Haven

This story originally appeared in the SHareCon 2004 zine. It’s part of a work in progress.

Ken Hutchinson, stranded on a deserted island, finds a dark-haired man washed up on shore after a particularly bad storm.

The tall, blond man looked down at the woman who stood beside him on the deck of the small boat, the arm he had draped over her shoulders tightening as she gazed up at him with love and trust.

“Are you absolutely certain, Helen?” he asked one more time.

The woman’s pale blue eyes moved from her husband to the shore, then scanned out over the seemingly endless expanse of sparkling, restless ocean.

“The world has gone mad, my love. I no longer want to be a part of it,” she finally replied with bitter conviction.

Silently, the man reached for the throttle of the boat. His grip firm and sure, he thrust it forward and the boat began to move. As the vessel gained momentum, the prow arrowing into the empty ocean, the couple clasped hands. There was time for the exchange of one last, loving smile, and then, quite calmly, they dove over the side together.

~~~

Ken plodded along the beach, occasionally stopping to examine a bit of flotsam that had been washed up onto the hard packed sand by the violence of last night’s storm. Safe inside his snug home, he had listened as wind and rain and ocean had combined their fury in an effort to lay waste to all before them and had wondered what new oddity might await his discovery in the morning.

Sometimes, a storm like last night’s would wash ashore something useful such as the crumpled mass of cloth and rope that had ended up on his beach during the last storm. He recognized it, from pictures in one of his mother’s books, as the sail and rigging of a sailboat. For Ken, however, it had been a priceless commodity, carefully dried and hoarded, and subjected only occasionally to the frugal snips of his equally precious scissors.

Almost to the end of his trek around the beach, Ken accepted that the latest storm had delivered only driftwood and seaweed. There was, however, one unwelcome gift from the sea waiting for him beyond the stretch of sand among the treacherous rocks that, over time, had tumbled from the cliffs above. Ken had spotted the twisted, unmoving form when he had first emerged that morning, but had delayed the inevitable by investigating the beach first. Ken knew he could delay no longer or the stench of decomposing flesh would turn an unpleasant task into a truly repellant one.

Reluctantly, Ken made his way over the rocks on leather-tough feet to where the body of another human being awaited what his mother had called a decent burial. Ken did not really understand the more esoteric reasons for interring a dead body in the ground. He did understand the practicality of it. Decomposing bodies, whether human or animal, stank. If he did not want to live with the odor for many days to come, he had to bury it.

Arriving at last at where the body lay, Ken stomped his feet and waved his shovel to chase away the scavenging crabs and birds that, also practical, were helping themselves to the unexpected bounty delivered by the storm. Bracing himself, Ken grasped the salt-stiffened material covering a shoulder and heaved the body onto its back. He stumbled back, gorge rising to his throat as the battered face, already extensively feasted upon, was revealed. Averting his eyes, Ken swallowed hard, grateful he had yet to break his fast, then leaned down and flipped the body back over and faced the ocean, breathing deeply of the fresh, salt wind until his belly settled and his head stopped spinning. Knowing that further delay would only make the task more unpleasant, he then grasped the outstretched legs around the ankles and began dragging it. With his back to his gruesome burden, he could not see each time the flopping head bounced over a rock, but he could hear it and picked up his pace, wanting the task over with as soon as possible.

~~~

Carefully holding the blade of the knife, Ken finished carving the last letter into the flat piece of driftwood. The corpse had been carrying a wallet. Ken had recognized it because it was very like one that his father had shown him that he had carried in another life. From the wallet, he had learned that the man’s name had been Paul White and Ken had spent the last of the evening light in meticulously carving the letters into the driftwood. Tomorrow, he would place the marker where he had buried the man.

Also gathering up the bundle of clothing he had removed from the dead man, Ken went inside his cave. Sitting down cross-legged beside the fire, he set knife and marker aside and began unwrapping the bundle. The man he had buried had been considerably broader and shorter than Ken, but that did not mean his clothing could not be put to use. Sometimes, when the stormy season was upon him, the air became uncomfortably cool and some covering was required. Every time this happened, it seemed to Ken that he had to fashion new coverings for himself because the ones used the season before had become too small.

Ken remembered his father. Richard had been a tall man and his mother had often said that one day he too would be as tall. It had seemed an impossible goal then for the boy looking up at the man who towered above him, but it appeared that, as she often was, his mother would be right. He had no idea how old he was then, or now for that matter, but Ken could remember a time when his father had stretched his long arms up over his head and the flattened palms of his big hands had pressed flat on the ceiling of their cave. Getting up, Ken reached up now and found that his fingers just barely brushed the ceiling. So, not so tall as his father yet, but he sensed that nature had not yet finished with him.

Dropping his arms to his sides, Ken shook his head at his own foolishness. What did it matter how tall he grew? There was no one here to see.

Ken lay down on his pallet, drew the book he had been re-reading toward him and carefully opened it. His parents had brought many books with them and, though the print was faded with age and the pages warped with damp, they were still readable. And his parents had ensured that their son could read. At first, they had read to him, and Ken could remember the sound of their voices, and how he had closed his eyes to imagine the wonders they spoke of. As he grew, they had taught him how to read. He blessed them for that nearly as often as he cursed them for dying and leaving him alone.

For a few minutes, Ken allowed himself to feel the anger and grief that visited him every so often since his parents’ deaths. Despite his mother’s many warnings and bitter words, he also knew a few moments of regret that the castaway upon his beach that day had not been alive. Putting aside his painful emotions, Ken found the place where he had left off the night before and began to read aloud. There were times when he missed the sound of another human voice so much that he thought he would go mad, but had accepted long ago that his own would have to suffice.

~~~

“No! Ma! Wait!” Dave Starsky bellowed as he burst through the doors of the Laundromat and spotted his mother stuffing clothes into a washing machine. He raced down the aisle, dodging women just like his mother, if of different ethnic origins, all of whom were all engaged in the business of family laundry and neighborhood gossip.

“Davey, you nearly gave me a heart attack!” Ruth Starsky complained as her elder son skidded to a stop before her and began pawing through the dirty laundry she had just put in the machine. “What on earth is the matter with you?” she continued as socks, briefs, and shirts went flying.

“Did you take the jeans I wore yesterday? The ones on the chair?” Dave asked anxiously, peering unhappily into the now empty washer and then eyeing in despair the one beside it that was in the middle of its cycle.

Ruth dug down into her cart and pulled out the sought-after jeans. “You mean these?” she asked, holding them out at arm’s length gripped between the tips of her fingers and thumb.

Grinning with relief, Dave grabbed the filthy item and dug through the pockets. He crowed in triumph when he found the crumpled bit of paper, doing a bit of a hip-swinging, butt-swaying dance as he held the paper aloft.

“I don’t suppose that’s the telephone number of some nice girl,” Ruth said as she resumed doing the laundry for herself and her two sons.

Dave quit dancing and brought the paper down to his lips, giving it a smacking kiss before holding it under his mother’s nose. He knew she wasn’t going to be impressed, but his own faith in his luck was now reaffirmed. “It’s my lottery ticket, Ma. The lottery ticket that’s gonna get us out of Brooklyn forever.”

Ruth snorted inelegantly and pushed his hand away. “You and your get-rich-quick schemes. It would be better if you gave up such nonsense and found yourself a real job.”

“I have a real job,” Dave protested, pulling out his wallet and tucking his future fortune safely inside.

“You’re twenty-two-years-old, David Michael. It’s time you got a real job and quit playing around in your Uncle Marvin’s garage,” Ruth admonished. She slid the coin rack into the slot, watched to make sure the water started filling the machine and then slammed the lid down.

“I’m not playing around. I’m a certified mechanic,” Dave defended himself although he knew it was useless. He could see the other mothers in the Laundromat nodding sage agreement and knew his mother was drawing moral support from her peers’ approval.

“And it’s time you found a nice girl and started a family,” Ruth continued, her assertion followed by a chorus of agreement by a number of variously accented feminine voices.

Feeling his face heating, Dave began backing toward the door, glancing behind him often to be sure he avoided a collision with any of the women who were very pointedly not moving clear of his escape route. This argument was getting older all the time, and it was one Dave knew he was never going to win unless he told his mother the whole truth. And hell was going to freeze over before he ever did that. How could he look his mother in the eye and tell her that, although he liked girls well enough, he knew deep down inside that he was never going to find one to satisfy him completely? Too often, since he had become aware of his sexuality, it was a pair of well-filled jeans rather than the flip of a saucy skirt that caught his eye for him to believe that he was ever going to be happy spending the rest of his life with a woman.

“Davey, why don’t you listen to your mama?” old Mrs. Vincetti, who represented the last barrier between Dave and the door, scolded as he sidled past her. “You should meet my granddaughter, Maria.”

“Sorry, Mrs. Vincetti, I gotta get to work,” David cut in quickly before the old woman could begin touting the merits of her unmarried kin. He lifted a hand and waved it toward his mother. “Won’t be home for dinner tonight, Ma. Don’t wait up for me,” he called as he made good his escape.

Even before the door closed behind him, Dave could hear the babble of voices rise and knew they were talking about him. He gritted his teeth and kept walking. Sometimes he wished he lived on a deserted island. He patted his wallet through the back pocket of his jeans. Maybe when he won the New York State lottery, he would buy one.

~~~

It was his own tossing and turning that woke Ken before dawn. Lying still on his thin, hard pallet and staring into the dark beyond the cave opening, it took a few moments for him to realize the cause of his sleeplessness. When he did, he did not act immediately, letting the anticipation build before he reached down and grasped his penis where it lay, throbbing and aching, against his belly. He moaned as pleasure surged throughout his body and tightened his hand, moving it slowly at first over the hard flesh and then more quickly as the sensations mounted, piling up on each other like the waves that thundered onto his beach during a storm. He was panting now, moving restlessly as an instinct as old as time demanded he do to hasten the end of the solitary dance. And then it was upon him, a moment of pleasure so great as to cross the border into pain as it swept his warm, wet essence out into his hand.

It was several moments after the last draining spasm before Ken could gather himself enough to wipe his hand and his now quiescent penis on his bedding. With a quiet sigh, he rolled over and looked toward the cave opening, realizing that the first hint of gray pre-dawn was beginning to attenuate the difference between outside and in.

Now that the pleasure had passed, the inevitable shame he always felt after the experience was beginning to creep over him. Nothing like the first time, of course, when he had awakened panting and tingling all over to discover his kilt warmly wet. He had feared then that he had wet the bed and his mind had frozen, unable to think of how he would face his parents.

As quietly as he could, he had retreated from the cave, intending to swim in the ocean to wash away the evidence even though he had been strictly forbidden to ever swim alone. His father had followed him, however, and, upon discovering the problem, had sat him down for what would always be immortalized in Ken’s memory as ‘the talk’. Ken and his father had talked of many things, but never before had Ken seen the confident man so ill at ease. Nonetheless, the facts of life had been explained, along with the reassurance that what had just happened to Ken was natural and that it would, indeed, happen again.

Once again, Ken had no real conception of how old he was when this happened. It was shortly after he had begun to notice differences in his body other than the ever-present increase in height and that his voice had a disconcerting tendency to change from treble to bass and back again in the middle of a word. Despite his new knowledge, it still took a long time for him to connect the odd sounds he occasionally woke to in the night with his parents and the information his father had given him and the feelings in his own body. It was this connection from which his sense of shame arose even now, for, lying in the dark, listening to his parents express their love for each other in the pleasure they gave and received, Ken had envied them and resented the intimacy they shared that he would never know. Before he had grown much older, however, both his parents were gone and Ken would have given anything to lie awake and listen to their soft murmuring in the night.

Sadness, as inevitable as the shame, it seemed, given the turn his thoughts always took, was upon him now and Ken knew he would sleep no longer. Rising from his pallet, he went out into the newborn day. He would swim, he decided, to cleanse his soiled body just as he had intended to that very first time. He had no choice now, of course, but to swim alone.

~~~

Standing on the deck of his luxury cruiser, dark curls swept back from his somber face by the strong wind, Dave Starsky was a very unhappy man.

Six years ago, when he had been living in Brooklyn and struggling to help his mother make ends meet and keep his younger brother on the straight and narrow, he had truly believed that money could solve all their problems. Two years of living in the lap of luxury after winning the biggest prize the New York State lottery had ever given away had taught him otherwise.

Money hadn’t kept his brother out of jail, and, after that, nothing he did for his mother had seemed to lift her leaden spirits. He took her on elaborate trips and bought her expensive presents, but these only managed to coax the smallest of smiles from her. Just today, he had received a message from her that she was leaving the new house he had bought for her and was moving back into their old apartment in Brooklyn. Tomorrow, when they docked in Bay City, he would have to try to get her on the phone to see what had happened.

As for his friends, somewhere along the line, he had lost his old ones and had acquired a gaggle of hangers-on that, blind though he wanted to be, he knew would never give him the time of day if he had no money. There were a bunch of them below decks now, drinking up his booze, and probably lapping up illegal drugs even though he had expressly forbidden anyone to use them around him.

Even the fact that his sudden wealth had given him the opportunity to finally, discreetly, indulge his interest in other men was no consolation. At first, the freedom to enjoy the forbidden pleasures of male-to-male sex had been overwhelming, and he knew that he had acted like a kid in a candy store, grabbing at and sampling every beautiful male body that took his fancy. Soon, however, when he realized that he was finding no more emotional satisfaction with his male partners than he had with the female ones, pleasure for pleasure’s sake had paled.

Maybe he should have bought that deserted island after all. He just couldn’t think of anyone he knew now that he would want to share it with.

“Mr. Starsky?”

David turned at the sound of his captain’s voice. Rick Elridge wasn’t really a captain, but he was an experienced sailor and had been hired to drive the boat. At one time, when he had first bought the cruiser, Dave had intended to learn to pilot it himself. Somehow, he had never gotten around to it.

“Yeah,” Dave answered.

“It’s blowing up a storm,” the older man pointed out. “It would probably be best if you went below.” Although Elridge refrained from saying it in so many words, Dave knew the experienced man didn’t want to have to nursemaid his useless employer while trying to weather the cruiser through the storm. Elridge had little respect for him, Dave knew, and, since he had little enough for himself lately, Dave felt the other man’s attitude acutely.

He turned back to face the churning ocean, lifting his face to the strengthening wind. “You just take care of the boat. I’ll take care of myself.”

Elridge nudged him with the life jacket he held. “Since you can’t swim, at least put this on while you’re on deck.”

Reluctantly, Dave accepted the jacket, slipping it on over his t-shirt and buckling it haphazardly. “Satisfied?” he snarled at Elridge.

Without further comment, Elridge returned to his bridge and Dave gripped the railing harder, becoming hypnotized by a sea that seemed as black and stormy as his mood.

~~~

Pushing aside the storm covering fastened over the opening of his cave, Ken stepped out into his rain-washed and wind-ravaged small world. Squinting against the bright sunlight and shading his eyes with his hands, he scanned the sky and sea, confirming that nature’s fury had, indeed, abated. Satisfied that the storm had passed and hoping it would be the last of the season, Ken dropped and narrowed his focus, zeroing in on the long stretch of beach.

His breath caught in his throat when he spotted the sprawled body on the sand where it had been tossed by the storm and stranded by the outgoing tide. Hands clenched at his sides, Ken struggled to bring his racing heart under control. It had been so long since the unfortunate Paul White had been flung ashore, that Ken had nearly forgotten that the possibility existed.

He remembered now. Remembered the unpleasantness of handling a body too long in the water. Remembered the bitter regret at this reminder that he was alone. Most of all, however, he remembered what it was like to look into a face half eaten by eager scavengers. He never wanted to see such a sight again.

Picking up his shovel, which he noticed was once again in need of a new handle, Ken picked his way through the storm’s debris to where the body lay face down in the sand. Bracing himself, hoping the face would not be too bloated or battered or eaten, Ken reached down and flipped the body over.

He nearly died of shock when it moaned.

~~~

Ken squatted beneath the shade of a coconut tree, arms wrapped around his legs and his chin resting on his knees. His gaze intent upon the sprawled form on the beach, he watched carefully, as he had since scrambling away, but the only sign of life was the steady rise and fall of the broad chest. In the many seasons that he had spent alone on the island, Ken had often longed for the sound of another human voice. Hearing one for the first time, however, had brought back all the bitter words and dire warnings his mother had spoken. He wondered now how he could have forgotten.

The outside world was a mad place full of death and destruction and its inhabitants cruel and heartless, his mother had insisted, although his father’s quiet voice had always countered that where there was evil, there was also good. Staring at the unmoving form on the sand, Ken struggled with the fear of the first and the longing for the second.

Reaching out, he snagged the handle of the shovel and pulled it to him, smoothing the well-worn wood with his thumb while he tried to decide what to do. Did he take the chance that the castaway would not be of the evil sort and care for him if he could, or should he simply kill him now and bury the body? It would be simple enough to cleave the skull beneath the dark hair with the shovel. If he did so, however, he would never know if he had killed one of the good ones that his father insisted existed. There was also the troubling question of whether, if he killed without just cause, did that make him one of the evil ones?

In the end, it was an emotion he had no name for that prompted Ken to rise and approach the body again when a second moan reached him across the space between them. He did not know it was compassion that stirred inside him at the pain-filled sound; he only knew that, for better or worse, he could not ignore it. Dropping the shovel in the sand, he put all his strength into heaving the dead weight up over his shoulder and began trudging up the sand to his cave. Staggering under his burden, he reminded himself to go back for the shovel before the tide came in and stole it away.