and certain parasitic varieties would seek out a living host for that purpose. But these were all marine species, and-
They're all tiny, she knew.
A mature worm ovum the size of a coffee bean? How big would the ovum be when it was immature?
Then the most obvious question struck her:
How big would the gestating worm be?
The question totally confounded her, and she knew it was doing the same to Loren. I can't wait to get those samples back to the college, she thought. If she told any of her peers she'd found a motile ova that big, they'd laugh at her.
But now they'd be able to see for themselves.
Let it rest there, she decided. For now she knew she needed to concentrate on the task at hand: finding a scarlet bristleworm for this smart-ass blond photographer.
Nora blanked her mind on the subject of Annabelle. It was like at school. Sometimes you had to work with someone you didn't like, and that's just the way things were. Nora had never had a problem with clashing personalities.
So why now?
Something felt ticking inside her. She turned the lantern all the way down, to draw fewer bugs, and to think about anything but Annabelle…
That's when she realized her eyes were focused on something…
With the lantern off, darkness reclaimed the cove.
So… what the hell is that light?
It wasn't coming from the first head shack that she and Loren were using as a lab. One of those down there…
She kept the light off, and walked quickly down the row of old missile units. She kept her eye trained, thinking it would go away as she approached, that it was just an odd reflection of moonlight, or some foxfire. But no…
A thin beam of light seemed to be leaking out of the roof of the head shack at the very end of the row.
She walked right up to the long brick building and stared upward. Yeah. That's definitely light. Electric light. The building's roof of corrugated metal was arch shaped, and there was very clearly a hole in it. The beam of light shot up into the trees.
Why would the inside lights be on? None of these head shacks had been used in years.
Then the obvious answer came to her. Trent checks these places every month for signs of squatters and vandalism. He probably forgot to turn the lights off last time he checked.
No big mystery.
But when she turned to leave, something else caught her eye.
More light.
At the very edge of the next building's roof, where the metal met the brick, she saw the faintest line of light leaking out.
Hmm.
She checked the rest of the head shacks and found no further evidence of lights on inside. Then she checked the doors and found them all locked.
I'll have to remember to tell him tomorrow…
She looked around and realized she was suddenly ill at ease. She supposed this was a creepy place to be alone in. Earlier, when she'd been studying the ova, she thought she'd heard voices outside, even a shriek, but she knew it was either her imagination or a night bird somewhere.
She strode hastily back to the campsite, or so she thought when she realized she'd taken the wrong trail.
She was about to turn the lantern back on when-
A voice fluttered.
"God, that's good…"
A woman's voice.
In another small cove, she saw pale shapes moving. She kept the lantern off, squinting as the moonlight brought out details. At first she wasn't sure, then-
I don't believe what I'm seeing.-..
It was Trent and Annabelle, both naked.
How tacky, Nora thought. They're doing it standing up.
Evidently Trent was stronger than he looked. Annabelle's arms and legs were wrapped around him as Trent's pelvis stroked her in an almost machinelike rhythm. Her breasts squashed against his chest, her ankles locked; she was hanging on to him-a monkey on a tree, only Trent was the tree. Judging the noises that came from Annabelle, it was apparent she was enjoying it, but-
Nora was aghast. This was making love? This was a physical gesture of passion? Nora's mind broke it down to bare parts: They're just standing there, screwing. They don't really even know each other! It was true, they'd only met this morning, and here they were, two animals in the woods.
Is that what it's all about? Nora wondered dismally. I guess that's just the way some people are…
Eventually, Trent lowered the blonde to the ground, to continue, and then she broke into a new round of gasps and moans, Trent's hips pounding onward, a mindless derrick. Nora continued to watch from behind a tree without even knowing why. She didn't have a voyeuristic streak at all, and there was certainly nothing enticing about the scene. Annabelle's back arched, her long, bare legs shooting up into the air in a wide V. Nora had never seen anything so perfunctory in her life.
Just leave, she told herself. This is depressing.
She should've obeyed herself, but she chose to watch a few moments longer, and in those moments, Annabelle's face turned toward her…
Nora's heart jolted.
In the moonlight, Annabelle's eyes met hers. Oh my God! She sees me!
Annabelle never said a word. She simply smiled.
Nora pulled herself back, turned, and ran away.
A crush of emotions buried her. She fled haphazardly back toward the campsite, images swimming in her head. By most people's standards, what she'd witnessed was of little consequence. So what? she tried to convince herself. There must've been some spontaneous attraction between the two of them, so then one thing led to another. Nora was a scientist; she should be able to understand that with no problem. But she knew what a psychologist might say: that the real reason the scene upset her was that Trent had selected Annabelle instead of her. It didn't matter that Nora felt no attraction to the army officer at all, it was merely the process of natural selection.
Being seen was the worst part. My God, she fretted. That bitch will never let me live it down. Nora knew she shouldn't care but she did anyway. The scientist in her was losing out very quickly to the human.
Just go back to the camp and go to sleep. Forget about it.
She stopped a moment to rest, that jolt to her heart finally wearing off. She placed her hand against a tree-
– then flinched.
What was that?
Her hand touched something.
A stud of some sort.
She turned the lantern up to look…
In the bright halo of gaslight, she couldn't have appeared more puzzled. A screw of some kind had been embedded in the tree trunk, but there wasn't a screw head at the end of it, as she expected.
Instead it was a clear glassine bulge. Like a lens.
(II)
Slydes lounged back in the fishing chair at his boat's aft. He raised his leg and farted, and found an inexplicable satisfaction in the act. He felt content now that they'd gotten in and out of the head shack without being seen, and more content in knowing that Jonas would turn that bag of pot into at least a thousand dollars in cash very quickly. It did secretly bother him, though-that Jonas made more money with his gig than Slydes did with his. Jonas believed that was proof of some intellectual superiority, but-
I'm smart too, damn it, Slydes reassured himself. He knew how to catch gator and effectively butcher it, didn't he? And he even knew how to prep and tan the hides, and that wasn't easy. Once he and his poaching buddies had thrown a gator-skinning contest (Jonas had had the audacity to not bet on his brother), but Slydes had won lickety-split. I put 'em all to shame, he remembered.
He didn't have anything to prove to anyone.
He lobbed the next beer bottle over the side. Goin' through 'em tonight… And why shouldn't he? It was hot and he'd worked hard all day. But now all those beers were leading to the inevitable result. The deck creaked when he lumbered to the stanchion cable and opened his pants. More inexplicable satisfaction arrived when he leaned back and pulled a hard piss over the side. Ahhhhhhhhh… -
After a couple of minutes, Slydes was still urinating. Damn! Come on, peter. I ain't got all night. He half expected to see the lagoon rise an inch or two. Bet it pisses the fish off, he allowed himself the scholarly hypothesis. But when he was shaking off, he…
He squinted at the sensation. Not an itch, but-
Something tingled very slightly.
On his scrotum.
Not a modest man, Slydes pulled his "bag" up and looked at it in the bright moonlight.
Fuck!
A beetle or something was clinging to one of his testicles. Bean-sized… and very disconcerting. At first he thought it might be some sort of sore-he'd had those in the past-but then the "sore" was moving. And the color?
That was the grossest part. The thing's shell was the color of pus.
He plucked it off with haste, then turned on one of the deck lights. Damn! he thought, outraged. The fuckin' thing was on my 'nads! He squinted at it.
Some piss-yellow bug, but it wasn't hard as he'd expect a beetle to be. It felt hot, wet.
"Fucker," he grunted. "You're fish food," and he flicked it over the side.
Thank God it hadn't bitten him-whatever it was. He surely would've felt a sting of pain on so sensitive an area. If anything, the area he'd plucked it off felt…
Kind'a cool and tingly, he noted. It wasn't unpleasant in any way.
How'd the fucker get in my pants? he wondered next. No biggie, it was gone now, but he figured it must've crawled up his leg when they were cutting through the woods to get Jonas's dope.
Suddenly Slydes twitched in place, stood up straight and wide-eyed. Now he felt another sensation.
"You gotta be shittin' me!" he muttered and stuck his hand down his pants in the back. He fished around and, sure enough, pulled another one of the things out.
It had crawled right down into the cleft of his buttocks. Another one in my ass crack!
In truth, though, Slydes had to feel sorry for the bug.
Dumbfounded, he checked his entire body and found no more of the things.
Some squirmy kind of leech or slug, he reasoned. He'd picked it up in the woods, so that meant Jonas and Ruth probably had too.
He thunked down the steps to the cabin.
"Jonas! Ruth! The two of you's better check yourselfs for bugs. I just picked two off me."
But when he looked around, no one was there.
Belowdecks reeked of pot smoke. He'd seen them down here earlier, toking up some of the stash they'd brought off the island.
Slides climbed back up and popped the cap off another beer. He looked out toward the island's massive tropical forest. I wonder where the hell they went…
(III)
The warm bare wood beneath Ruth's nakedness felt weirdly luscious; in fact, her entire body felt that way-cocooned in the wonderful, lulling buzz. Jonas took them to this old shed when they'd left the boat; he'd seen it on previous trips, just an old storage shed of some kind. A lot better than doing it in the woods, she thought, with God knows what kind of bugs crawling around. Not to mention that snake that had jumped on her earlier…
Jonas was already up and had his clothes back on. "Want another toke, baby?" He hoisted his favorite carved-wood pipe.
She grinned and shook her head, hair disarranged and skin teeming with sweat.
Jonas took a few more hits, then popped a brow. "I swear my stuff gets better and better. No wonder my bagmen are screamin' at me to grow more."
Ruth slowly sorted her thoughts. "A year from now, you'll be rich, Jonas. When we start more plants in the other head shacks."
"Damn straight." Something seemed to catch his eye in the corner. "What's this?"
Ruth felt too lazy now to even lean up and look.
They hadn't noticed it before, but Jonas picked up a drawstring bag. He curiously inventoried the contents: "Swimmin' trunks, towels, suntan lotion…" Then he looked at her. "Shit, Ruth, someone left their shit here."
"The photographers?"
"Naw, they're keeping their stuff at the campsite."
"Slydes said that college kids come out here sometimes," Ruth recalled. She had her flashlight set on end, shining at the ceiling. It brought down a murky umbrella of ringed light that Ruth found fascinating. "They must've left it."
"Hmm. Yeah. Guess so." He seemed satisfied with the conclusion. Another conclusion might've occurred to him had he been observant enough to notice the portable grill outside, and the beer cooler full of melting ice.
"Let's get going, I'm tired."
Disappointment overwhelmed Ruth, something she was used to with this pair. "I thought we were going to sleep here. Let's cuddle!"
Jonas frowned. "Come on, put your clothes on and let's go back to the boat."
She leaned up on her hands. Why couldn't he or Slydes ever do anything she wanted? It would be romantic to sleep here.
"I'm sleeping here!" she insisted.
"Cool." Jonas stuffed his bag of pot in his shorts pocket. "Thanks for the piece of ass. I'll see ya back at the boat in the morning."
Jonas left the shed.
A piece of ass. Prick! So much for romance. It didn't matter, though. She felt so good right now, she wasn't going to let his selfishness spoil the mood.
She lay back down, sated and high. That pot was strong as hash; the warm buzz pulsed from her heart to her toes.
She snapped the light off and let the grainy darkness come down like the softest blanket. At least the sex had been decent this time-it wasn't always that way with Jonas. The beer he'd been drinking all day gave him some much-needed endurance. Five minutes is better than two, she reminded herself. With two lovers, the situation could've been worse. What Jonas failed to provide in the way of her womanly needs, Slydes usually took care of, and vice versa.
Jonas had left the door open, which permitted a trace breeze. The moon came in like an accidental guest, and the sounds of the forest began to pulse along with her buzz. She lolled in the dark, decided not to even put any clothes back on, and in her sleepy mind she saw her dreams with Slydes and Jonas come true. One great big happy family. More and more money coming in each month. A new washer and dryer, and one of those big fancy flat-screen TVs where she could sit between her two lovers every night and watch wrestling…
Warm semen trickled between her bare legs, but she felt too tranquilized to even move, much less wipe herself. Her eyes closed, and her unusually large lips turned up into a contented smile. Sleep carried her away oh so deeply…
She never even felt the thin, foot-long pink worm that slithered into her body through her vaginal canal.