Lost

1.9K

The time is 1843, the place a two-mile-long island somewhere in the Caribbean. The characters: Christian Hutchinson, the blond, lanky captain of the lost American merchant ship, Trident, and Manfred Starezhka, a Polish blacksmith who had been one of the Trident’s passengers. Christian was a loner, an orphan. Manfred, an orthodox Jew, had once had a wife and two sons, but they had died in an influenza epidemic. He had booked passage on the ship bound for American in hopes of finding a new life. Manfred and Christian find themselves on a barren island following the shipwreck, and each believes himself to be the sole survivor. Each man makes plans to try to survive somehow. [Special thanks to April Valentine for the summary.]

 

Author Notes:

From the Archivist: Lost by Lynna Bright was originally published in installments in the first ten volumes of the SH zine, The Fix, published from 1989 – 1991. It appears here complete in one volume for the first time.

Many people helped bring Lost to the archive. I’d like to thank Lynna Bright for allowing us to archive her work, and Morgan Dawn, Keri T., and CC, for their long running support of the archive and their hard work in helping bring zinefic to the net. Thanks, too, to Laura McEwan for providing some of the initial chapters. And I’d especially like to thank JendaZZ for her meticulous work in proofreading all the assembled chapters.

---

Time: 1843

Place: A two mile-long uncharted island somewhere in the Caribbean.

 

Part I

A prick of sunlight lanced through Captain Christian Hutchinson’s darkness, breaking open the seal of his eyelids. He’d dreamed he was a sea creature, a merman. In the dream, he’d eaten a bright blue anemone, and eating it had given him the ability to breathe under water. Even now, he heard Ocean all around him, felt the tidal pull of Her, and that was what brought him abruptly awake at last–the fear of drowning. He sat up and looked around wildly, raking wet fair hair out of his eyes, blinking rapidly to clear them, bring things into focus.

He found himself sitting on a stretch of powder-white beach. He’d been laying half-in, half-out of the water, along with various other flotsams from the shipwreck. The line of broken planks, pieces of clothing, a box or two, bits of canvas, meandered forlornly down the beach out of sight. There was no sign of another human being, alive or dead.

He got up heavily, waterlogged and groggy, body aching profoundly. Somewhere he’d lost his, coat, and his cambric shirt hung open, without buttons. It was midday. A hot, freshening breeze breathed through the stands of tall palms above the tideline. There was no intimation of civilization. Christian could feel the utter emptiness and aloneness of this place and the skin on the backs of his thighs crawled with fear. “Oh, God,” he groaned. “Where have you left me?”

What island was this? He’d looked over the charts only three days ago, but he couldn’t recall this mere swelling of the sea being on them.

The American merchant ship Trident had been a month out from Liverpool, carrying tea, spices, rum, and beeswax back to a bustling Baltimore harbor.

The ship had been within smelling distance of home when the typhoon hit. It had blown for three days and nights, and driven them helplessly off course, broken the Trident’s mainmast and her hull, and finally sunk her.

They were thirty-seven men. Christian had been their captain, and–he’d thought–a good one. Though he was younger than they were used to, he knew his job and he knew the sea.

However, he hadn’t foreseen this possibility; the ferocity of the storm, and losing his ship. “You’ve torn it now, Chris,” he said aloud. “Shipwrecked, stranded, and on your own.” He had been the last aboard. Where were his men? All dead? Along with the twenty passengers that had been entrusted to him? He couldn’t properly take it in, his head aching, whirling. I don’t know where I am, nor does anyone else on this earth. Already he longed for the sound of another voice, he who had never needed another soul.

He had no relatives, no wife, but he didn’t know if that fact comforted or distressed him under the circumstances. Being an orphan and a foundling had hardened him early to loneliness. He’d grown up on ships, and living the life of the sea had taught him eventually to love his solitude. He had always been alone. But being marooned had a finality that drank all his courage and demanded more. If there were someone, back there, whom he could think of right now, a lovely girl or a loving mother and father, he felt he might be comforted. The people in his life would be like stars to guide him home.

But there was no girl, certainly no one special. He had been with many women, in all parts of the world, but never for longer than a bit of silver was worth to them. Evidently they had not wanted him, so he had never allowed himself to feel a need for them. In his view, something had been lost before it had ever been missed. He felt he had turned out quite well without it.

But all that was superfluous to his immediate trouble. There were three questions he needed to answer. Was there food here? Was there a source of fresh water? Was there any chance he would be rescued?

He started walking toward the tangled jungle. There were a multitude of cocoanuts in the palms. Their abundance answered–at least in part–his question about food. Under the canopy of trees, the light was a cool, liquid green. The color reminded him of his anemone dream. The air around him hummed and vibrated with insect life. He heard birdsong, noting one other possible source of food–if he could sprout wings and fly up to get the birds that belonged to the songs.

Crossing a narrow trail bored through the undergrowth, he followed it for a few feet and found animal spoor; a wild pig’s, quite fresh. This was good news for two reasons. A pig was food, but a pig needed fresh water to live, just as he did. There had to be a place on the island to get it. He decided to follow the track, going on for ten minutes without coming to water, the maker of the trail, or an end to the forest. It seemed to grow thicker, in fact. By that time he was slick with sweat, his face and arms welted and stinging from beating the bushes. It seemed that no man had plundered through this dense growth since the island was born.

Christian was very thirsty, but it would take time and exploration to find water. The island was bigger than he’d suspected. He went back to the beach.

The day wore on while Christian scavenged the shoreline. He found a crumpled box of tea; some of it still dry in the paper sacks, a length of stout rope, a keg of rum (which he wanted to kiss in his delight), various articles of clothing. He collected anything and everything that might be of some use to him; twine, scraps of wood and tin; working to keep his mind from the true awfulness of his situation. The silence behind the sighing of wind and ocean was stupefying. It had weight and a terrible power.

He chose a home-base and methodically stowed all his supplies, gathered kindling. His thirst had become painful, and looking up at the fruited palms, he decided it was time to retrieve one of those cocoanuts.

The trees were mature, too stocky and set to respond to shaking from the ground.

“Well, I’ve climbed a mast or two,” he reasoned. He was twenty-eight, tall and wiry, and known for his strength. Still, he was cursing by the time he reached the top of the tree. By then he was hanging on by his fingernails and sheer determination. It took most of what he had left to poke at the bristly, brown nuts, but five of them fell away to the ground. It looked like a long way down.

He barely got down himself with a whole skin; the last ten feet, he jumped, wildly, landed hard and rolled, hitting his head. Standing up, he felt scrapes and glared balefully at the tree for a moment. Taking out his knife, which was always with him, he went to work on the cocoanuts. He opened and ate two, drank their sour milk.

Thirst slaked, and hunger quieted a little, he watched the melancholy sunset. The sky faded to violet, then indigo, as he thought and made plans. He would not go down into this nothingness. Tomorrow, he would build a shelter, set snares, find water. But sleep took him so quickly, it was like a violation.

********

Manfred Starezhka had spent the night lost on the vastly black and empty ocean, expecting to die, clinging to a plank of the ship. He could not swim, and that broken bit of wood had become a trusted friend. He held onto it like a child to its mother, barely keeping afloat. At dawn, when he saw the dark shape of the island, he began paddling desperately toward it.

When he dragged himself ashore, he kissed the sand, happy almost to delirium just to be alive. It was some time before realization sank in, that he was marooned here. Stunned, he sat down, and looked around himself. The shoreline was more desolate than any place he’d seen. He was alone, as if forsaken by God, and there was more than a good chance that he would spend the rest of his life here, alone. He took out the Star of David that hung around his neck on a gold chain, and kissed it. The symbol of faith that his father had given him so long ago had never meant more. Stifling a groan of fear and panic, he began to pray.

In Poland, he had been a blacksmith, like his father. It was an old profession in their family. The Starezhkas had made smithing an art form. He had lived in the country town of Linau, had earned a good living there, making tools, andirons, nails, horseshoes, hinges–a little of everything–for the farmers around Linau. He’d had his own small house, not much, but his; a home he’d shared with his wife, Halika, and his two small sons, before the influenza had taken all three of them from him. His life had been very happy for a short time.

The crops failed in the lowlands, two, then three, then four, five years in succession. Starvation became common, and little by little, Linau began to die, its people dispersing. Without the townspeople and the farmers, Manfred could not make a decent wage, so, like some of them, he had decided to immigrate to America. There was nothing to hold him in his homeland. Besides suffering from famine, Poland was being torn apart by its greedy, inhumane neighbors: Russia, Austria, and Germany. Soon there would be nothing left of the country of his fathers.

He’d sold everything he owned and bought passage on a ship bound for the New World. He remembered thinking how beautiful the Trident was, tall and shining, how it seemed to embody his new start in life. And now–now that ship lay on the bottom of the sea. What was there to be done? Where was his beginning?

Rousing his courage, he thrashed his way through the jungle, determined–foolishly–to find some trace of humanity, habitation. As he should have expected, he found nothing but more jungle and then more. He sank down, disheartened, dragging an arm across his forehead. It was then he heard the noises of an animal nearby, a pig by the sound of it, rooting.

He followed where his ears led, quietly. There it was; he spied it through a natural archway of vines.

The wild pig, lean and bristling–and dangerously tusked–was digging with ill temper for a root of some kind. There were many half-eaten tubers it had scattered around itself in its greed. Manfred was hungry. He had not eaten in some time.

He was sure he made no noise, but at his approach, the boar looked up, all attention, stopping in mid-chew. It was afraid of nothing; that Manfred could see in its eyes. Still, in a moment or two, it moved off. Perhaps it was already sated and had been about to leave anyway.

He went to the place. The humus and thin layer of soil was broken, trodden. He knelt and began to dig until he found one of the big taproots. Pulling it up with great difficulty, and brushing it off, he took a tiny bite. “Kosher or not,” he vowed. The flesh was watery, crisp, slightly sweet, and he’d eaten the whole thing before he knew. Eagerly, he dug up more, gathering four or five, and carrying them back to the beach and relative safety. Squatting at the shore, he washed them all carefully, and ate another.

He surveyed the area as he ate, choosing a spot to bury the rest in the sand. There, too, he thought he could make a shelter for himself.

It took the rest of the aging day to construct a shelter that satisfied him. But he was used to working with his hands, and it took his mind away from his true dilemma. By sunset, all he could do was crawl inside and let the exhaustion of mind and body take him.

********

Through that first, starry night–a night of sublime beauty that neither man saw–the opposite ends of the island might just as well have been opposite ends of the world. The two shared this tiny speck of life, riding on the sea, and did not know it.

********

Manfred was first to wake. He rubbed his eyes and remembered where he was. A soft sigh escaped him, and he rolled over.

The roof of the shelter was intact. White sunlight sparkled through the leaves. He would try fishing, today. If he had to catch them bare-handed, well, he would. There was nothing of more importance to do, after all.

Christian woke, feeling sore, his head clogged by the dampness. Like Manfred, whose existence he was unaware of, he remembered where he was, felt the truth of it wash over him, leaving bare bones. One day, a ship would pass. Perhaps in five years, or ten….

“By that time, I’ll have built my own ship and sailed it home.” He considered the bitter humor of that idea for a moment before another occurred. “Or a raft. It’s possible.” It was possible; all it would take was time–which he had plenty of–and the will to do it.

All that day, as he worked setting snares for the wild pigs, he designed the raft in his mind.

The snares were a simple matter. He left them to do their work. Killing the pig, if he caught one, would be another story. He searched and found a straight young sapling, hacking it down with his knife. From it he would make a crude spear, attaching his knife firmly with twine to a haft made from the woody sapling. A spear would give him distance from the fury of a notoriously ill-tempered animal.

Satisfied with the spear, he settled down to be quiet, and to wait.

Part II

Christian waited long in the moist, soporific heat. The minutes dragged by, but he could not have honestly said that he was bored. Between fighting off out-sized flies and the inquiries of several whip-slender green snakes, the afternoon was positively lively. The heat and the buzzing of insect life lulled his mind eventually, though, brought on phantasms of other days, other places. He shaped these illusions from the few sweet memories he possessed and let them play out…. Here he was standing at the helm of his ship as it skimmed before the wind on a rugged sea; he saw himself walking into his favorite tavern and sitting down to a fine beef pie and a cool pitcher of cider; sharing a libidinous afternoon in Liverpool with a pretty Anglo-Indian girl–what had her name been? Ah, Satya–clean and sweet, all of sixteen-years-old and most fetching–he saw all the different ways they had delighted each other. Each set of images was sparklingly clear, as if seen through a spyglass, and seemed to take hold of him body and soul for their timeless duration.

Suddenly his reveries were shattered, swept aside. Furious squeals ripped the heavy curtain of jungle air. To his amazement, the snare had done its job.

He’d been startled to complete attention now, every muscle tensed, ready. The sounds of the trapped animal seemed too near, and even with his makeshift spear, he felt as vulnerable as a child, crouching there. He’d never killed–hunted–anything larger than a rat.

Standing, he approached carefully, weapon–such as it was–held ready. The trees barely parted before him, frozen witnesses without the power to warn or protect. The thick waist-high undergrowth where he had set his snare shook violently, as if it were as afraid as he was. Perhaps this had not been the most sensible of ideas. But it was as if he had to carry out this primitive deed, to prove to himself that he did intend to survive; that he did want to live after all. He peered into the shivering bush, the smell of disturbed humus and crushed herbage rising to his nostrils.

The pig was fair-sized, a young male with a proud pair of tusks. Wild-eyed in the dappled shadow under the foliage, it vented its fury at being restrained. It need not have worried; the snare had caught it, yes, but barely. The rope ran under one armpit and around the other knee. Christian understood that he had very little time to spare if he were going to attack. Heart hammering, he parted the bushes and, estimating where the seat of the heart would be, stabbed downward with all of his strength.

The boar exploded in a frenzy, wounded but not, Christian saw with sinking regret, mortally. As the quarry thrashed, the spear, lodged in the beast’s shoulder, was almost torn from his hands, and his arms, in turn, from their sockets. Somehow he held on. And then the spear–never a model of the weaponeer’s craft–broke under him. The pig, freeing itself by dreadful coincidence at that vary moment from its snare, bolted. Christian leaped gracelessly out of its way, then got to his feet, useless spear haft clenched in one fist. Disaster. His knife was in the pig, and the pig, though wounded, was free, scrubbing its shoulder against the ground. Christian saw the glint of blood, the thick, dark trickle of life and was suddenly sorry for the whole botched affair. The boar would suffer with that blade in him, and in time die of infection or blood poisoning. But it was not for that reason alone that the man had to retrieve the knife. He had to have it to prepare food, to build shelter, for protection–to live. He’d never realized how important to his survival a piece of steel could be.

The pig stood there uncertainly for an instant, as if deciding whether to attack him or run away. He could almost read its narrow thoughts. The animal seemed to know that it had the weight of death in its shoulder and had gained only temporary survival. Someone had to pay. Its tiny eyes found Christian, blaming him, dwelling on him for one second, two, three….

Standing there, sweat running into his eyes, shaking with the after-effects of the brief battle, Christian felt the heavy length of sapling in his hand. He could sense the boar’s imminent charge, knew that it had decided to exact revenge. He waited, motionless. Suddenly it charged him, lean head thrusting downward. That was a bluff; at the end of its charge, it would thrust upward abruptly, tusks bared and ready to strike. Those tusks were capable of hurting him badly; he had no illusions about that. He wielded the haft like a club. When the pig was less than a yard away, he dealt it a wicked blow. He had never struck anyone or anything so hard.

The blow knocked it off-course, but not for long. Unchecked, it wheeled, heading back for him. He struck it again, but it struck him, too, finding the flesh of his calf through the material of his trousers. He felt the pain, the hot spurt of his own blood, and went down. The animal ran over him, knocking the wind out of him, its sharp hooves scratching his neck, chest, and belly as it passed. With stupid persistence it came back, rooting for more flesh, throwing up sand and debris. Grabbing it by the scruff of its neck, using every ounce of his desperate strength, he tried for the knife. By some trick of Fortune, his fingers circled the hilt and pulled it out. Angry and afraid, with no room in his soul for mercy, he pushed it back in, behind the shoulder, seeking the heart once more. The young boar was a dervish of unmixed hate, possessed of an unrelenting aggression out of proportion to its size. Christian sustained another scraping bite, in his side, but he was doing some damage of his own now, sinking the knife into the bristling hide again and again. All at once, like a candle snuffed out, the pig dropped sideways across him and died.

He breathed like a laboring saw, his arms and legs heavy, over-exerted. Staring at all the blood, his own and the animal’s, he wanted to puke. Instead he just pushed the beast off him, weakly, and lay there panting and dazed. His own hurts were just beginning to make themselves known. Examining himself, he found his right calf a torn mess. There was a glancing gash in his side. He started to rise, but the jungle went strangely dark. As he looked around at all the sudden stars, he fell into a black faint.

Sunlight was slanting through the trees when he woke, stiff and in pain, covered with buzzing flies. The corpse at his side was grisly evidence of the events of the morning. It seemed smaller than when the wild pig was alive. He had been out for perhaps two hours.

Catching his side with one hand, he got to his knees then stood. The spoils were his, there was work to be done, and none too soon.

********

That morning, while Christian set snares and waited in the forest, Manfred sat on the beach, rump buried in the sun-warmed sand. At some point in time, he’d lost interest in the fish he could see and covet but had no way of catching. Instead, pensive, he stared out across the sea. It was dark, deep, limitless–easy to believe that one could fall off the edge of it. That was what had happened to him, wasn’t it? How does someone climb back onto the world? he wondered.

He began to dream of that world, the one he had left behind; his world as it had been before the years of hunger; a place of rich valleys and black loam, the good sweat of a day’s work and fresh-backed bread on the table when a man came home. His wife and children had been more than just a part of that world. They had been its treasures. Being cast away here was, somehow, like losing them twice. Each day the pain of a loss like that–something he’d thought he’d long since learned to live with–seemed fresh again, he rubbed at his eyes, wanting to weep. Tears came much too easily.

He lifted his head, presently, saw that a mass of white clouds had gathered on the horizon. Hot and thirsty, Manfred hoped they held rain. He realized that it would have been practical to explore the forest in search of fresh water, but the jungle–he was forced to admit–frightened him. Since yesterday he had not ventured more than five feet into its unnerving darkness. There were furtive sounds, unseen movements; even from the beach, he felt as if he were being watched by strange, narrowed eyes.

The sun, shining almost blue-white overhead in the blue sky, was already beginning to brown him. There was the faint whisper of stubble on his jaw when he rubbed it; he who had never in his life wanted a beard. He was no dandy, but he did like personal cleanliness; a clean shirt, a clean shave….

Today, he’d been going about all day without a shirt. His shoes were ruined, discarded, his trousers split all the way up the inside seam. Maybe someday he would have gone completely wild, sinking by inches to the level of naked savage.

“A few years on this heap of sand and rock,” he murmured aloud. “Who knows what could happen to a man?” He spoke Yiddish, the language of his childhood and of his deepest thoughts. Polish was like a second tongue in his mouth, there to be used when he needed it.

With English, he was less sure. Working on the docks in Liverpool for three months to earn the money for his passage, he’d soaked up a few choice words and phrases, mostly seaman’s curses and blunt laborer’s requests like “Give me a hand.” And there was the time he’d spent on the ship. But though he’d determined to learn as much English as he could, the sounds were awkward, flat, difficult.

No matter. Something told him that speaking English was not going to be a big problem, here. In America, perhaps, not here.

His stomach rumbled, uncomfortably. He longed for bread. There were several hard facts embedded in this madness, and one of them was that he could not live on roots forever.

Later, that afternoon, inside his shelter, he looked for a moment over the products of half a day’s foraging and cautious experimenting along the forest perimeter. Before him were several kinds of fruit which he had never seen before but that were thin-skinned, meaty and sweet. There were even two largish speckled eggs garnered from a nest like a basket suspended from a branch.

“God is good.” He poked a hole in one of the eggs and hungrily swallowed its contents. The other followed quickly.

As he ate, he busied his mind devising a practical method of fishing, weaving an imaginary net of leaf fibers, grasses, twigs; his fingers twitched to start. He asked himself questions. Could he make a crude kind of twine out of grass? How much could he make? How much would he need? The weave of the net would have to be close and intricate, wouldn’t it? The concentration soothed him; made him feel less alone, less helpless.

A sound caught his attention; a distant vibration of the air, no more than that. Crawling out of the shelter, he stood and looked around, raking his knotted hair out of his eyes. It came again, an animal cry, almost imagined, thin on the hot, dry wind; impossible to pinpoint. But it was strange–he’d sensed pain and anger in that sound. He sensed finality, death. He frowned, vaguely disturbed. All was quiet, now, except for a smatter of chuckling birdsong and the constant sea and wind. Yet he was apprehensive. Half-naked as he was, defenseless, he was as much prey as that far-off creature. Would anyone hear his faint cry on the wind?

********

Christian built a fire for the first time, using his precious flint and striker, which the good Lord had kept safely in his pocket. The fire was a presence, beautiful, alive, and he was the better for it. He pitted his meat then broke open the keg of rum. A little of it he dribbled onto the wound in his calf. His shout of pain escaped in a hiss between clenched teeth. When that fire had died from a white-hot flare to a dull, throbbing red, he treated his abraded side. By then he needed a drink badly.

The rum warmed him inside, scoured his mind clean. He continued to drink long after the pain was forgotten.

********

Night fell, and the stars hurried out to watch. Manfred huddled in his shelter, listening to the sounds that accompanied the deepening darkness.

With nightfall, the wind changed direction, picking up slightly. With it came the smell of the sea, and suddenly, something more that brought him upright. Could that have been a whisper of smoke drifting just beyond the reach of his nostrils? Smoke? Your nose is playing tricks on you.

He crawled into the open, stood, turned in a questing circle. There it was again, the breath of smoke, with an accompanying mystery: however faint, it was laden with the unmistakable fragrance of roasting flesh. Now here, now gone, it was tantalizing. His body reacted with shameless instinct; his mouth watered, his stomach clenched hard on itself.

Cook smoke was the work of human hands. Were there people here after all? The question brought hope and fear in equal measure. That cry he’d heard earlier today had colored his blind wish to have company on the island. Vague notions of cannibalism flurried through his brain. He’d gleaned the gist of some of the stories the sailors on the Trident had told. Cannibals cooked their human victims. One kind of roasting meat might smell much like another. He shuddered at the unholy thought. But, unthinkingly, without waiting for him to decide, his feet stumbled after the scent. He had to find its origin.

The beach was ghostly in starlight, a wide pale ribbon disappearing far into the gloom on either side of him. The ocean boomed, close at hand. A soft breeze caressed his face. There, he thought, sniffing. He looked into the jungle. Its interior was inky-black. His heart dived to the bottom of his stomach as he realized that he would have to brave this jungle at night to find what he sought. “No,” he whispered, taking back some sense of self-preservation. “I could lose my way in there….” He did not relish the prospect of wandering directionless through that place of living shadow. How curious am I?

He walked parallel to the forest a short way. Near the sheltering trees, the smell of smoke was plain, and growing plainer. And it was that way–through the forest.

Finally, he braved the situation, cutting in under the trees. It was worse than even he had imagined. Dark beyond dark, with no signposts except sense of smell. The best he could do was to try to keep his path on an intuitive line with the shore. He could believe what his fear told him; that the jungle had no end, that there were pitfalls at every step. He struggled on for meaningless minutes, more afraid than he’d been since childhood. Lithe branches stroked and scratched his face and shoulders, pulled at him. He stumbled over a woody vine and fell flat on his face. It was then that he heard the singing.

This was all wrong. He should not have been hearing what he was hearing now. Another man, singing out bold and strong in what had, for Manfred, been total isolation. He crept forward, through thinning trees and bush. He saw the glow of the fire first. The shadows danced. There was no conscious thought bearing on his decision to slow his steps, make them silent and stealthy. He had no idea what to expect. Only a curtain of leaves finally separated him from a direct view of the fire. Beyond was a clearing on the outer edge of the forest, a rough circle of trees.

There was a man sitting there, beside a smoky fire. He was obviously, sloppily, drunk. There was the jug at his side, and as Manfred had heard long before seeing him, he was singing loudly, the English words slurring, hard to decipher. Something about a “drunken sailor.” The voice was a good one though, strong yet light, with a set of powerful lungs behind it.

Manfred had thought he would greet with delight and joy any human face. But confronted with that human face, he found himself more cautious. This stranger had a weapon; he had killed and he was intoxicated. Manfred hesitated to show himself.

The man fell silent, then sat staring ahead into the flames for several minutes. He tilted the jug and took a long draught, his bright hair catching all the light of the fire. When he set the jug down again, it nearly tipped, and Manfred had to smile at the drunkenly exaggerated efforts to recover it. He did not seem like a man who could do harm without cause. Still Manfred decided not to show himself. Not now. He would wait, and observe.

Manfred watched his unexpected guest for a long time. He watched the man eat–slivers of meat from the charred carcass of a pig, washed down with more rum–then sit muttering ill-temperedly to himself.

Seeing the flesh, knowing it was forbidden for him to eat, muted Manfred’s appetite, but not enough. And the fire was inviting. Still he dared not go forward. Something held him back. He had prepared himself to live alone here, but not to live alone with another man who was an unknown quantity. Had this stranger come, like him, from the ship?

Gradually the fire died down; one or two licks of flame survived in a bed of dark-edged embers. No more singing. In a terrible state, the bright-maned man fell over into an, at first restless, then profound, sleep. By that time, Manfred’s watchful eyes were rolling back in his head. Curled against the tree trunk, he drifted, and slept.

He woke suddenly to overcast sky, cold, alarmed at the vulnerable state in which he’d left himself. I fell asleep. He rubbed at his eyes, stretched stiff legs, knocked a straying caterpillar off his shoulder. How could he have let down his guard like that? Crouching, he peered around the tree. The man was still unconscious, sprawled, showing no sign of ever coming back to life. The fire was ash.

By the chill gray light of day he could see the man’s untidy camp, with its collection of flotsam off the beach–some boxes, scraps of canvas and wood arranged in loose piles–scattered cocoanut shells, the cold, hard remains of his meal.

Manfred crept forward a little, watching the sleeping figure carefully. The fellow was snoring softly, regularly. Reassured, Manfred stole further into the clearing to satisfy his brining curiosity.

Warily, he came near to the man, and looked down. But for the stink of alcohol, and other all-too-human details, this person could have been an angel fallen out of the sky. He was very fair, but golden, not ruddy, seeming to glow from within; skin and silvery hair taking the light even on this cloudy day. Not a small man either; there seemed to be yards of him in every direction–arms, legs…. By the cut and material of his clothing, he might have been well-dressed once, but what remained of his clothes were wrinkled, sandy. He had been hurt; not badly, but hurt. His calf was bound with a strip of cloth, brown with blood. The fine, white linen shirt he wore was rent in the side, frayed. Bits of the thread there had stuck to an ugly, clotting scrape. Was this man a murderer, a pirate? The sleeping face was startlingly unguarded, child-like. Manfred felt like the pirate here, looking down on an unsuspecting sleeper.

It seemed obvious that the stranger had no notion that he was not completely alone on the island. He had not been on his guard last night, and he was not now. At the moment, he was more vulnerable than Manfred, who at least had a whole skin.

Manfred was at a loss. He backed away. It occurred to him, in an almost humorous way, that he could scare this man to death by waking him. He imagined how he might feel, shaken awake by someone where no one was supposed to be.

Part III

The wind whipped up fast, bending the tall tops of the palm trees. The glaring, metallic sky released a first, sharp taste of rain. Distant thunder seemed to roll the entire length of his island. Manfred looked up, squinting as heavy droplets fell into his eyes, touched his lips. He licked away the sweet water and saw great opportunity in the same moment. Quick-footed, he began moving about, setting cocoanut shells aright to catch the fresh water. The drizzle became a downpour with breathtaking suddenness. Water was all around. The shells filled and he looked for more, so busy he didn’t notice his guest stir and wake stunned, arms and legs flailing, to a rainstorm. Only the shout of unpleasant surprise brought Manfred to a stop. When he whirled, the stranger was on his feet, standing in a crouch, swaying. They stared at each other, five yards apart, being soaked by the torrent.

********

Bleary-eyed, body hunched against the weather, Christian spent a long moment trying to take in the stranger before him. A penetrating pair of blue eyes took him in in return. Thoroughly dumbstruck, he didn’t know if he could trust his own eyesight. He found himself standing there in the middle of a vertical deluge, confronting–what?–either a real human man or a spirit that belonged to this little island that came with the rain. Or the rum.

He stared at the cocoanut shells in the dark man’s hands, the ones already overflowing with water at those skinny bare feet, and grasped the intention if not the meaning of what he was seeing. He came to his senses, somewhat, the cobwebs of hangover clearing. “If you are a spirit,” he croaked, “you’re a helpful one. That’s a damned good idea.” Certainly he wanted to ask this soaking-wet apparition where it had come from, but at the moment questions were not to the point. Instead, he ran stiffly to rummage through his salvage for likely containers. A pair of hands–real enough, with their brown backs and sand-caked fingernails–joined his, and without exchanging a word, they together emptied and set out anything that could possibly hold water; a few metal tins of varying sizes, ceramic jars of water-spoiled spice–even and English porcelain chamber pot, brand-new, still wrapped in floral paper. They drank almost as much as they collected, quenching mutual thirsts, knowing the rainfall would not last forever.

Christian turned his face to the sky as the rain slackened, feeling clean, blessed. He laughed loudly–for no reason other than that it felt good–then remembered his compatriot. Now there was a chance to appraise this helpmate, and to ask questions.

He saw that they were about the same age, but that was all they had in common, physically. This man was somehow exotic. Those eyes, so startlingly blue against bronze skin, were close-set, long and almond-shaped. Wet hair that looked raven-black hung a like a cowl around a narrow, square-jawed face, and down to strong shoulders.

Shirt and trousers of foreign cut were plastered like second skins to the stranger’s sinewy body. His breathing was rushed in the silence, nostrils flared. A pulse beat fast in his throat. He was real.

“Who are you?” Christian asked, wonderingly.

“I, Manfred,” the man said, touching his own chest, lightly. “You?” he asked, with just as much wonder–and a touch of fear–pointing at Christian.

“Captain Christian Hutchinson of the Trident.” Christian held out his hand and, with some hesitation, it was taken. The hand he pressed was hard, as clammy and wet as his, but it was a fact; welcome. “I can’t take it in!” Christian shouted over the rain, grabbing the hand with both his own. “I thought I was all alone. Where’d you come from, man? Not from the Trident, surely? Anyway it’s some kind of miracle, isn’t it, finding each other like this? When you come to think–” He cut his babbling short. Though attentive, transfixed, almost, the other fellow was looking thoroughly flummoxed. “Am I talking too fast?” When the man’s face didn’t change, and there was no response, he realized the truth of the situation with chagrin. “You don’t speak English.”

“No good English,” Manfred qualified, with a look of disappointment–in himself–and a kind of wistful hope. “Not–speak good.”

“Well.” Christian was stymied. He could hear the accent, so thick you could cut it with a saw; all the sounds slurred, and reticent. Working around a language barrier was the last thing he would have expected, or wanted. “Maybe I should start over. My name’s Chris. I’m–I was–the captain of the Trident.” Considering the disaster afresh in telling someone, sadness and disappointment stabbed him. “Did you come from there?”

Manfred hung on his every word. “Come from there,” he echoed, softly. Though he nodded, emphatically–he did seem to understand–the words themselves were mimicry, not much more.

Chris didn’t recognize the man in front of him. The weather had been so bad from almost the first day out that the passengers had stayed belowdecks, most of them sick to death. Besides, his job had been sailing the ship, not getting friendly with its human cargo. That was all they had ever been to him–until now. He looked into the homely, unguarded face, deciding he liked it–because it was unguarded. This was not a bad man or a man with dark motives. Manfred seemed as clear as a window; not hiding anything.

“We’re both lucky to be alive,” he said. “The men, the crew, we all did the best we could. It wasn’t enough.” He sighed, thinking about the passengers, and how he had paid them no mind and never had, beyond what was duty. Now he was face to face with one of them. “I don’t know if the dead can forgive…” he said. “But the living can, and I ask you to. For my men’s sake, at least.” Seeing that Manfred couldn’t follow him, he looked out to sea, gripped with the irony of it. His only companion had no English. The sea was gray, lingering raindrops spat on the leaves of trees. There was a long quiet, and Manfred did not fill it. But be grateful for small favors, Chris thought. He’s here. He felt the other’s eyes on him.

“Are–are you hungry at all?” he asked gently, turning to his patient guest. “I have food.” he made a sign for eating. “Food?”

Manfred glanced over at the soggy fire and what lay in it. “No. No–no, I–” He ended up just shaking his head.

Christian caught the look of disgust. “Not that.” He smiled with a rueful sense of accomplishment. “Went to a lot of trouble to bag that critter. Then I got pissing drunk and burned it almost to a cinder. But I have fruit; other things.”

Wet and slightly ill-at-ease with each other because they couldn’t communicate well, they shared a little food. Manfred was shaking, like Chris, chilled.

“Where did you come from?” Chris asked, tentatively, making conversation, needing to say something to the stranger’s unwavering attention.

“Where? Polska.”

“You’re a Pole?”

Manfred repeated the English words, thoughtfully. “A Pole.”

Then he said, meaningfully, “Zydow.”

“Is that your village?” Chris asked, wondering at the strange-sounding word. “Your town?”

Manfred shook his head, as if he realized that he was not being understood, and would not be able to make Christian understand either. He chewed a cube of cocoanut meat, looking steadily at Chris. “And what you are?” he asked. “English? American?”

“As far as I know?” Chris shrugged in answer to his own question. “But who knows?” he went on. “I might’ve been bred and born in Poland myself. There’s no one I know of who can tell me for sure.” He saw that Manfred was missing the subtleties of his words and he swallowed them down, answering again with a simple “Yes,” and a nod, searching those bright wide-open eyes. “I’m an American.”

“America good place?” Manfred asked, in his hesitant, almost halting speech. “I hear say….”

“America is as good as any other place. Better in some ways. But I’m a sailor, any port’s good to me.”

There was a silver edge to the westernmost clouds as the storm moved on, rents appearing in the gray mass. Wet, limpid sun lanced suddenly across the island and into their eyes, making them blink. Manfred looked at Chris and grinned shyly. The light–and the fleeting grin–seemed to reveal him, leavening the spirit that dwelled within the man.

“It’s good to be alive,” Christian said, smiling of his own accord. “Isn’t it?”

There was no need to wonder if Manfred comprehended. In this case, the feelings of the moment were perfectly shared. “Good,” Manfred agreed, nodding. He was quiet for a moment, but Chris felt him about to speak. “I being afraid,” he confided. “Not now.”

“I know,” Chris said, with understanding. “I was damned worried when I woke up here,” he gestured around, “and found myself marooned. It wasn’t easy to accept, I can tell you. It’s still not a pretty prospect, and I’d rather be anywhere else in the world. But it helps to have a companion.” Except, did he? There was no reason Manfred should stay with him. The other man might choose to live alone, absurd as that course of action might seem to Chris.

He had always been direct. “Will you remain with me, here? Truth is,” he found his truth a little harder to broach than his question, unused as he was to expressing personal sentiments to another. “I’d enjoy some company. If you care to stay, you’d be welcome to all I have. And two heads are better than one.”

“Two heads…better?” Manfred mulled that one over.

“What I mean is,” Chris spoke clearly. “With two of us, two strong backs, two minds, we could get something done; help each other survive. Who’s to say the two of us couldn’t build a raft somehow and sail away from this place? Together.”

“You–you think?” Manfred asked, obviously very interested, curious. This talk, he understood.

“Yes, I think. There’s lumber, here, of a sort. Maybe not good solid oak, but it’s here aplenty. We might be able to fashion tools…I haven’t done much looking around or think about it–not yet–but–” He looked down, spirits dampening somewhat, pushing at the cool, moist sand with a bare foot. “I’ll have plenty of time, that’s sure.”

Manfred peered at him, catching his eye. “I would help,” he said, eagerly. “Two heads, huh? Be better?”

Chris smiled. “Yes. So–you would stay here with me? You might be an independent man and want to go it alone, but….”

“I stay with you. I stay.”

Pleased, Chris clapped Manfred’s shoulder. “That’s good to hear.”

********

Manfred had never encountered anyone so fair. His eyes surveyed all the silver and gold that must have gone into the making of this man; a king’s treasure. The long, shining hair was drying in the clear sunlight, seeming to become sunlight itself as it lifted on the breeze. The captain’s eyes were large, round, and clouded-blue, with a faraway look in them that could so swiftly become intimate.

The bright man talked very fast and used very, very many words. But Manfred found that he understood enough to follow if Chris spoke plainly. He could guess the rest from his new companion’s eyes and expression. Of his own English he was deeply ashamed, at first, but Chris seemed to have no trouble understanding him. After awhile, his tongue loosened and he lost some of his timidity; though there was a complicated moment when Chris asked him what he had done and been back in the world; he had tried to explain with gestures his profession–“blacksmith”–without knowing the English word.

“Blacksmith,” Chris repeated, obviously entertained by the just-solved pantomime. “Then you must be good with your hands.”

“Yes,” Manfred concurred easily. It was nothing but a fact. All his life he’d loved to work with his hands. He thought of something. “Come. See.” He stood, and Chris stood too, looking at him inquisitively.

“Where–?” came the question.

“Where I walk.” Manfred motioned his friend to follow. He would show Chris the shelter he’d constructed, and if Chris wanted to know, tell him how to build one of his own. It would be the beginning of their “two heads.”

He made a bee-line through the forest, with Chris close behind him. More than its being broad daylight, Chris’s presence eased his fear of the jungle. He remembered the terrible blackness, close and humid, that had pressed in around him when he’d journeyed through the forest the night before. They did not speak except to share bits of information. Manfred found one of the tubers he’d been living on lying in their path, discarded in some animal’s haste. He bent to pick it up.

“This food is good,” he said, holding it for Chris to observe. He broke it and they watched the water residing in the vegetable well out of its crispy flesh. “Did you eat this food?” He meant, of course, to ask if Chris had already discovered and tried to eat this particular root.

“No.” Chris touched a clear drop of the fluid to his tongue, and he bit a little piece. An expression of pleased surprise dawned in his face as Manfred watched. “Seems to be food and drink, both. Where’d you find it?” He looked around. “Where?”

“Where I find it.” Manfred bent and dug at the earth, to explain. What was the word? He couldn’t remember, but crumbled some humus and let it fall through his fingers. “In–?”

“In the ground,” Chris mused. “Some kind of root, I imagine. Tastes like a turnip, but sweeter.” He looked at Manfred in that way he did. “I want to find more.”

They continued on their way, pushing aside broad leaves and thick, tendriled vines. All of a sudden, Manfred stumbled over a root and fell. But to his surprise, he kept falling, headfirst, and found himself upside-down in water, about to drown. But strong hands–Ah, my God, Chris!–gripped him by his leg and trouser-waist and pulled him out. He sat there blowing and spitting in amazement, water streaming out of his nose. Chris was leaning over him, still holding tight to him, looking where he had fallen.

It was a hidden pool, grown over, which was why Manfred had not seen it. He realized as he and Chris both looked into it, and saw how deep the thing was, that he could have easily wandered and fallen into it last night. And drowned. He shivered, and told himself it was because he was wet.

Some strange alchemy had formed the pool. It was a limestone chimney, roughly circular, more than twenty-five feet deep; ten feet across and brimming with water–fresh water, as Manfred had discovered the hard way. Chris let go of him and brought a palmful of the water to his own mouth to taste.

“A hundred years of rain,” he said, with quiet excitement.

Part IV

Manfred stripped off his shirt and wrung it out, water dripping off the end of his nose. He caught Chris’s eye, and was startled when the man laughed loudly, right in his face. Face on fire, he remembered the men of the Liverpool docks who had laughed at him, sometimes, too, when he was clumsy or slow to understand. Just now he had fallen, like a shlumiel, and of course, Chris laughed. Why shouldn’t he?

He examined his companion from under knit brows. The fair face was kind and good-humored; not what he expected. The sneer he might have seen was missing completely. He understood, then, resentment dissolving. His companion had no thoughts at all to belittle or make sport of him.

“You have leaves where your eyebrows should be,” Chris chuckled, explaining his gentle merriment. The square-ended fingers reached out, brushing Manfred’s forehead as they plucked off one to show. Manfred laughed, too, picking off the rest, chiding himself for his slow trust.

Chris was still smiling, a little. “I’ll see you dry before the day’s out, Manfred.” He stood, helped Manfred up. “What was it you wanted to show me?”

Manfred had almost forgotten. “Ah….”

“Wait.” Chris tore his already ruined shirt, then tied a ragged square of the white cloth high in the growth strangling the deep well of water, to mark it.

Manfred watched all this with interest, simply because Chris was interesting to watch. It was still hard to believe in his friend’s shining, solid reality. Taking his shoulder, Chris said, “Come on. You were leading the way.”

********

Chris crawled into the shelter Manfred had made of leaves and branches. “Reminds me of the houses the natives build on the Malaysia coast,” he said. “Keeps out the wet, anyway.” He turned around inside with difficulty–“It’s cramped,”–then presented fair head and wide shoulders at the entranceway. “Could we make one for the two of us? A bigger one?” He came out. “I was thinking; this side of the island is more pleasant than the windward side. The water supply is closer, here. Why could I not remain with you? Move what I need from over there….” He examined Manfred carefully. “You don’t understand half of what I say, do you?”

In Manfred’s mind, the matter was very simple, self-evident. He could see with his own eyes: they needed a place where both could live.

Chris seemed to want to think the house out thoroughly beforehand–where to build it, what materials in what quantity, and much other nonsense Manfred could not understand. He preferred to work out of the instincts he’d been born with, to build with what was at hand. It would be easy, a pleasure. “Here,” he ordered, finally, ending the discussion. “Here, we build. Why not?”

Chris stared at him, eyes wide with surprise, before shrugging the issue away. “Sure. Why not?”

********

Over the next three days, their combined labor brought a rustic shelter into existence. It was basically a framework buttressed and protected by overlapping palm branches, the sides open and airy. Yet it was sturdy, and in time, could be made a lot sturdier. It stood with a kind of defiance. With Christian’s knife, they had first cut and laid down thin woody saplings, creating a reasonably good flooring that would keep the occupants up off of the damp. They made a trip back to Chris’ camp for–among other things of use–a length of canvas he had been saving. This material was laid across the roof, allowed to overhang for any run-off. This, when they’d covered it with big, broad leaves, made their house virtually rainproof. There was enough room in it for both of them to stand upright, walk around, or lie down comfortably with room to spare. If they ever tired of each other’s company, they could raise another house, and each be his own landlord.

 

They slept under its partial protection the second night, when it was not yet finished. The whole island was clammy, moist from the rain. With no dry kindling, a fire was only a fond wish.

All day they had worked well together–without words, and not missing them. Now, in the quiet, windy night, before sleep could come, words seemed needed; wanted desperately by both but sadly lacking.

They were eager to know each other better. Chris knew that by his own feelings; by Manfred’s look whenever they tried to communicate. Of course, he knew some things about Manfred already; the man was smart and quick and had a true love of hard work, of craft. But verbal communication was not as easy as the physical kind. There was an inner life to be learned about a man, a history, and they knew very few facts about each other so far.

Chris tried. “Have you family, Manfred? A mother and father?”

Manfred was a distant source of warmth, like a coal in the chill darkness. “Mama, Papa dies. Long time.”

“Are you a married man? You have a wife?”

“Wife.” Manfred repeated the word, very softly. “My wife, Halika.”

“Where is she? Did she not come with you?”

“No….” There was a sharp sigh, and a moment that Chris somehow felt couldn’t be touched, by word or gesture. “She….”

He thought he understood. Manfred’s wife must have gone down with the ship. “She’s dead, isn’t she?”

“Yes.”

“I’m sorry.” Chris said no more, at a loss. He was not very good at sympathy, especially when the responsibility for a death lay in his hands. Were there children, too? He didn’t want to ask, afraid of the answer he might get. A long spell of silence passed, uncomfortable for him.

“Chris?”

He turned, anxiously, glad Manfred still wanted to talk to him, and did not blame him. “Yes?”

“You got a wife?”

“No, I’ve never been married.”

“How old, you?”

“Thirty-three.”

Manfred made a soft sound of wonder. “And you have no wife?” he asked, as if it was impossible for him to believe that a man could have reached the age of thirty without being married.

“Don’t want one,” Chris said. “I like my life as it is. No children, no ties anywhere, no promises to keep. Not that I ever lack for feminine companionship. Oh no; when I’m ashore, I have my pick of women.” If truth were told, he had never met a decent woman who’d have him for a husband. “A girl in every port.”

Manfred was, apparently, digesting all that. At last he said, decisively, “You should marry.”

He did not say–he wouldn’t have know how–that to him, out of all men, Chris seemed made for a good marriage and to love a woman; that his children would have been strong and beautiful. Thirty-three! A year older than Manfred himself, and no woman to keep his home, too cook for him, to warm his bed–share his thoughts. Manfred knew from private experience; living without Halika had nearly killed him. He had been eighteen when he married her; she, sixteen. Until she died, they had never been parted for more than a day.

“Why should I marry?” Chris asked. “I’m happy. A sailor’s never at home anyway. If I had a wife right now, she’d be in for a lot of hardship if I didn’t come back,” He shook his head. “No, Manfred, a sailor’s got no home but the deep.”

********

The third day dawned already hot. They sweated in tandem under the full sun. At night they had a fire. This night was dry and clear, and full of stars. They shared an enormous meal of fruit–a greater variety than Manfred had dreamed existed here. His friend had known of others he himself had not been certain of and had passed by.

Tonight, after a day of hard work and a task well done, he felt good. He was warm for once; hunger and thirst slaked by luscious fruit and fresh water. The fire was on guard against the darkness, lovely to look at; his soul was at rest, eased by companionship. They talked about building a boat. Or rather, Chris talked, but if Manfred did not understand every single word Chris said, he liked to listen. Besides, how else would he learn? Though Chris told him–politely–that his English was not so bad, there was still too much he wanted to say and could not.

Piecemeal, they were learning more about each other. He had found out that Chris was an orphan, had no family at all, and, unlike Manfred who had lost everyone over time, had never had anyone from the beginning of his life. How did his friend bear the loneliness of that? He had wanted to ask, for himself, to seek advice on his own behalf, but was unable to put the question into speech.

Their house had taken shape; finished, it was grand in its way and of its kind. Their beds–mats, really, of palm fronds–waited within for them. Chris banked the fire with sand so the embers would live ’til next day. Talk–and sleep–came easier, inside.

********

On the following morning, Manfred woke alone. The place a few feet away where the other had slept was empty but for a little copper-colored lizard, enthroned on the mat in a patch of sun. Manfred sat up, ran a hand over his face, then got to his feet. Going to relieve himself, he noticed a pot of fresh water by the entrance; left there, no doubt, by his friend. He splashed his face and body with it, rubbed briskly at his teeth with a finger, and rinsed his mouth. Refreshed, he looked for Chris. There was no sign of the man anywhere nearby. The only remedy was to call for him.

There was a reply, not so very far away. He ran down to the beach and looked out, shading his eyes against the rising sun. Floating beyond the gentle rolling breakers, Chris waved and yelled out to him.

He went to the clear, green, water’s edge, watched Chris bobbing like a cork out there, as at home as any fish. He felt a pang of envy at the ease with which his friend negotiated the surf. The most he could do in the sea with such ease was get his feet wet and even then, he hesitated.

“Manfred!” Chris waved an arm. “Watch!” He disappeared beneath the surface. Manfred watched, as ordered. A second or two passed and there was nothing to see.

Manfred took several steps forward, wondering what was supposed to be happening. If this was intended to be a game, it wasn’t much fun. “Chris?” What was the fellow doing? No sign.

Suddenly, a terrible thought occurred. Could he be drowning? He edged out a little further, until he was knee-deep, eyes slits of concentration on the spot where Chris had disappeared. Still no sign. Panic began to push him, like a giant hand, past refusing. “Christian!” His voice rose and fell, harsh and frighteningly alone. Next thing he knew, he was splashing forward, coming to a stop only when the cool ocean water surged heavily around his chest, tried to lift him off his feet. He couldn’t go any further, not without drowning himself. What should he do? A cry of real despair waited in his lungs, threatening to burst them if he did not let it go.

Then warm hands touched him from behind in the water, startling the life out of him. Chris broke the smooth surface to stand before him. The sea swayed them toward each other. “What’s the matter?” the American asked, smiling brightly, water running down and sucking his long hair to the contours of his head and neck. “I thought sure you’d come out after me.” His brow furled, a line inscribing his forehead. “What’s the matter?” he asked. “Can’t you swim?”

Manfred couldn’t speak for a moment. He stared at this person, torn between the tempting choices of reaching for the man in friendship, or yanking Chris’s nose out of its socket. “I–can’t swim,” he answered, dazed. “I–.” It all boiled down to one confused word. “Why?”

“Why, what?” Chris seemed callous to his concern, as if it didn’t exist. But it did, and it was stronger than Manfred himself liked to admit.

“I–I’m thinking you–you–.” Words deserted him. He backed up, unconsciously, as he spoke.

“Drown? Me? Never.” He looked at Manfred more carefully. “I upset you by staying under? That’s nothing. I can do it for five minutes at a go.”

Manfred turned and made his way back to shore. Chris swam up alongside him. “But there was nothing to fear,” he offered.

He staggered out onto the sand, Chris following. “You’re right,” the voice said behind him. “I should have thought. You’ve lost your wife; you’re in no mood for jokes.” The speaker paused, as if waiting for acknowledgement. When none came, the tone of the voice changed. “Are you that cross with me? Angry?”

Manfred just sat down, where he was, not even looking at Chris. “No,” he said. It was true. What he felt was not anger. I thought I was going to be alone.

Chris sat down beside him on the wet, packed sand. “Don’t look so dark. I was only showing off. I felt–a little–like a child again.” There was a pause, very awkward, and behind it a strong sense of inadequacy. “If I’d ever had a chance to be a child, that is. Doing something for no purpose; just because I–.”

Manfred felt the man’s attention, his concern, his apology.

“Oh, what am I talking about?” Chris interrupted himself, flicking away a handful of sand. “You certainly don’t know. Neither do I, exactly to the letter. I’m no good at this kind of thing… The point is, I gave you a scare and there was no need for it.”

Manfred softened, beginning to feel sorry he’d let Chris’ prank hit him so hard in the first place. The man’s remorse was as painful in its way as the fear Manfred had felt.

“We can’t just take each other for granted,” Chris continued, more firmly, but still questing. “Just because I’m at home in the water doesn’t mean–.”

“Show me,” Manfred said, raising his head. He looked hard at Christian, barely noticing his companion was naked. “I want to be home in water,” he decided, thinking, if we go under, we go under together, and so be it. “Teach.”

********

“Come on out to me,” Chris ordered. He’d been waiting for fifteen minutes; his fingers were beginning to prune. Manfred was like a cat, screwing up courage to put fury head under water. “Before the sun goes down,” Chris added, pointedly. Manfred gave him a hard look which he ignored. “Hold your breath. Stretch out slowly in the water and reach for me. I’m an arm’s length away, and I won’t let you drown. I promise. You understand?”

Manfred nodded, breathless. But when he acted, it was with none of Chris’ careful instruction. He simply came thrashing into the water, face grimly set, mouth pinched closed and cheeks blown out like balloons. He was going to swim, right then and there, and was refusing to fail.

“Wait!” Chris yelled. It was too late. He prepared for the rescue.

He wasn’t needed. Before he could dive down and pull Manfred out of the water, Manfred came up, doing an altogether original and furiously energetic version of a dog’s-paddle. But he was moving forward in the water, head held up. He had simply forced himself to swim.

********

For the next days–each day for a few hours–they went into the sea together. Their morning and afternoon swims became an enjoyable routine. With Christian’s lessons, Manfred refined his instinctive technique, developing a long, smooth breaststroke. But he would try anything Christian did and manage to wrest success from the attempt. His stubbornness, his single-mindedness, was like a force of nature.

Part V

In the weeks that followed, life gained an almost placid regularity for them. They created their own momentum. Never idle, spending the time making themselves comfortable, they dreamed of a future when they would find a way off the island. Though deprived of most homely comforts, they did a little better than just survive.

Christian spent a part of each day as lookout, but no ships had been sighted. Looking out across the expanse of Ocean, it was possible to believe that the two of them were the only men who had ever lived…or ever would. Without each other, the utter solitude would have become hard to bear, even for Christian who was used to the solitude of the sea–and of his own solitary soul.

Day to day, their pursuits were mundane; making grass mats to sleep on, improving the house. A net of fine plaited palm fiber took hours of concentrated labor, working side by side. When finished, the net–though fragile–was more than adequate to harvest the staggering abundance of fish in the waters surrounding the island. Chris found that he hardly needed it. There were so many fish here–so unwary of men a small child could have caught them. Their fat, contained in skin and roe, sustained human life.

Chris used his skill at diving to collect shellfish–clams, mussels, conch, shrimp, and lobster–from the bottom. He discovered that Manfred would eat the fish he brought, but would not touch any kind of shellfish no matter how he coaxed.

Their diet was simple, but not bland. Mace and pepper, savory and vanilla pod grew on the island. Once, by sheer luck, Chris killed a bird and they’d eaten it, roasted, along with its four tiny brown eggs. (With the wild pigs, Christian’s policy had changed to one of live and let live.) All in all, they ate quite well, steaming or grilling the fish and other seafood, gathering fruit and cocoanuts, tubers, seeds; wild honey in the tree. In the very beginning, they foraged continually, almost unconsciously, like animals.

Valuable lessons of survival were learned. Experimenting with a luscious, blushing fruit caused the two of them an agonizing day and night of stomach cramps. They spent the whole time glancing at each other in their separate misery, believing they were going to die. When it was over, Chris called them both lucky to have had only a case of cramps. Bad as the belly pangs had been, they were better than death–there were plants that could kill, and death was permanent, no matter how trivial the cause. Chris blamed himself because he’d known better–or should have. Somewhere in the middle of the ordeal he’d sworn to stick with the tried and true.

Swimming in salt water had purified and healed the bites and scratches he’d received from the animal he’d killed. He had a scar to show his grandchildren–if he should ever have any–but he was none the worse for wear. The big bones in his wrists showed a little more, but he felt healthy; like Manfred, he was getting as brown as a Hindu, hardened by exposure, changed by an unsheltered existence.

Hygiene was a delicate matter at first, but became a joint concern. With a plentiful supply of soft, fresh water, they could bathe or wash their hair; they shaved themselves and trimmed their hair with Christian’s knife. Using chewed twigs kept their teeth surprisingly clean, and in good condition.

Their fire was a vital presence, as much of a companion as they were to each other. The embers were always kept alive, unless rain doused them. Like pack rats, over time they eventually brought anything remotely usable back to their consolidated camp. There was a sad assortment of clothing; cloth; bits and pieces of lives they used to make various things, like pillows on which to rest their heads.

A sizeable amount of lumber and wood scraps accumulated, which they piled on the beach for a signal fire in the event a ship was sighted. One morning Manfred brought back a small, battered purser’s table Chris remembered with a shock from his ship. It was missing two of its legs–and the purser who’d used it, old Jack Adams. Chris burned it, watching ’til it was ash. That was another life. He felt, in his spine, that he would be very changed when and if he ever left this place. He’d looked up from the whitening ash and Manfred’s eyes, deep and serious, had been on him.

The two of them got on well together. Chris spent nearly all his time with–or within sight of–Manfred, and never felt chafed or bored by the man’s presence. In some ways, Manfred was the perfect companion. He didn’t talk too much–because he had little English. In the first weeks he was diffident, and went out of his way to make few demands on Christian’s attention; but Chris found himself seeking him out all the more because of that.

Manfred had turned out to be a generous, sweet-natured man. Over time he seemed to flower, come out. He liked to talk, Chris began to realize, and once encouraged, tried too eagerly to learn and to use more English. It was hard for him, but he shared all he could of himself, and that touched Chris; he tried to share himself, too.

He began to lose track of the calendar. It was easier than he’d have expected. Sunsets became sunrises, and the numbers grew unwieldy. He guessed that three-and-a-half, nearly four months had passed since the Trident went down. Couldn’t be sure. The rains came, and for days and days they nested inside, reasonably snug–if bored and restless–spending time in simple talk and sleep and comfortable silence. These rainy nights were dark and chill without a fire, spent together against the dripping blackness outside. Chris would tell stories to keep his own mind occupied, and Manfred would listen.

How much Manfred understood was a guess, but he was a singular listener. He did ask questions, sometimes, halting inquiries Chris never found tiresome to answer, and grew to look forward to. Once they took turns singing songs. This was a conversation, Manfred “speaking” in his language and Chris in his. Chris had never spent an evening so pleasantly, without drink and the company of women.

On the first sunny day, they ran outside and gamboled like two young boys, their happiness pure. Manfred danced in a circle; Chris earned outright laughter when he joined in with his clumsy sailor’s jog.

That was the day he seemed to appreciate for the first time, how bright and alive the smile of his companion happened to be, like a half-moon set in the bronze of Manfred’s unique face. It was a warming thing, to the spirit. He realized that he enjoyed having this man with him; not just any man, this one.

********

One morning, finding himself at loose ends, Chris went looking for his absent friend. There were footprints leading off the beach; Manfred’s feet, smaller, slender. He followed them and came upon their maker in a clearing. The man was kneeling, with his hands shading his eyes, rocking a little and chanting soft words Chris didn’t understand. The sun touched dark curls, brushing autumn colors on some. In the heat, insects droned an accompaniment to the quiet voice.

Chris watched, through a screen of leaves. Today was not the first time he’d observed this thread of religion in Manfred, of course. He’d not asked about it, daunted by its three-fold aspect: prayer, meditation, trance. In Jamaica and Haiti, Africa and India, Christian had seen stranger cults, older religions than Judaism, and he’d learned to respect them. If prayer was any help to Manfred, it was probably a good thing. But the idea of a real, day-to-day belief was foreign to Chris, and he was curious.

Afterward, he met Manfred as if by accident on the path that would take them back to the house. Manfred’s smile was welcoming, but this glance was sharp, cutting without words–or judgment–to the heart of the matter.

“Where’ve you been?” Chris asked, pretending he did not know.

Manfred gestured over his shoulder with his head. “There.”

“I saw you.” They began to walk along, side by side. “Did I break any rules?”

Looking straight ahead, Manfred shrugged.

“I was watching, back there,” Chris said. He was expecting some answer, but got only a secret smile. “Why don’t you tell me what the words mean?” he asked.

“Tell what means words?”

Did Manfred sound amused? “Tell,” Chris clarified. “Explain.”

“You say somethin’ I don’t understand.” Faint laugh-lines at the corners of Manfred’s eyes deepened.

“Haven’t heard that from you in a while,” Christian remarked, stopping Manfred to look into his friend’s extravagantly innocent eyes, not deceived. “I think you understand what you want to understand.” He continued to look over the pleasant face. “I don’t want your secrets. I was only–looking for you.” That sounded…unsuitable. “That’s all. I mean, there might’ve been–something I need your help for.” He let go and strode on.

Manfred caught up. “What?”

Think. “Well, the roof of the house needs patching….”

Manfred stopped now, wearing a ‘Could I be wrong?’ expression. “No,” he decided, examining Christian as a suspicious buyer might. He knew they had patched the roof only a fortnight or so ago.

Chris knew it too. “You’re right,” he said, feeling foolish. “I didn’t need any help. I–I was missing you, and I wanted some company.” There it was, like showing someone a hidden blemish. He’d admitted a small weakness.

They walked further, spending a few moments in silence.

“Chris?”

Chris looked up.

Manfred’s eyes were on him, hopeful with a kind of discovery. “I think that…you like me.” He looked as if he thought it would be all right if such was the case.

Chris was willing to acknowledge the truth of the statement–it was true–except when it came to actually giving a reply. In a heartbeat, the hinges of his tongue seemed to go rusty. He had no memory of ever saying the words he said now. “Yes. I do. I–I like you.” Uncomfortable, he didn’t ask for the same kind of assurance from Manfred. To do that seemed vain, not in his view of his own character.

“I like you, just as good,” Manfred affirmed, saving Chris the trouble of asking him. Going back to his own thoughts, like a bower bird with its prize, he nodded to himself, as if to say, “now, that’s out of the way.”

To ask why he was liked didn’t seem useful, but Chris nearly did. He’d never considered himself a particularly likeable person. Had the island already changed him? Isolation from the real world may have freed him of his past. Here, he could forget all, let down his guard if he chose to. That choice was itself freedom.

Very well, he looked for companionship now; he made no excuses. Something–someone–had changed him. Maybe it was easier, with a companion he depended upon for survival and who depended upon him, to submit to his loneliness, to an ancient need to protect and provide for another. Being with Manfred had allowed him to do those things. He was different, experiencing deeper feelings that were new to him, that at times seemed to inundate him….

“I guess that means we are true friends,” he said, cautiously. “Not just two men going along with each other to survive.”

“True….” Manfred seemed to sample the sound. “You, you first friend I have since I go to America,” he said, after a moment. “First man who want to be friends with me.”

“Yes? I’ve not had many friends, either,” Chris confessed. “Perhaps one or two, in my life. Never told them I liked them. Wouldn’t have thought to. Not right out, that way.”

Manfred was watching his ups, following. “But you told me.”

“I think it was easier with you.” Christian saw white sand and blue-green water ahead, beyond the dark silhouettes of trees. “Why don’t we swim?”

They threw off the marginal clothing they had left–Christian’s soft, fading trousers and what remained of his shirt, the tattered flag of Manfred’s shirt, the uneven fringe of dark cloth that had been his pants–and ran down to the water.

Bare swimming was the only benefit of being all alone on an island. The water was warm with cool currents, and clear as green glass. By now, Manfred was a real companion in the water, at ease, even intrepid at times. Their leisure swims ranged from childlike adventures–swimming underwater to take a look at the wondrous reef–to bouts of rambunctious play, upending each other in the surf, or racing. Today they swam out as friends, just for the pleasure of moving together, far and back.

********

Time passed, another cycle of the moon, another and another. All this time, and not one glimmer of rescue. They planned a raft, and devised axes chipped from coral or rock. Though it took them, together, two entire days to hack down their first slender tree with the primitive tools–a chip at a time–the work was absorbing, all-consuming. It diverted Chris’ attention, sweated him; took his mind off of…other things.

He was restless. He worked all day, hoping to wear out his body, quiet its call, but this tactic was beginning to lose effectiveness. More than once, during the hot nights, he’d toss without ease, finally getting up and leaving the house to find some relief in the open air, in the pitch-dark privacy of the jungle.

What of Manfred, Chris wondered. Did the other man not feel the need of sex? If so, what in God’s name did he do about it? Manfred had been married. He would be used to regular satisfaction. Now he had–apparently–done without for months. If he had some way to dampen his fires, what was it? Inner strength and fortitude?

Chris had no idea how to open up the subject with Manfred. Something about the man–Chris couldn’t have said what–didn’t allow that particular kind of familiarity. Sex was never spoken of; why would it be? There were no women here. In this matter, Chris realized they were still very much strangers to each other.

********

Manfred listened, watched secretly, as Chris left the house. Again tonight. What does he do when he goes out at night like this? Manfred’s inquisitiveness was whet, keen as a blade with much honing, and tonight it got the better of him. He rose from his sleeping mat to follow.

He had no idea which route Christian had taken, but he followed his instincts and crept quietly into the forest to the right of their house. He went a short way, then stopped, thinking he’d missed some sound. Without breathing, he listened. There it was again; a barely audible exhalation. His heart missed a beat, his senses telling him that Chris was surprisingly near to where he stood, just beyond the next tree there. They also told him that somehow it would be better if he did not approach. The other man was panting raggedly, as if pushing himself to work past his limit.

Manfred waited as if frozen, listening. Then he suddenly understood that sound. Embarrassed for them both, he turned away, hurrying back to the shelter. He regained his pallet, and lay there, breathing almost as hard as Christian had been, eyes wide in the black night. Out there, Chris was wasting his seed.

Manfred felt his own rise in him, seeming to tremble in sympathy in his testicles. He understood Chris’ need, but not ’til tonight did he conceive that, as men, they shared it. Why had he never thought about Chris in that way?

********

Manfred couldn’t look at him the next day without thinking of that secret part of his life. What did I suppose of him? That he was more than human? More than a man? Or less? Bitten by curiosity, he looked, and pondered seriously.

Since Halika’s death he had been denied sexual satisfaction with a woman. A long time. There had been little human contact for him in Liverpool of any kind; he had been very lonely there. As for sex, he hadn’t even considered taking Chris’ way to release. He’d grown up to believe that self-abuse was pollution; something for little boys who knew no better, not for a grown man.

Sensuality ran strong and deep in him, like a river underground; he had always known that about himself. Once, having the kind of talk with Halika that can only cross the pillow between a man and wife, she’d told him that certain village women envied her. It seemed that when they all discussed their husbands (as they would), she spoke–in good humor–of her husband’s ability to satisfy her, not once but many times a night. In innocence, she had thought that all men were like hers. As she found out, they weren’t.

At the same time, self-restraint was something he had learned early on from his father. “A man who cannot control himself is a beast,” the old man would say; meaning, of course, in all things.

Still it was in his nature to be a giver more than a taker, to hold back, to wait for the proper time. He had never once possessed his wife when she did not feel that need as strongly as he did. Fortunately, he could always make her feel it.

In these last years, he had been able to live with his celibacy, to accept it as a fact of his life until he married again. For the first time he realized that that might not happen now. And overnight, he began to think, what will I do? An entire lifetime of celibacy was beyond even his restraint.

He was a man too, and this morning he could still shiver in helpless empathy when he remembered Chris’ breathing, that sense he’d gotten of secretive, urgent labor. He felt shame, also, for human weaknesses–his own, especially.

“Manfred! Did you hear what I said? Heave to.”

Manfred shook himself to attention. Chris was looking straight at him, with curiosity.”What do you say?” he asked. He’d been lost completely in his thoughts.

“I never caught you in a daydream before,” Chris observed. He was eating, taking another mouthful of food with his fingers. He chewed and swallowed while talking. “I was asking you if you thought we could finish off that fourth tree today.”

“We could, may be,” Manfred said, absently. He rubbed at his stubbled chin. “May be, if we do not rest….”

“I don’t plan on doing any resting,” Chris said. He went back to his morning meal–cocoanut with fresh bananas and crushed roasted vanilla bean mixed in. It was a favorite food of his. And for a moment, Manfred watched him eat, waiting for him to have his fill.

This was a lot of man to fill. Who would wonder if he had physical needs to match his size and strength? A few locks of pale hair escaped from the rest he had tied back with a bit of rope, fell across the sun-browned forehead. Wide, round eyes looked up from his meal, standing out bright blue against the brown. The gaze held Manfred’s a little too long before falling again, and Manfred could see the hungers there, the coals inside Chris’ skin. They scorched him, too.

********

Held by the simple, natural beauty of the sight, Christian watched Manfred bathing…the cascade of clear water over bronze skin, knotted belly, a hand passed between downy thighs to bathe areas more secret, the way droplets jeweled the muscles of the man’s back…. When he turned absently to face Chris, the dark tumescence of his sex was plain to see, standing out of a drenched forest of hair. Heavy beads of water, forming at the eye of the penis, fell sparkling when their weight made them fall.

Chris was not just idly watching a friend bathing (there’d have been nothing wrong in that), and he was ashamed. This secretive appraisal, what was happening to his blood while he watched–he was proud of none of it. Going back to his own bath, he was startled by what he’d been thinking.

Manfred tied a piece of cloth around his narrow hips. They swelled like twin melons behind….

Chris looked away. I have bigger problems than this. I’m the one who has to free us from this–godforsaken floating prison. I’m the captain, and he’s my responsibility. Subdued, he finished washing. After having a bite to eat, he went back to his job, chipping lumps of rock to sharp edges for fresh ax-heads. Predictably, his mind wandered from the task.

As a boy he had been used, but never had he known what it was to desire to use a boy, a male. Because of the abuse he had suffered himself, his tastes had always run only to women, and he’d never taken a boy, no matter how long the voyage.

His eye would find Manfred, again and again, never staying away for long, fascinated by the warm, healthy body that was within his reach yet so completely untouchable; by the foreign features that seemed to come together in such a way…. When did this happen? Was this how the man had felt who’d first taken him? Had that man even cared; had he asked the same questions? What would he do if I tried? Would he let me…or fight me?

In such restless craving, Christian had spent the last two or three weeks; watching Manfred, thinking and rethinking an act that had been painful and humiliating for his own younger self, but that he now considered inflicting on this gentle friend. How can I think it? he asked himself. Of hurting him that way, bringing that kind of fear to those wide eyes of his? He’d never trust me again. Manfred’s friendship was important to him; he was smart enough to know the value of the trust he had earned.

But as the days passed, melting into each other as today would melt into tomorrow, his body was unable to take any comfort in that trust and taunted his resolution, made a hypocrite and a jackass of him. There was only one thing on the plate and his body intended to have it, with or without leave. The question begged: Are you burning for him only because there’s nobody else? He assumed the answer was yes.

What else? he thought, flaking a piece of rock. As far as he knew, he’d taken no vows of chastity. If it turned out that they were never rescued, Manfred was the only sexual partner he could have if he were ever to enjoy sex again at all. And this wasn’t a voyage of six months, with a port and willing wenches at the end of it; this might be forever.

Chris certainly had no illusion of love for Manfred. In his whole life, he’d never loved anyone and, when he considered it honestly, did not really know how. Of course he’d thought about it. He’d wondered how it might be to have a woman he did not have to pay; to court her, honor her, love only her. Sometimes, like now, thinking of what he’d miss if he lived here for the remainder of his life, he could even believe he wanted it….

He had sometimes–usually when he’d hoisted a tankard too many–allowed himself to dream of feeling that romantic way about someone–some woman–as in the old songs. But it had remained a dream, and now it would always be.

An idea brought him up short. He was so startled his hand came down hard, ruining the piece of rock he’d carefully shaped; leaving nothing to salvage. He sat there, grimly looking at the damage. All this nonsense about love lost and love never found…opening old wounds.

Abruptly it had occurred to him that if he were ever to experience love, and if he did stay here the rest of his days, it would be Manfred he would have to court, honor, and love. This notion, the deformed result of an unhealthy train of thought, left him frowning.

Manfred was pliant, for a man, and physically attractive in a rough-hewn male fashion. Being with him–his company–was very sweet and very pleasant. Certainly touching him would not be anathema. Chris wanted sex with him. But to feel love, undying and eternal, for him? In his experience, men worked with other men, drank and played and fought with other men. And when they could, men dominated other men; but not with tender love.

********

They were eating together as usual, fish steamed in green leaves, and fruit. Clear juice dribbled over Manfred’s chin and, as he wiped it away with the back of his hand, he smiled, offering a glimpse of white teeth against fawn-colored skin. His eyes were a summer’s twilight, the color of a sky holding the evening star.

Chris grit his teeth. I thought him homely when I first saw him. Now that I have horns for him, his beauty comes to me like a new idea, comes when I least expect it, when I’m the least prepared to fight it. I don’t want to fight it tonight. He couldn’t endure much more; enough was enough. They might as well get this out into the open.

He ate in circumspect silence, watching the fire. Then he began to watch Manfred. Sitting on opposite sides of the grass mat that cradled their food wouldn’t do. Heart skipping, he slid around to sit by Manfred’s side. Clearing his throat, he sat a moment, stiffly.

His objective was in easy reach; should his strategy be siege or attack? The other man did not seem to mind having him closer, and showed only momentary curiosity at his move. There was trust in that. Chris felt his heart soften. Gentleness was the watchword, and Chris wanted to be as gentle as he could be because Manfred seemed to require it.

Quietly, he looked at Manfred, then reached out and teased the strong profile with light fingers. Manfred turned to him, but the inner corners of the dark brows turned up only a little, in a mild question. More crucially, the attractive body did not pull away. Encouraged, Chris leaned forward and boldly tried to kiss one side of his friend’s nectar-moist mouth. Manfred did pull away now, looking at him, but his face was full of innocent wonder and he laughed a little. Christian leaned toward him to try again.

“No!” Manfred laughed, in earnest, now turning his face away. Christian couldn’t retreat, not this close to his goal. By now getting very hot, he nuzzled an ear, discovering Manfred’s compelling odor as crisp, dark curls tickled his face. Asserting himself, he leaned closer to rub his rough cheek against Manfred’s silently–and, for him, humbly–asking for understanding, or failing that, at least a little cooperation, from his friend. Manfred accepted it but his attention returned very hesitantly. Chris touched the firm lips quickly with his own, feeling them give promisingly. He pulled back to gauge the reaction.

“Chris?” Manfred questioned. He was completely puzzled, plucking at Chris’ shirtsleeve. “What?”

“Don’t you know?”

“I don’t….” Manfred took him in, visibly trying to decipher his intention. He gave up. “I don’t know….” He rubbed absently at his lips.

Chris sighed, feeling his face flood with heat. This was molestation. What to say? I want you? You‘re driving me mad? Do me a simple kindness– He wanted to forget words and show Manfred. Words were still a barrier. He touched the open mouth with his fingers, looked into direct eyes. How the devil can I explain when I don’t understand either? Do I tell you I intend to rape you?

“Christian, what you want?” Manfred asked, gaze never leaving him.

Chris wanted to say, “To fuck you, what do you think?” but couldn’t spit it out. He had lost his nerve in the guileless firelight of those eyes, and looked away. “I’m tired, that’s all,” he said. “I’ll sleep, now.” Rising, he went inside, found his sleeping mat in the dark and lay down, aching. He had never felt this way before. Why was he taking all of it so hard?

A moment later, he heard the soft sounds of Manfred banking the fire outside. He listened; heard Manfred enter, take a drink of water, then lie down. After a long spell, it was clear to him that neither of them was anywhere close to sleep. Christian could hear every restless movement of Manfred’s body, feel them counterpoint to his own. Then a sound he couldn’t identify–something sliding across the flooring–made him look up. Manfred had dragged his own sleeping mat closer and was no more than a foot or two away. He was sitting up a little. Christian could see his companion’s shape in the gloom.

“What is it,” he asked, quick to take offense at anything Manfred might have said or done right now.

“I can’t close my eyes,” Manfred said. “Not if I know you worry; you can’t sleep.” He stirred anxiously in the dark. “I thinking I did wrong. Did I do something?”

“You? You did nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“I said so, didn’t I?” Christian spoke more roughly than he’d intended to, hating the fact that it made him feel better.

“Yes, fine, it’s all right. You said so.” Manfred retreated into silence.

My dear companion…. Christian thought miserably as the seconds labored by. I find myself being harsh to you, when I wouldn’t for the world– I wouldn’t give you as much as an angry glance. And I couldn’t rape you, either. I know that. “Sorry, Manfred,” he said. “I’m sorry for everything. But it is–it’s too complicated to make clear, to you or even to myself. Go to sleep. Just–think no more about it.”

“I sleep close.”

“No, I–I don’t think–” Christian said, doubtfully. But there was really no reason why not. Manfred was already there.

Another silence was broken by Manfred, his voice very near. “My English is better right now, isn’t it?” he asked. “I understand much more words.” There was a question in the last statement. It was an offer, to listen to Christian’s explanation of his troubles. “I understand you very well,” he said.

Chris was slow to answer. “It’s the deeds in my mind, Manfred, not the words I’d say, that you’d never understand. You’re a good and simple man. Not like me. All my life, I’ve been shadowed by demons a man like you couldn’t imagine.” He remembered nights of anguish and anger, of sinking into the pit of a soul-deep isolation, deserted by God.

“You are a good man. Very good man. I know this.”

“No. I’m a man who never needed anything from anybody. And now that I do… I’m like a thief. Worse than that; a thief with scruples, who won’t take what he wants.” The words were for himself, spoken as if Manfred was not there.

“Thief?” Manfred, better at English, still unsure of his exact meaning.

What’s the use? Christian turned over, the embarrassed heat of his body rising in a steamy gust to his nostrils. He could smell the essence of his frustration and it nauseated him, turning to anger that he turned, uncontrolled, on Manfred. “Tell me something. If I were to–to leave you here alone, if I were to disappear tomorrow; what would you do for yourself?” There was a sharp, stunned silence. Chris pressed. “What would you do to keep my company?” No reply. “What would you do if I left you?”

“You ask me to think this?” Manfred’s voice could hold such vulnerability, such upset. That, Chris realized, was what he wanted. And he knew how to obtain it. “Why?” Manfred asked.

“You said you understand. Answer me. I’m asking you how much you need me. Would you care one bit if I left? Would you grieve?”

“Yes,” Manfred said, sounding painfully bewildered. “What else could I do?” He groaned like a child. “I–” There was no more to come. He subsided.

Christian left it there, with Manfred as miserable as he was in his way. He felt small. After a moment, he got up and moved his bed.

********

The next day, Manfred apparently wanted to go on as if nothing had happened. Why not? He forgave easily. If Chris had been unkind to him, well, that was last night. All his todays were new. He came bounding up, excited and interested in something. Chris never saw what it was, or the damage he then caused out of his own hurt and shame.

“Chris, look this. See what I got.”

Chris didn’t look up from his work. “Leave me alone,” he ordered. He didn’t want to see the expression he could feel now on Manfred’s face; the shock and surprise, the tender feelings cut to the quick. I’m tired of being the center of your universe…because I don’t deserve to be….

He’d made up his mind to build another house, not near the present one, and to live there alone until the raft was built–or rescue came.

That night, after a long, painful day of rebuff and silence, he told Manfred of his decision. A soft voice said, “Look at me. Please.”

Chris looked, reluctantly. It was worse than he might have imagined. Dark eyes ate at him, hungry and desperate and confused.

“Why–why you do this? You answer, because I ask.”

“Because I wish to.” Because I need to. He knew he couldn’t hold that gaze for long, and returned briskly to his make-work. “Doesn’t have to concern you….” he mumbled.

“Why?” That question was wide as the sea.

“I want my own house, that’s all there is to it.”

“So–so quick?”

“Yes.”

“You will not being–be lonely?”

“No, why should I be?”

Manfred said nothing for a long time, one hand gathering sand, letting it slip, gathering more. “I think friends….” He hesitated to speak, his English failing. He was obviously begging for Chris to relent, or at least to explain. “Friends should–” Fine tremors ruled his whole body.

Chris could feel the other’s confusion overriding everything else, reaching out to strip his resolve. He couldn’t let that happen, and his words were icy. “–Manfred. I ask you to please leave me be. That’s all. Is it too much to ask?” He got up. “I’ll sleep outside tonight.”

Toward morning he listened while Manfred, across the clearing, probably plain sick with fear and betrayal, vomited out his insides. But Chris felt too guilty to offer help.

********

Manfred woke up and, like the day before and the day before that, looked for the spill of gold hair on the sleeping mat near his own.

The sun had gone away. He felt cast adrift all over again. Worse; he didn’t know why. He threshed his mind for some reason.

He hurt. From the time he opened his eyes, like now, until he would close his eyes again at night, he hurt with the rejection, the pain of amputation. And he went over it all again. Chris acts as if I offended him, insulted him. I swear I did neither, that I know of. He acts as if he does not want me near him…. Why does he dislike me? A vivid memory was companion to the question. He kissed me.

Manfred had no way to get understanding. What had he done? Chris had been upset, the night all this confusion began. And Manfred had been anxious to comfort him. Chris could be easily discouraged; he needed someone strong to gather strength from, to lend him heart.

Instead of taking comfort, Chris had become angry, spoke of leaving, of disappearing, of grieving; everything all mixed up.

The next day he’d ordered Manfred to leave him alone.

Since that day, Chris had avoided him as if he carried plague. Since that day, he has not looked into my eyes.

Spending his days by himself, eating by himself, spending the night by himself in the large shelter, he was lonelier than if he had been truly the only inhabitant of the island. Worse, companionship was here, but with such a barrier between himself and it…. Man-made, impassable–as if a wall without doors had been built around him overnight.

Chris was building his own shelter, at the place where Manfred had first found him, drunk and singing. Manfred would have liked to help–if Chris had asked his help. Every day, covertly, he’d gone to watch the building’s progress, never for long. And he watched Chris. It seemed important to do so.

The man was working himself like a woodcutter’s donkey. From the look of things, he was also not eating or sleeping much, if at all. There was no sense of satisfaction; Manfred held no grudges. He wanted to ease Chris’ suffering.

And to end his own.

His motives were selfish; he wanted Christian’s companionship back, he did not want to be alone. His liking for Chris was real and he was sure–or he had been sure, before that Chris liked him. Chris had said so–which made his divorce from Manfred even harder to accept and to bear. Christian was the only friend he had in the world; the young blond captain was, just as Manfred had said, the first individual who treated him as a friend–as a human being–since he’d left Leinau.

He had counted, marked the days since the beginning of his solitary confinement. Seven sunrises, seven sunsets…. And now, this morning, another beginning. Today he would work on the raft again, even though Chris seemed to have lost interest in it for the time being. Using his hands–honest work–kept his mind off his troubles, just as it had always done.

For half the day he worked felling another young tree. When the sun stood high he stopped, wiped the sweat off, surveyed his progress. The tree would fall today, perhaps with another few hours’ work.

He sat down in the shade and drank some water. Once idle, he began to think of Christian. He had not thought of the other all day long.

I refuse to go today to find him. What good does it do? Only to make me feel more apart from him?

Thinking that way and acting accordingly were different things, and he sulked, knowing that in his present state of mind he would go to where Chris was, if it meant walking across the ocean. He had to know, to watch and see.

Getting to his feet, he went to find his friend.

Peeking through a curtain of gnarled vines, he could see Chris’ shelter, not yet even half-finished. Chris had to be still sleeping out of doors these nights.

There was no sign of him. The clearing on the high shoulder of the beach was deserted right now. Manfred hesitated, wanting to go forward, but not daring. Chris might come.

Manfred knelt there, shivering with what was inside him–his need, his apprehension.

Then he saw Chris’ tall figure, evidently coming back from a swim. When Manfred set eyes on his former companion, he couldn’t take them away.

Chris’ fair hair was wet, darkened. He wore only his trousers, and looked run-down. Walking across the clearing, he sat down in a generous flood of sun near a tree, and leaned back, closing his eyes. A moment later, he shifted position, leaning forward, arms folded across his raised knees. In another moment he got up abruptly and began to look around for work.

There was no peace for him Manfred realized. What did you think? That if you moved away from me, there would be? That’s why you did it?

In a little while, he stole away.

The next day it rained, all day long. Wind buffeted the shelter without cease, driving the rain. He had no fire and wondered if Chris would let him have some when he asked. If not, he would demand.

It was hard not to wonder about Chris across the way, without a roof over his head in this sluicing. Manfred stayed inside, with idle hands, miserable. There was nothing he felt like doing, nowhere to go. Water seeped into the shelter, and the nights were cold and clammy. He slept and woke, watched the rain and ate and slept again. He woke groggy-eyed in the middle of the night, found that the rain continued. The wind sighed. He tried not to think about Chris. Even so, he couldn’t sleep again.

He was awake and listening when the rain ended. By the time day arrived, he was able to count the drops as they spattered the forest floor.

Why lie abed sleepless? He rose and went outside. It was cool–still windy. The air was clogged with humidity, so full of moisture, it had weight. The sun still hid itself behind thick, rushing clouds.

The restlessness of the air made him feel apprehensive. He heard the lonely sea in it, sensed a distant, unknown danger. The storm, moving away out there, had only grazed the island. Manfred shuddered to think the unpleasant nights he’d spent could have been worse.

The nights we spent…. I was almost dry at least.

Christian’s camp was disordered; the hut, half-built, was now half undone, collapsed and strewn. Chris was not in sight. Manfred stepped into the clearing. “Chris?” The area was lonely, a room with no one in it.

He walked over to look down at the wreck of the shelter, automatically inspecting the damage, looking for faults in the construction. Then he saw the curled hand, hidden in the litter.

Manfred bent quickly in recognition and touched it, squeezed Chris’ hand to reassure them both before beginning to push furiously at the wet debris covering his friend’s body. His mouth had gone bone-dry, and when he uncovered Chris and felt for life, his fingers were stiff, unwilling to do as he wanted.

Chris was waterlogged, so blanched he seemed to have no substance. He looked dead, discarded. Manfred caught the sound of his breathing, a whistling tug-of-war that seemed to pull at Manfred’s own lungs for sympathy. The skin of his face and neck was unexpectedly hot, like a slow-simmering kettle.

Stung by the heat, Manfred drew his hand back, frightened, looking at the pinched, distant face. The words he said then were in his own speech; Chris would not have understood them, even if he was awake to hear.

When he was moved, Chris came around enough to groan and rebel against the grip Manfred had on him. His big body trembled; clouded eyes found Manfred’s, afraid and unseeing.

********

Discomfort woke him. He was soaked with sweat, and unyielding bands around his middle slipped along his skin when he moved. No wonder he’d been sweating, tied down like this….

He wanted to be free, so he woke, his head light and heavy; floating like a gull and sinking like a stone at the same time. The pendulum settled as long moments went by, and he looked around, realizing who he was, where he was. This was their shelter, familiar in the early morning, with birds in the forest starting to chatter and call. His thoughts rose slowly to the eye of his mind, as his sweat cooled, dried.

I had fever. How long? It must have broken during the night. And I’m here again, but I don’t know where I’ve been.

Of one thing he was more sure by the instant: he was not alone. A body was molded protectively around his. He wasn’t tied, he was held close and safe. His fingers touched and explored the arms that were wrapped around his waist.

Manfred. Guilt washed away the last traces of sleep and confusion. His friend, whom he’d selfishly hurt and driven away, must have cared for him. Raising his head, he tried to get a better look at the man holding him. That Manfred was there with him at all was a blessing.

And there was a greater blessing. They were both naked; wrapped bare one around the other. Of course, there was nothing but innocence in it. For one thing, Chris was as weak as a newborn baby, and Manfred was lost in sleep, unaware that his patient was awake and well. Still, the touch of their warm skins was a delicious, long-desired luxury, and while he had the chance, Chris feasted.

His scattered thoughts were directed toward Manfred. Once you wake up, this sweet oblivion of ours ends. You’ll remember and I’ll remember, and nothing could ever be the same for us. I’ve gone and lost your trust anyway; but I’ll call that my sentence for treating you like a dog…. He would pay any penalty Manfred demanded of him if Manfred would lie behind him for a few minutes more like this; if his dark friend would not move, and not awaken to accuse him.

No sooner had he made this hopeless vow than Manfred moved, the rhythm of his breathing changing. The arms around Chris tightened for a moment then relaxed. Chris closed his eyes.

Manfred leaned close, looking over his shoulder at him. “Chris?” The voice was whisper-soft. A hard hand settled on Christian’s forehead, feeling for fever. Chris felt the interested gaze like another hand on him, and the care in Manfred’s touch. The soft, soothing brush of foreign words, very close, tickled his ear.

After a moment, Manfred sat up, stretched, and rose. He went away.

Nature called, reminding Chris that Manfred must have taken care of all his needs while he wandered in fever-sleep. Now they were his own responsibility again and he couldn’t pretend any longer that he was helpless.

Turning onto his back, he prepared to rise, sitting up weakly. That was when Manfred returned and found him.

“Chris.” The silhouette in the doorway was still as a statue. There was no force behind Manfred’s voice when he spoke. “Chris. You wake up?”

Chris nodded, feeling his eyes stretched wide. “Yes.” Catching a chill, he shuddered. “You took care of me.” His voice was a raspy whisper, his throat raw and painful.

“Yes, I–”

“How long?”

Manfred moved forward, carrying a container of water. “Three days.”

Christian could see his face now, in the cool illumination of morning. There were several days more growth on his cheeks and chin than Chris remembered. The tilted eyes were hollowed; there were blue circles under them. It was hard to meet them, after the insensitive things he had said and done, but Chris met them. If he was any kind of man at all, he had to.

“I ask God to make you well,” Manfred told him then, quietly.

Chris stared at him, unable to believe his luck. At last he understood. In friendship Manfred was as constant as the North Star; he did not make something just to unmake it. Could it be that, at last in his life, Chris had met a man he need never doubt?

Manfred came to crouch beside him, and set the water container down. “You will be so thirsty,” he said, solicitously. “Three days, nothing to drink.”

“I am thirsty.” Chris accepted the refreshment offered. “Thanks.”

The liquid was cool and sweet, renewing. He drank deep and offered the container back to Manfred. Manfred took it; and their eyes met with a force that was terrifying.

Chris’ heart pounded. He was grateful for the humility he felt; with that he knew he’d learned a lesson he should not forget. “Manfred, you don’t hate me?”

Manfred’s expression was lenient. “No,” he said. “I don’t hate you.” His gaze, full of early light, fell, long lashes easily hiding his feelings. “I don’t ever hate you.”

That did not mean he could not be angered or hurt–he could–or that he had infinite patience–because he didn’t. Chris understood, and scaled the knowledge in his heart. No need to speak of it or make promises; he would not throw Manfred’s friendship away, again.

Part VI

Chris came in, physically much relieved, to find Manfred kneeling just as before. His friend was looking down, the worn face shadowed, a secret.

Wobbly in the tendons, Chris returned to his sleeping mat where, strength gone for the time being, he collapsed on his back. By now, he felt truly awful; head aching dully from the exertion of walking outside the entrance to make his water. Fatigue seeped into his muscles. But Manfred couldn’t be set aside.

There were a few painfully long moments of silence, Manfred rubbing his knuckles against each other while Chris looked inside himself for a single clue as to how to approach the man.

“I’m only beginning to understand you,” was a start; true besides.

Manfred didn’t respond, but no answer was possible and he knew that. “Drink,” he said. Self-consciously, he offered the jar of water again. “Right now, just–drink.”

“As you wish.” Chris obeyed. He couldn’t take his eyes off of Manfred’s face as he lifted the container to his lips. How to ease the tension remaining between them? “Was I much trouble?”

For the first time, Manfred smiled, one corner of his mouth lifting. He looked at Christian, the sparkle in him relit; faint, but there. “Yes.”

Chris smiled with him, weakly. “I’m a miserable patient. Four or five years ago, I came down with this same kind of fever; it stays with me, and every few years comes back. That time, my superior officer let me recover in a private hospital in Boston. But before one week had gone by, the nurses had voted to hang me. Without a trial.” As seconds ticked past, he felt his brief good cheer fade. “You did everything for me, didn’t you? Holding me, bathing me, taking out the slops….”

“I had to.” Manfred dismissed his own decency, as if it meant nothing.

“Saying ‘thank you’ doesn’t seem to meet the measure…but–”

“Chris,” Manfred protested. “This was not for you to thank me. And now it’s all finish.” His eyes pierced. “It is finish. Right?”

“It should never have happened,” Chris submitted. But he sighed. Nothing had really changed, had it? He was still drawn to Manfred; even more so, now.

“Why should it happen?” Manfred asked, straight out, demanding an honest and a truthful answer out of him.

“I think I went a little–insane. This place. It was beginning to bear down on me. The heat…or maybe the fever–”

The set of answers was not completely accepted. “I didn’t make the heat,” Manfred said, severely. His eyes clearly added, “You blamed me.”

He’s right; it wasn’t his fault. And he knows damned well I blamed him. “Listen to me.” He caught at Manfred’s wrist. “I’d had enough. Don’t you ever have need of–of some kind of release? A drink, a woman? Months-long need I’m talking about. If you don’t, you can’t understand how I could lose my reason.”

Manfred stared, expression so complex it was indecipherable. But his method, though firm, and even though he was on the offensive, was gentle, looking for the first time into Chris’ hiding places.

“I understand,” he said.

“I don’t think you do. You’re above it all.”

”Yes, I need a woman,” Manfred spoke distinctly, and as one male to another. “My body cries to be touched. But I don’t let it be…stronger than me. Soon we build the boat, or a ship maybe comes…. And we can leave. Be stronger, Chris.” Obviously, he did need, but had never considered having intercourse with a man. Christian saw that now.

“I’ve tried,” he answered, his blood making an impossible racket in his head. “My body cries….” Lord above. Chris could have done a little weeping himself.

Manfred smiled, but with a kind of wry self-awareness Chris had never seen in him before. ”You say ‘months-long’? That’s not time. Three years, that is time.”

What could he mean? Surely…. A moment of interpretation had to pass before Christian was halted by insight.

And surprised by a fresh need–only this time, to give–to be given–a chance to banish his friend’s loneliness.

“Three years,” he echoed, stupidly. ”You’ve–” He couldn’t make himself say it. “With no one in three years? No one at all?”

A man can bear what he doesn’t know he can bear, Manfred thought. So don’t look at me with pity. “When she died,” he said, speaking of Halika, “I wanted no one.” Then, all the time I was in England, seemingly no one wanted me; and why should they? A poor foreigner with no English.

“Your wife?” Chris looked perplexed.

“Halika.” I told you of her.

“But you said three years– She didn’t go down with my ship?” Chris asked. “She wasn’t with you?”

Manfred found it was his turn to be confused. Christian knew he was a widower. “No.” The word seemed to have a lifetime of its own, hanging there for such a long time.

“Starting out new alone?” Chris asked him, quiet within the quiet.

“There was nothing else. Nothing for me.” Fingers, still around his wrist, squeezed his bones hard then left him. “When no one is left to remember you, then you are dead.”

“I had no one either,” Chris said, looking away. “And not one thing to call mine, except that ship lying out there on the bottom. All in pieces.” Serious eyes found and searched Manfred. “We’re two of a kind, aren’t we?”

Manfred nodded, able to gather the meaning of the idiom. Chris’ thoughts lived also in the eyes, in the hands, the shape and set of his mouth…. “Both of us–both of us–” How to say the word? Desolate.

“Empty,” Chris completed his sentence. “Looking for some thing–some body–to fill us.”

You’ve filled me, Manfred thought, surprised to know it as a conscious truth. With your anger, your laughter, your deep sadness, your courage. My friend, I think, if were in a city of 10,000, you could take up all the space in my heart.

A simple act of God had brought them together. Without it, they might never have met. And would they still be able to be friends after they departed this place? Small odds…. Manfred needed certainty. “Say you will not leave me a second time.”

Christian’s head bowed as Manfred watched carefully. There was doubt in the alabaster face–pale from sickness–on the knotted brow. “I won’t,” he said. “I’ll brazen it out.” He looked up. “Isn’t that what you suggested? To ‘Be stronger, Chris’?” There was a discomfiting pause. “And I won’t leave you a second time. I don’t think I could again, anyway. I don’t have that much strength.”

How do I make that shadow go away? Manfred wondered. Something is not solved. Knowing that bothered him, but he tried a smile in hopes of winning one–hopes that turned out to be in vain. “I’ll build your happiness,” he promised. “Every day.”

********

Deciding had taken time, but now Chris knew what course to take. Strolling along the beach, regaining his strength under rich morning sun, he sketched a vague plan of what amounted to courtship. He wanted to earn, not entrap, his prize, and he would sing to Manfred, if necessary; carry his burdens for him, care for him, bring him beautiful things…and, if possible, with all that, win him.

It would require every scrap of his scant patience and much more; he was well aware of his limits. But if it killed him, he would follow Manfred’s timetable, Manfred’s pace, not his own, and go slowly. Slow, so not to risk damaging the most precious cargo ever charged to him.

I intend to treat him like porcelain, like the most delicate crystal. Chris watched as Manfred–only recently awake–stepped out of the cool darkness under the trees onto the beach, looking for him. Like the treasure he is.

The night before, Manfred had gone to his own sleeping place. Chris had wanted to reach across the dark emptiness between them and pull him back.

How did one win the favor of a young man? Especially one such as Manfred, who seemed clad in an iron will peculiarly his own. That was the hell of it–so vulnerable his surface was, yet beneath it, he seemed as proud and independent as a hawk, as inflexible as steel once he set his mind. The hawk could be hooded, the steel bent; but once adulterated, they couldn’t be the same as they were before. Not fine and true. Christian wanted Manfred beneath his covers, but not by force, not on a leash…. Not because no one else happened to be at hand.

Easily, Manfred ran across the sand to him. “Good morning. I like to see you standing up.” He inspected Christian with warmth. “The baby has started walking.”

Christian laughed at Manfred’s joke. English rode his friend quite a bit easier now. He liked the marked accent that remained, though; the odd phrase that would pop out to do unexpected things to his belly, like fingers tickling its underside. Strange…but nice to feel.

Manfred took the opportunity for a morning birdbath; splashing about, dressed, in the shallows, wetting his chest and belly, face and hair. With a dark look, he forbade Chris from joining him. Chris had already swum anyway, hours earlier, almost upon waking, but that information was better withheld.

They walked together back to their place.

“That day,” Chris said. “What was it you wanted to show me?”

Manfred looked at him, wondering, possibly, if he was serious. Seeing that Chris did want to know, he said. “A shell. Like a white bird with wings. Very beautiful.”

“Did you keep it?” Chris would have welcomed seeing it.

“That was for you. I threw it back in the water.”

Chris fell silent. He’d have swum across the world if there was a chance at all of finding the gift Manfred had wanted to give him.

“I’ve been working on the boat,” Manfred said. “You can look what I did when you were not here.”

The craft, more a floating crate than a true sailing vessel, was taking shape; twelve feet long and as wide. Some thoughtful workmanship had gone into it since Chris had last seen it. He watched and listened, gave advice that wasn’t followed. Manfred would let him have nothing to do with work, made him sit down in the shade.

”I’m not happy being useless,” he complained to his solicitous nursemaid. “You promised you would see to my happiness.”

“Sometimes men don’t know what makes happiness,” Manfred commented. “Let me tell you this. One day my wife was looking at me, and she said that to me. I never understood why, but now…I think she could see far.”

“What was she like, your wife?”

“She was my friend, too. Small like a little girl; dark, like me. Black eyes, but very bright. Pretty nose…. She worked hard, brought me two children. We were happy, I think.”

Chris saw now the depth of not only what Manfred held inside, but of what he was, and what he’d lost.

”You want to know what makes me happy?” he asked.

Strengthening the framework with a short length of cocoanut-fiber twine, Manfred was wide eyed to know. “What is it?”

“It’s you. And you don’t have to do anything for me to make me feel that way. I’m happy talking to you, looking at you. I like the way you talk to me, the way you look back.”

”You like the way I’m talking?” Manfred simply shook his head, as if to say, What am I going to do with you?

“It’s–how you speak. The way my friend speaks. Which makes it good, I imagine.” He saw the expression, and forestalled what he knew was coming. “Don’t ask me ‘why’. It’s not something I can explain. As for the way you look…. Maybe someday I’ll have figured out how all those mismated pieces come together with such fascination.”

”You talking crazy,” Manfred decided. And that was that. “Eat something.”

Christian went to look at the steaming concoction. “Soup? What’s in it?” he asked. “I thought I saw something move.”

“Some grass from the sea, cocoanut milk, the fish you like, some small roots….” Manfred reacted sternly to the appalled expression Christian couldn’t help. “Eat. I made it.”

********

“Christian.”

“I’m awake.”

Manfred had suspected as much. Obviously sleep wouldn’t come any more easily for his friend tonight than it had the night before. “You feel bad? You are quiet.”

“No. Only lost in my thoughts.”

“Want to talk?”

“I will if you need to.”

“You don’t want to, now?”

“Talk away.” Chris turned over. Manfred heard the decisive movement, saw the silvery gleam of a shoulder turned now toward him. Chris was leaning on an elbow, waiting patiently.

Manfred’s mind fell all blank. He had to use words already waiting there.

“When you–” He was oddly aware of his own mouth as he tried to pose his question. “When you stole my mouth, that night; why did you?” He’d been contemplating how and when to ask the one person who might know: the answer to this small mystery that had lingered for him so long past its time.

“Fever makes one do senseless things,” Chris’ voice said, somehow sadly. “If I made you worry, I want you to know I didn’t mean to.”

“My papa kissed me. Almost, it was like that. But…he was old.” His reasoning sputtered like a candle. There was more of an unsettling difference than age, and that was what he was trying to discover. What made it mean more when your lips touched me? Manfred couldn’t have said in words what the distinction was. Perhaps someone would need to have Chris very near to them, face to face, to know. All that strength and light, like being consumed in fire, taken into the angel’s mouth.

Chris sighed. “You want the truth? I kissed you because you’re a beautiful man.”

This was one answer Manfred had never dreamed of hearing. He had no response to it. For a moment he just stared, round-eyed, into the dark. “Then it was the fever?” he asked.

“Maybe someday I’ll answer that.” There was smiling suddenly in Chris’ voice. Sometimes he teased, made serious jokes that Manfred couldn’t tell from the truth. Maybe this was one of those.

“Someday I won’t believe you,” he said, turning to sleep.

Christian laughed.

“You laugh at me?” Manfred looked over his shoulder into the dark.

“Never. How could I? I’d never laugh at you. Right now, I’m laughing just because I’m happy. I think that right now, I’m glad to be alive.”

********

When Manfred came in the next evening, he found the flowers Christian had left on his sleeping mat; a dozen kinds, in all shades of blue–water, velvet, sky, deep sea. All together, they made a decent armful. Out of the corner of his eye, Christian watched Manfred pick them up, look over curiously.

“I’m idle,” he explained, lying. He’d carefully looked for and selected each one of those flowers. “I picked them, then didn’t want to throw them away. I thought you might like them.”

“They are wonderful.” Manfred seemed honestly touched, his arms burdened with flowers. “Blue, I love.”

Christian had known that, naturally. “They won’t last,” he warned, practically.

Manfred lay down, head resting on his hand. The sunset was behind him, lancing in through the shelter. He’d placed the flowers carefully in front of himself to look at. “Long enough.” Secretly pleased, Chris watched Manfred admiring the drift of blossom he’d been given; the careful touches, the appreciation of a gift that had cost nothing.

At the same time, Christian had to admire the sensual sight before his own eyes: Manfred drenched in that remarkable rose light. What remained of his clothing didn’t do nearly enough to conceal him. He was a waking dream, something springing free out of nature. Eyes brilliant against his dusky skin, he was a tamed creature growing wild and strange. Do I look the same? Could I be as astonishing to him as he is to me?

Going out to see to their meal, steaming in the earth, he prepared portions for both of them, brought Manfred’s to him, and they ate their fill.

Later (and wondering why, even as he opened his mouth), he said, “Come sit here,” indicating a place in front of him. “I’ll rid you of unwelcome guests.” Manfred obeyed him, sitting before him to be groomed. They’d done this sort of thing for each other before. Chris delved his fingers into the dark abundance. After some careful searching, he found nothing at all–Manfred’s hair and scalp were clean, free of pests–but kept Manfred unsuspecting, simply to continue the privilege of caring for him. The loosely curling hair smelled of cocoanut nectar and wood smoke and sea-salt–and of Manfred’s essence. Chris longed to sink his face into it. “You’re clean,” he managed, breathless, knowing it would be better for both if Manfred were twice as far away. Plainly, he couldn’t be held accountable for his body with his beloved friend’s so near.

“You, now,” Manfred said. Lithely, he moved behind Christian, knelt there. His way of doing the job was slow and painstaking.

“Chris, I never saw hair like sun before I meet you.”

“It gets duller as I get older.”

“Oh, no. It holds the light.”

A warm scrubbing at the back of his head was Manfred’s nose–and the point of his chin–Chris realized. “The smell of the sun,” Manfred added.

Chris edged away, could do no other. “No, don’t. Don’t do that.”

He turned, to find Manfred looking after him curiously. What could he possibly say?

“You don’t want me to touch you?” Manfred asked.

“Yes,” Chris said. “But…. Not now.”

“Should I understand something?” Manfred sounded and looked hopelessly frustrated, brows drawn down. “You come close, run away; if you touch me, am I not to touch you?”

“I’m sorry. Have you no patience to spare me?”

Manfred’s frank gaze took him in, moments passing like months. “Yes, I have patience. You know I do. But–but you turn me around, this way, that way. I don’t know what you want, what you thinking. You keep secrets–”

“I know, I know.” Chris couldn’t bear this examination. He rose and left the shelter.

The sun had left only a blush in the sky, the stars beginning to show themselves. They seemed so far away, making him feel even more cut off from the outside world. “I’m trapped.”

********

Chris was having a vivid and pain-filled dream. Manfred was in it, and Chris was doing every manner of bestial, sexual thing to him, wallowing in filth and decay, forcing another to share his shame. But in the dream–the nightmare–he looked down and suddenly saw the pale silver hair of his victim. Himself. Waking with a cry of denial, washed all over with cold sweat, he sat up, breathing hard, heart slamming against the walls of his chest.

“Chris–”

“Stay there. I’m alright. It’s alright.” Chris tried to gather himself. Distantly, he had registered Manfred’s concern, but his mind was too addled to focus on it.

Heavily, he turned on his stomach. “It’s just a dream. Oh, God…. A nightmare riding me.” Anguish pricked his eyes. “God, damn me to hell.”

Manfred came in the dark, then, to lean over him protectively, take careful hold of him. Such was his distress he accepted the companionship without protest, reaching out blind. Manfred was purity and innocence; warm, and here–not a shadow in a dream.

“I won’t corrupt you,” he swore. In the next breath, he wrapped Manfred’s body tight–and tighter–in his arms, holding on for life. “I don’t want to spoil it.” But kisses followed like thunder from sunny skies, at first soft, then insistent. Next he knew he was covering Manfred’s face with them, finding his comforter’s anxious mouth, biting it in his heat; catching Manfred’s lower lip between his teeth as he climbed over the body so dangerously close to his. His was a reaction to a deep, ancient fear, and he was not gentle.

Manfred lay under him as if stunned, holding the sides of his face; to push him away or keep him, Chris had no way of knowing. His victim made not a sound, beyond troubled breathing, while their hearts butted like rams.

The speed and intensity of his arousal astounded Christian, and he was afraid of himself. In a moment there would be a terrible consequence–it was happening now, it had happened; nothing he could do.

“Just this,” he whispered, hardly knowing what he was saying, doing. “Don’t fight me–” In his mouth, the words were not a threat but a part of his climax.

A moment later, his wasted jizm was already cooling between them, and he lay like the living dead.

What did I do? From thighs to shoulders, a chill spread up his back. The pleasure, like being skewered on a pike of white-hot iron, had been solitary, was already fading into memory, into non-existence. It had been nothing, nothing at all, but it had lost him everything.

Breathing still short, labored, joints shaking, he lifted himself off of his friend and moved to one side. Friend. The word mocked him. Manfred turned onto his own left side. The silence still emanating from him was deafening in its extremity.

“Say something!” Chris grated. He fell supine. “Damn you, don’t just–lie there.”

Manfred caught a breath. When had he stopped breathing? “I know you–you don’t want me to do nothing….” he said, voice a harsh croak. “So I don’t do nothing, or–or to say nothing….” There was a fathomless, endless cessation of the struggling words. Then, “Is–is it that what you want before? All the time?” Chris sensed no accusation in his prey, and that was worse, somehow, than anger.

“No. Yes. Not like that.” Would saying “sorry” do any good at all? That was something you said when you stepped on a man’s heel, not when you’ve raped him.

Next day, there were whispers of bruises on Manfred’s shoulders, and around his swollen mouth. Christian indicted himself, in private agony.

********

He was past ending it; he couldn’t now. Chris was miserable, weak, living his nightmare with eyes open. This was not the way he’d wanted it. A passage into sunlight was what he had wished, but night was the thing he settled for. For he would only let himself commit–confront–his crime after light was gone.

By day, Manfred shunned him, perhaps hated him, it was impossible to tell; and watched him quietly, dissecting him piece by piece.

At night Christian would still go to him, lie behind or half on top of him–never face to face–and after spending his seed, make Manfred spend his. Manfred would feign sleep or more accurately, absence. The fundamental truth seemed to be that he was a loyal friend, and he would supply what Chris had to have. But he did not want to see what it was.

Since the first time it happened, Chris had been playing his secret game every night. Tonight was the fifth. He was the initiator. Manfred would play host to the game, but he would not act in it. He never complained, or tried to stop Chris, but he never spoke or showed any outward sign of pleasure. Neither of them ever acknowledged in words what was happening. In truth, they’d stopped using words altogether. What, after all, would they have said?

Each night, lying awake in the dark, Chris had been waiting until the time seemed right. If asked, he couldn’t have said when this time was, but he seemed to sense Manfred’s possible receptiveness. As if that mattered.

It was time. Chris rolled, as if in sleep, until his belly touched Manfred’s back. On its own, his stiffening length sought a place in the valley between Manfred’s buttocks. As usual, he almost came, right then and there, at the warm contact, dimly noticing that Manfred had accommodated him this time, opening muscled thighs just a little. Chris began to rub himself into the moist cleft, moving faster and faster until he recklessly spilled everything, all over and between. Doing this wasn’t enough for him; never enough heat or pressure. Yet it was so difficult to keep from shouting out with the piercing release, and harder still not to take his grudging lover in his arms and own it.

He couldn’t bear this one-sided scheme of things. Frustration pulled a sigh from his depths. Beginning to turn aside, he was stopped by a single feathery touch, the flat of a hand on his flank. No words were exchanged, but Chris–heart stopped–understood. It was still to be a secret, but perhaps they could share it. His breathing came shallow and too fast.

So Manfred was present, awake. Chris slipped an arm around him, prepared to master his friend’s body and give relief, but tonight with a participant.

He began, inhaling with a feeling of welcome the faint salt of Manfred’s skin, crisp hair. Caressing the man was a delight in itself; Manfred was strainingly hard, responsive. Why does he still say nothing? How can he say nothing? Chris knew from his own experience, that the most difficult part for Manfred all along must have been to keep still and silent. It had been as if by his behavior he could negate what he was actually doing.

Tonight was different. Manfred remained quiet, but the tension held, dug in its claws. Chris realized; for the first time, Manfred was allowing himself to take pleasure in what was being done to him, enjoying the hand that caressed him. His own fingers found and circled Christian’s upper arm, and tightened. Chris was unable to restrain himself longer, giving the wild thing he was managing a few last, expert pulls to tame it. Manfred came at once. Unlike the other times, he thrust violently, gave out a rough sob. But he subsided quickly, into a trembling, frightened silence.

Chris held on to him, feeling Manfred’s chest rising and falling under his arm. You came for me this time, not because of me. Perhaps you’re wondering just as I did if it can really be this good, or if it couldn’t be better if– Ah, well, he could dream….

Manfred’s cry echoed in him, exciting him all over again. This young blacksmith was the most beguiling sexual partner he’d ever had. Masculine but tender, with sensibilities Chris could already tell, matched his own. If we were released….

********

Manfred stayed with him, but in the morning, he was shy and skittish, avoiding Chris, who watched him, attracted irresistibly, full of wonder and gratitude. Talk to me, he wanted to ask. Why are you pretending?

But when night came again, Manfred was willing, yielding–though he muffled heart-rending groans of pleasure in the palm of Christian’s hand. With profound hesitance he seemed to be rediscovering a long-dormant ability to feel his own sexual delight, his control over himself and his reactions vanishing, scattering.

They lay together afterward. Chris brought fingers fragrant with Manfred’s seed to his mouth, smelled, tasted a loved one’s life. It made him tremble. I do love you.

********

It was getting very hard to wait for the sun to go down. Chris wanted Manfred in the light of day, too. Especially as now, when for a moment, the dark man wore nothing but the sunshine.

Watching, Chris felt his nature rise in response. Manfred wrapped a cloth around himself, then turned to come back to the shelter.

Chris covered himself, feeling like a naughty child, but Manfred would have had to be blind not to notice his erection. Those quick eyes had found out him out. But Manfred said nothing, at least at first, just stood there, still as a tree.

They’d been virtually making love to each other at night, and in the mornings acting as though what they did was separate, had not happened, that it had all been somehow unconscious, involuntary. Now the reality of what both wanted was between them, mocking their pretenses.

Manfred had been caught off-guard. He obviously didn’t know how to behave, sitting down by the entrance and scratching at one bare brown shin. Chris glanced across at him, found curious yet cautious eyes looking back. Manfred’s cheeks were flushed, decorated with dusky blooms.

“I was–watching you,” Chris said, lamely. “And I–” He swallowed hard, embarrassed. “I suppose these things happen.”

“These things….” Manfred nodded. They had not exchanged this many words in days.

Two minutes of silence counted themselves off.

“I wondered how you look,” Manfred admitted, at last, quietly. “That way. At night, you feel….” Incomplete as it was, this was the first admission by either of them that they had done more than keep each other company these last nights. Manfred said it so openly, matter-of-factly, Chris knew then he could open up, too.

“We both have secrets. Mine is not that hard to figure out.” He waited, breathing halted, for Manfred to look at him again. “I think I’m in love with you.” First time in his life he had ever said it to anyone.

There was no answer except a baffled stare. Silent, brow tangled, Manfred rose and left him alone.

********

Manfred couldn’t understand himself. What had happened to his resolve? His body was no longer his own. He was a human being like any other and it was so long since he’d known sexual joy, he couldn’t turn it away, couldn’t say no–even if he’d wanted to. Chris had used him every night, and worn down his will.

In the beginning, I tried not to let him reach me. Now he knows ten ways to find my weakness. Manfred liked all the ways the big, strong body that cradled him, released him; and he waited each day for darkness to fall so he could feel what Chris made him feel.

The first time had confused and frightened him. The sense of shame and shock had been crippling, paralyzing. Chris had used him for a woman. Worse than that, Chris had been like a stranger to him, had disillusioned him. His friend–and their friendship–was not at all perfect or pure.

But the strangest part to him was that all the time it was happening he had felt also sympathy, compassion for the bright king who was suffering.

”I’m in love with you,” Chris had said. Manfred wondered, Could that be?

********

Weather was their unwitting accomplice. South winds shifted, coming in from the northeast, forming whitecaps on the sea. The days were bright and deep, clear; hot under the sun, but freakishly icy in the shade; the nights were almost cold, extraordinarily windy.

When winds swirled through their shelter at night, the pair drew together for warmth, keeping their secret safe between them. And they made love.

********

The two had worked all the morning, diligently, and as companionably as in former days. Now, sitting together on the sand under a broad-in-the-beam palm, they rested, shared a cocoanut, food and drink.

When it was finished, there seemed nothing more to do. Sun danced in the trees as the whole island napped in the midday.

Except for them. Their privacy was complete. Chris found himself to be nervous, trembling, his hands shaking when he looked at them. He wanted Manfred this minute, but how could he ask when he’d already taken? He’d rather have disappeared in front of Manfred’s eyes before he’d touch his love again without permission. But he didn’t dare to ask. They hadn’t used many words lately. To talk had been impossible, for both, since all this began, and was still impossible. Talk was useless anyway to cover the emotions they’d both suffered through.

Their eyes met, and Chris found that at least some of his thoughts were shared. Manfred, perhaps unconsciously, rubbed his dark belly as if it were empty, as if–just perhaps–to tell Chris of his desire for sex. Clearly he too was tired of waiting for night. It was in his eyes, his face, his whole manner. Doubtless, his wife had seen him look this way. He hungered like any man.

But he was the one who would have to ask this time.

“Chris?”

“Yes?”

“You know what I want.”

Chris grit his teeth together. “Ask.”

“Then–tell me how to say it. I don’t know, what are the words for what we do at night.”

“We–make love.” Chris’ voice almost cracked with disbelief. “Man or woman–those words are all the same.”

“Can we make love when the light sees us?”

No heart could have stood against that question, that wish to understand. Have you been waiting? Chris wondered. After all he had always been the one to start. Not knowing how to ask me; too shy to show me? “We can make it any time we want to,” he answered. “All you have to do is show me.” Joyous, he read Manfred’s face. “Touch me.”

Manfred reached out, took hold of his forearm. The hand slid firmly, appraisingly, up to Chris’ shoulder, his neck. Lightheaded, Chris found he liked to be caressed by this gentle individual. Manfred’s warm fingers and palm carried soft fire.

Faced with the prize he’d been hungry for, he hardly knew how to approach and take it. Looking at Manfred’s body, he bent and planted a tentative line of kisses across the tight, furred belly. Manfred sighed, and gathered up a handful of his hair.

Their eyes met again; Manfred’s wide open and naive, so completely trusting. He had no idea where they were going, but he’d put himself in Chris’ hands.

“What do you like?” Chris asked him. “Do you like to be sucked?” There was no man alive who did not appreciate that exotic act, no matter who provided it.

He saw curiosity in Manfred’s eyes. Then the soft words came.

“Show me.”

Leaning close again, Christian trailed the tip of his tongue down the center line of Manfred’s body. For the first time, he heard a truly voluntary sound of pleasure, poignant. Manfred’s dark cock jumped as Chris reached it, lengthened, filled his hand, and then his mouth. This was where Manfred belonged.

Manfred, looking down at the nodding sheaf of Christian’s hair, watched, fascinated, the large mouth surrounding his penis, making it appear, disappear…. He laughed a little at the sight, though ecstasy burned him.

“I never saw such….” he breathed when Christian looked up. Did you think of it yourself?

There was fear of the unknown mingled with this new pleasure; it had tinged his laughter. For two men to lie with each other was wrong. But Chris began again, slowly, to take any fear away, giving him a joy he had never dreamed existed in the world.

They discovered each other, almost as when they’d met. Lost to anything but themselves, the men revealed their need to one another. This was the first time the light of day had seen them–making love, face to face.

The sun was pleasure, and the shadows it made were pleasure; the air kissing their bodies, warm sand under them, the smell of Sea mixed with their human smells, seemed all to be made of pleasure–with them caught between. This was a world for two–no one else was required. Not right now….

Chris had been torn free of his inhibitions, urging Manfred to kneel above him, offer the gift more freely. Manfred seemed to doubt, yet he did it, eyes closing as he was taken in once again. The muscular body wore a shining coat of sweat, Manfred’s back arched.

I’m wracking you, Chris thought, distantly. And myself. Manfred hadn’t touched him much yet–hadn’t been given a chance to. His own member strained for someone’s notice; to be fully satisfied, not just appeased. But would Manfred do even that for him?

He reached for Manfred, needful and no need to hide. It was a long time since he had been inside someone, and he wanted it badly. “Here….” he pleaded, guiding his friend diffidently to himself. “Yes…. This way….” He was relieved and grateful when Manfred straddled him without protest. One look at the hot eyes and swollen, bruised-looking erection told him why.

He grasped the heavy, swaying cock, handled it as he carefully sought the passage. His palm came away wet with honey, and he shivered, moaned with the empathy he felt as he rubbed the fluid on himself, letting his own cock taste the sweetness; easing his entry. For a trembling long-held moment they tried to become one, then with an exclamation that needed no language, Manfred slid down on him, sweat-sheened thighs spreading wide.

Christian sucked in a breath. Being taken inside that tight glove of muscle was like being throttled, yanked inside out. A woman wouldn’t have had anything like that kind of strength. He stared in surprise, then looked up into a face closed with the discovery of pleasure. Abrupt with his own discoveries, he pulled at Manfred’s muscled ass, bringing his dark friend to him, taking and giving eagerly as they both learned what was only natural. He levered the receptive body with his hips, wringing a groan of satisfaction from the man riding him. After that, there was only the intent screwing, muscles flexing, the other’s grip on his flanks painful, and unyielding. Suddenly, helplessly, he spasmed, his rapture heightened by his partner’s tender yearning reply, the scalding darts of Manfred’s semen across his belly, in his hand. Against the silence their voices announced what had been secret.

For all his experience, Chris had never felt anything like this–this stabbing, this soaring out of himself. It went beyond the finality of an ejaculation, and when it was finished, with Manfred sitting heavy on him, leaning against him, breathing hot and wet in his ear, it had really just begun. He already knew once would not be enough for him. After a time of recovery, still joined, they looked at one another, equally amazed. Shuddering, drained, Christian saw his friend with new eyes.

Manfred’s face wore an expression of pure mystification. Tears of effort had gathered in the corners of his eyes. When he blinked, the water ran down and Christian wiped it away, observing him carefully, minutely.

“I must be hurting you–” he whispered, distantly aware of their awkward position.

“No,” Manfred said softly, rubbing the side of his face. “No.”

All the same, Christian laid them down on the sand, rolling them heavily onto their sides, gasping as he slipped free. They sprawled in the quiet, rushed breaths slowing. Sun beaming through trees patterned their bodies with coins of light. A breeze cooled the sweat. Strangers to each other, once again, they kept watch on each other, both showing their curiosity, and an incongruous shyness.

Manfred was trembling, crystal drops hanging in his lashes. Christian rubbed the powerful bare arms, though he knew it wasn’t cold that made his friend’s body flutter like a rising sail. His own heart was pounding with unnamed emotion. In a way, they both needed to be held. ”It’s alright,” he comforted, moving to rest his temple against his friend’s. “It’s alright.”

“Am I still a man?” Manfred asked, in a thick whisper. “Chris? What am I?”

“You’re a man,” Christian said, raising his head, a little bewildered by the question. He looked over the strong body he had just loved, that had loved him so incredibly. “Very much so.”

“‘A man who thanks God for making him hungry? So he might eat the fruit God has forbidden?'”

Christian looked at him and listened, but didn’t understand the guttural stream of foreign words. He knew the emotion, though, and responded to what he thought he understood. “We’re here alone,” he said, giving it time to sink in. “And needing didn’t stop when we got here.” He saw the way Manfred stole a darting glance at him, as if for guidance. “Don’t be ashamed of what we do.”

“I am,” Manfred said, quietly, in English. He covered his eyes with his right hand, rubbing at them. “So….” He took a shuddering breath. “So. You see?”

Those few words, his friend’s growing regret, chilled Christian at his core. After sharing so much, he’d expected Manfred to be as content as he was, to want to continue.

“Why now?” he asked, taking the hand away rudely. “Why not before?”

“Why–” Manfred was visibly trying to gather his thoughts and put them into English. “Chris–” He gave up.

“You’re afraid,” Christian said, interpreting, accusing–guessing.

Manfred nodded. “More than that. But, yes.”

“Afraid I’ll what? Take your manhood?” Nothing could be less true. There was no wish in him anywhere to change any part of Manfred’s personality.

Again, the nod.

“Your manhood is in you,” Christian said, indignantly. “It is you. How can I take it away?” He examined his companion, thinking. More than that, you said. More than just being afraid. Manfred’s remorse didn’t make sense. They’d been enjoying sex–of a kind–with each other for the past half-month to their mutual, if secretive, satisfaction. Of course, there was an explicit difference this time. “Is it because I fucked you?” he blurted, using the most direct word he knew for it. “Is that why you’re afraid?”

Manfred shook his head, looking away before he pulled away. But he knew what was meant. “I like it. That is why I am afraid.”

Christian felt hurt, as his grasp was left empty. “I thought you wanted it as I did. You had to be willing to do what you just did with me–to me.” He could never have forced Manfred–or anybody else–to get on and ride him.

The blue gaze returned, so confused it was physically painful to look at. “I can’t refuse you nothing. Nothing.” Manfred’s whole being seemed to demand, “Tell me why.”

Christian sighed, fed up. “I want a willing partner. Anything else…. It’d be worse than being alone.” After a moment, reconsidering, he ventured to renew and tighten his embrace. “Listen. I swear, I will never take from you what you don’t want to give. Your masculinity, your self-respect…. Whatever it is! Anything you hold for yourself I hold for you, too.” He paused, looking for any reaction. It was time now to speak of unspoken feelings. “I love you, man,” he said, honestly, “as you are.” He traced the line of the clear-carved profile with his eyes, feeling young and unsure, in a way he never had. “Manfred?” He needed to know. “Don’t you love me even a little?”

Manfred looked at–into–Christian, and perhaps, into himself. “Yes,” he breathed, finally, eyes closing. “I love you. Alright? I love you.”

********

At Chris’ timid suggestion, they bathed in the sea, caught and prepared a late afternoon meal–fish, prawns, dried fruit. Manfred seemed to grow more himself, more at ease within. Feeling a little foolish, but wanting only to see his sweet companion smile, Christian brought a single white flower and a fresh, perfect mango to Manfred’s place. Once he had his reward, their gazes held.

He made no sexual overtures, then or after dinner–though he wanted to. Manfred had never seemed so touchable, but Chris’ contact with him was only incidental; neutral, almost as before. They talked and worked by the fire until both yawned.

Christian didn’t insist on Manfred sleeping with him. He unrolled his mat and turned in, as if it didn’t matter. But when his friend came to lie right beside him, he thanked whomever might be listening up there, in a state of pure elation and peace. They slept together, but like brothers.

********

When he woke, he was startled by Manfred, up close, watching him. The tilted eyes caught some early sun. His friend was a virile sprite, a woodland elf curious about finding him in its forest–and eager to get acquainted. The moment felt expectant, yet there were no words to be said at first. Christian knew himself deeply wanted by someone who could not help it, and that was a rare vintage in his blood, one he had never tasted. “I should thank you,” he whispered. “I do, thank you.”

“Yes?”

“For being with me, all these months. Putting up with me…. And–for yesterday.”

“Yesterday–” Manfred repeated. It was a false start, so he began again. “Yester-day, I did not thank you. But…I should.” Ears turned red, lashes fell…. His attitude was almost demure, yet he’d never seemed more masculine. “I can’t say this feeling,” he shrugged. “Not to you.”

“Yes, to me. Say it, Manfred. Between us we can say everything.” Christian paused, aware of his heart weightless in his chest. “And I want to hear it.”

Manfred sighed, like a reluctant child asked to perform. “But how can I say all of it?” His glance rose to Christian’s face, and he sought a better way to express this feeling he couldn’t say. It came slowly. “I–I think only of yesterday when I look at you. Last night, today; now…. My eyes are opened to you, and I think of you. I say in my–my thoughts, ‘he was very beautiful, asking. But he gave.'” He looked at Christian, intimate, without artifice. “Yesterday I was afraid; no words, nothing. But I should have told you first…you gave me something sweet.”

“But why were you afraid?”

“Because of the Torah, the book. Because I wanted to–to make this wrong thing with you. And I did.”

“Sin? Is that what you’re talking about? We didn’t do anything wrong. We did what men have done since God created men. At least with you and me, it was done with love.” The past came back to him with renewed force, like a blow. He remembered–no, he felt–the vulnerability of the ten-year-old boy he had been, what had happened to him before he grew up enough to take care of himself. He’d never got any pleasure out of it; never experienced love. “Believe me,” he said to Manfred. “I know what the difference is.”

“You don’t understand what it is I’m saying! After we–it happened, I fear of my father’s God, of God’s anger at me.”

“God made us, Manfred! He–he put us here alone together, gave us both sore hearts so we’d be ready to love each other. Who do we blame?” A tense moment passed. Chris groaned, softly, as he looked hopelessly into the solemn, listening face. It had become the only face; lately, the first thing he looked for when morning opened his eyes and the last thing he wanted to see before he slept. “Whoever waked these feelings in me, did the job too well. I’ve told you I love you; more than once. And I have never said that before. The words were never there…. Or if they were, I could never have said them out loud to anyone. This is all new to me– Religion, God…it’s all over my head. I just want you.”

Manfred didn’t speak. But all he could have said dwelled, somehow, in his expression. He had stopped listening and began observing. And his brow eased, softened.

“What more do you want me to say?” Chris asked. He waited, being looked at. The expectant moment that had begun when he woke was about to end, but slowly. Minutes seemed to pass as he waited for the mystery here revealing. Finally the dark head above bent to him, and his friend’s mouth touched his for the first time of its own accord, pressed hard then harder. He accepted it, closed his eyes and winged to heaven in the kiss. Before he knew, it was over, just a rough cheek remaining to caress his as Manfred sighed, brokenly. He already longed for a repeat of the revelation, for the taste of Manfred’s mouth again.

Why long? Given the right, he grabbed the back of Manfred’s neck and pulled him down once more.

Afterward, Manfred looked into Chris’ eyes. Doing all this with another man was obviously unprecedented for him. But about the kiss he said, honestly, “Good.”

Chris brushed the small, resolute mouth with his fingers. “Is it?”

Manfred blushed, and nodded. For a moment, he hid his face against Christian’s shoulder.

“If it makes you feel easier about what we do,” Chris proposed anxiously, face hot with first love. “You can fill me anytime you like….” Truth to tell, he was apprehensive of the idea, but for Manfred, anything. He would promise anything.

“You’d let me–inside your body?” Looking up, Manfred was frankly surprised. The notion had obviously never occurred to him; he knew why he submitted to Christian, but why should Christian submit to him?

Chris’ emotions decided him then, his doubts vanishing. “Only right. In love, we’re equals. Of course, it scares me, like it did you, though in a different way.”

“Tell,” Manfred said, when no more seemed forthcoming from Chris.

Chris hesitated to speak. Did Manfred need to know these things about him? But he didn’t want to hold back from his lover. Might as well talk about it, finally, with the one he trusted; the one who had taken the bitter taste from his mouth and replaced it with sweetness. “I’m not as innocent as you,” he said. “A man first got me when I was ten; kept me with him ’til I was old enough to say no and make it stick. But he hurt me. It was never anything but painful with him. I used to think he was doing it to punish me. But what had I done?”

“Using love to punish you?”

“It had nothing to do with love. Not like you and I. It was hatred, that’s all. Once in a while, to get what he wanted, or maybe to entertain himself–who knows? He would threaten to throw me overboard, or cut my throat. Threaten to slash my face–” He stopped, disgusted. Why recall Lucas’s sadistic ravings?

”Why? Your face?” Manfred asked, wearing an expression of perplexed wonder. Clearly, he had never heard of such things.

“He wanted to ruin my so-called ‘beauty.’ Blue eyes, pale hair…. Something he prized highly, not me!” He said the words scornfully. “I didn’t much care if he did it or not. In my own eyes, I was ugly.” Lucas had made certain of that.

Manfred’s touch on his face was light. “But I care.”

”You were far in the future.”

”Why didn’t you run away, Chris?”

“Because that was the only home I knew. And he was the closest thing to a father I ever had. I was a child. I thought–” He swallowed hard. This was more difficult than he’d expected. He’d never talked about any of this with anyone. “I guess I didn’t know it could be different.”

********

Ruining this face of yours would not have been his greatest crime, Manfred thought, watching Chris, thinking over the things he had just been told. Just the most unforgiveable.

He could not forgive that unnamed beast for threatening his treasured one, his David–never– But he could make Chris forget, of that he was confident. Marriage to a man was maybe not so unlike marriage with a woman. He would learn Chris’ rhythms, Chris’ limits, what Chris needed from him to find pleasure, not pain. And the things he doesn’t know he needs…. Therein lay the secret of making love.

“I can make you forget him,” he confided, sure of his abilities, here.

 

Part VII

Chris caught him, swimming, and they finished amid the easy breakers. The attendant kisses were light, effortless, as Chris braced their joined bodies against the backwash, anchoring him with elbows and long body, in wet, shifting sand.

The soft, wide mouth followed the line of his chin and cheek with kisses, and Manfred turned his head aside, catching a breath, eyes opening slowly to the shoreline. Such fulfillment…. Panting, tasting salt on his wet lips, he sprawled without shame, his love water-slick, heavy between his shaking thighs. The sea cleansed away mingled seed. The sun above, warm as the after-sweetness of sex, covered his face and turned the streams of Chris’ hair to liquid gold.

Chris was making him very happy. Since they began loving openly, he’d wanted for nothing. Three years of drought, of hiding his thirst, and he’d found himself drenched in water; an ocean, rain, tears–enough to fill any man.

Even with Halika, he’d never known these kinds of pleasure (some he was sure Chris had invented new), this deep a satisfaction. He’d only known half of life.

There was laughter again between them, a beauty of form–a lucky meeting of strengths and vulnerabilities–of sensibilities. They both gave and they both took and there seemed no end to the fire they had to give to each other.

This day had been like the last several–the pair would start out to work, to fish, or to make repairs…and ended making love and napping like cats. Getting to their feet now, they sluiced each other off scrupulously with seawater before going back to the house they’d built and shared.

The sun toiled while they slept on in the cool of the shelter. Wrapped in each other’s arms, neither showed a sign of waking soon–their nights and days were busy; sleep had become a luxury, no longer taken for granted.

Manfred took Chris’ immediate shelter, filling the bend of the big body with his ripe slenderness. He fit well, angles and curves, but even if he had not, Chris would have made him fit.

He held Manfred as a boy holds what is most precious to him; not completely forgotten, but in the abandon of sleep, slightly man-handled. His closed mouth was pressed to Manfred’s cheek and all his slack weight rested on the other man’s back.

Manfred did not object. In sleep he scratched his nose, then as if with long practice, regained his clasp on the arms that imprisoned him. He couldn’t have been aware of it as yet, but there were spider-strands of light hair in his mouth and in his face. He was immersed in Christian.

The day had aged considerably before they woke, and without them. Sol was rotund and golden, now, hanging low in the sky. Manfred was first to show a sign of life. His foot rubbed at the instep of Chris’. He opened his eyes, at the same time finding and ridding his mouth of several tendrils of hair. Regaining his sense of his body, he stretched with well-being, in the moment becoming aware of Chris’ warmth, the living man….

And he remembered, in a rush, the love and the loving. He reached behind, found Christian’s flank, rubbed it fervently, with joy.

After a moment, Chris’ fingers twined with his, squeezed hard in greeting.

“We’ve slept the whole day away.” The words were whispered groggily in Manfred’s ear.

“How could we help it?”

Manfred turned over to him. Pushing fingers into the cornsilk hair, he lifted the bulk of it to lie across his own neck. “I can live without sleep.”

“How in God’s name did you go so long without?” Chris asked. “Now that I know you….” He looked into Manfred’s eyes, his own delighted. “You want sex as much as I do.”

“I hid,” Manfred explained. “You found me.”

They kissed, very softly. It was a greeting, and Manfred had to wonder himself, how he had lived so long without a lover to welcome him on waking. Chris stroked his shoulder then disentangled himself. Manfred watched the long body of his friend as Chris walked to get a drink from the covered container near the entrance.

Manfred moved restlessly, not aroused, just thrilled, almost to the point of pain at the sight of Chris naked. He could still dream of a woman’s softer shape, the moon and sea mystery of her body, but the body of the man he loved; gold-skinned, all muscle, capable, was also a beautiful thing.

Chris had gone down on one knee; bars of late sun striped him, softly, here and there, at chest and hip. His hair was tumbled and he had pushed it all back to lift the jar and drink. The long throat worked and Manfred watched, fascinated.

“Manfred?”

He looked and met inquiring blue eyes, Chris’ pleasant expression.

“Would you like some water?”

Manfred nodded.

Chris brought the water to him, and watched him drink his fill. Their fingers touched as Chris took back the water jar. They looked at each other, each studying the face he liked.

“I love you, very much.”

As he spoke, Chris’ mouth was softened by a smile; there was remembrance of their morning in his eyes, as well as a child-like happiness in the moment. The look made Manfred’s horizons tip and tilt dizzyingly, wonderfully. He’d never known the sensual tenderness in a man’s eyes, nor his own lack of resistance to it. “I love you, also,” he whispered. “Very much.” Wanting a kiss, he parted his lips with a seductiveness he wasn’t conscious of. Innocent of any such sophistications, he simply wanted–and showed it.

Chris bent and took his mouth, thumbs tracing the curves of his ears. And the hunger was there, not sharp, but enough to make them both aware of it at the same time.

“I can’t,” Chris mourned, as Manfred touched him hopefully. “I swear. There’s not a bit left.” He laughed, but caught a breath when Manfred leaned close to him, to lick dry heat–and reluctance–from his lips; coaxing, winning over.

“Nothing?” he asked Chris.

Mouth and chin, both his hands, were spattered, glistening with familiar result. The taste of it lingered in his mouth. Stroking the down-covered skin of Chris’ abdomen, Manfred waited patiently for the tensed, taut body to relax.

His eyes found Chris’ stricken face, watched as it softened into contentment, honey-gold lashes fluttering.

I please him. Sometimes, still, his power to accomplish this was a wonder to him. He could make Chris happy, too.

The blue of Chris’ eyes showed like a slit of warm sky. “What of you?” his soft voice asked.

Manfred found himself bending to kiss the warm brown belly. ”I’m satisfied,” he whispered.

“Because I am?”

“It’s true. Don’t you believe me?”

“Yes. I feel the same.” Chris’ voice held understanding. “But I know you too well, now. So, go ahead. It’s not the first time every time.” Their glances shared the memory. “Not like I was ever truly a stranger to it.” Chris smiled, wryly.

“You were,” Manfred insisted. He could still feel keenly his success with a lover so terribly frightened of being pierced or invaded. He would never forget the look of his young captain’s eyes, like a lost sailor on uncharted seas; or the discovery in the words, “I didn’t know.”

I did that for you, he thought, looking at those eyes now. He had cast out the demon from Christian’s former life.

“I like it with you.” Chris meant the words. Manfred gave him a delight in penetration he had never dreamed he would feel.

They lay belly-to-belly, sweating and content. Manfred made a lazy sound in response to his compliment, then said, “I know.”

Chris was surprised; he had not heard Manfred say anything in quite that way before. ”You’re vain!”

”Vain?” Manfred raised to look at Chris. “What is it? What am I?”

“Proud of yourself. With good reason, it turns out.”

The difference between being invaded by an enemy and what happened between his body and Manfred’s was all the distance between brute labor and art, hate and love.

Was it that Manfred was the first real love of his life? Because he was feeling that truth with every passing moment, every lovemaking. Manfred had been made for him–to heal him; teach him what it meant to give in to another, and not to fear having his heart owned.

 

Part VIII

“I love you.”

Three aching words were whispered from inside the faint cobwebs of very first light. Beyond the four-latticed walls, birds were beginning to talk, too. Only just awake, Manfred could hardly have discerned the human speaker, but for his hair; the unmistakable glint of ice and pale fire against yielding darkness. Christian.

“Is it enough?” Chris asked him.

Manfred reached out dazedly and his fingers collided with Chris’ face. ‘Is it enough?’ His mind mulled it over. Yes? No? He wanted to answer, but Chris’ urgent question referred to something unclear to a mind sleep-fogged.

Was what enough? And why so early? And would he ever fathom the man he loved? But he tightened his grip, yawning broadly. “Everything is enough.” Another yawn escaped as he spoke a breath later, reassuringly. “Just enough.” He felt himself drifting back into a sweet nothingness, already absent. That helps, doesn’t it? he thought hopefully in his loved one’s direction. A few more moments passed…or so it seemed. He forgot to keep the time.

“Everything…” Chris tested the word again, his lips, his warm breath moving against Manfred’s fingers. “But for how long?”

“Long time.” Manfred had let his eyes close. His fingers slid away from Chris’ mouth, catching slightly at moist, tender flesh. “Sleep.” He coaxed Chris to join him, snuggling into their mutual warmth.

“You’re asleep!” Accusing, Chris nudged at him with a hard knee. For a brief moment they were two brothers, forced to share a narrow bed. “Do you understand one thing I’m saying to you?” Chris asked.

“What you want me to understand?!” Manfred cracked one eye, feeling justifiably irritable. “‘Is it enough…. Is it enough–‘ What?”

“Whatever it is I’ve been giving you these last few weeks.” Chris leaned over him, a heavy influence. “Wake up. Please, Manfred, this is serious with me.”

Groaning, Manfred opened his eyes, rubbed them. “Yes, yes, yes… I’m sorry.”

Forcing himself to alertness, he propped himself on an elbow and took a moment to observe Chris more carefully. It had gotten a little lighter, or perhaps his eyes had adjusted. He blinked. Chris’ hair no longer seemed the only source of contrast to the damp gloom. “I am sorry.” After a speculative pause, he slipped his hand under the hair, reaching forward a little in order to rub his chin against Christian’s, to lend him his love. “Just tell me, Chris.” He dragged his chin across the side of the fine-skinned face, delighting in its contrast with sandy stubble. ”I’ll listen.”

“I can’t, not when you do that–” Chris whispered, making a familiar sound.

Manfred received the fierce mouth he had expected, the rough flesh that split him in two, body from reason. He seemed to fall, whimpering like a child to save himself. But his destroyer cut everything too short, grasping his shoulder hard enough to bruise. “It’s not fair, to stop,” he protested, questing for a second kiss.

Chris ignored his state, retreating from his advance. “Do you realize we just may be here the rest of our natural lives?” the young captain asked, gleaming eyes extraordinarily wide, very round.

Manfred stared back, lips burning, his face bare centimeters from Christian’s. Suddenly his body was wide awake, all his senses, in fact. “Yes,” he answered, distracted. But why talk about it? He didn’t quite grasp the cause for Chris’ inexplicable panic; it was as though Chris was somehow just realizing their situation.

”Is that all you can say? What if you get tired of me? Tired of looking at my ugly face, tired of dealing with me, or sleeping with me–bored and impatient with my loving–?”

“That can’t happen,” Manfred stated, flatly. No one had ever made him feel it this way, showed him the other side of himself. He had so much to say. Trying to sum up, he only sighed in frustration. You woke me.

“Why can’t it?”

“Because.” Manfred wondered how Chris could not believe in a fact of life he took for granted. “This is our marriage. It lasts as long as we live. Doesn’t it?”

“Marriage,” Chris commented. It wasn’t an answer. “We’re two men,” he said, sternly. “Without vows, without children…. What’s to hold us together but–the place we are? The island ensures everything. That–that you stay with me.”

Ah, here was the real issue, revealed almost as an afterthought. Manfred could hear it–near terror, stark in the voice. He loosened Chris’ grip on his upper arm, then gently enclosed the suddenly purposeless hand in his own. “No matter where,” he reassured. “It doesn’t matter….” If I could have your child, by the will of God, or give you one, I would. I love you that much. Anything for you…. How many times will you ask me to prove it?

“You think I don’t feel the same?” he demanded, aloud. “I had a dream. In this dream you sailed away in a ship. You left me behind here. I called you. I tried to swim out to you…. When I woke, I was–” The memory of the dream distressed him even now. He had to wait a moment, suddenly caught up in the same sadness that had dragged him up to daylight. But still he continued too soon.”–crying because you never looked at me.” His voice firmed as he prepared to indict. “You never turned! You didn’t want me. And I knew it.” He swallowed, hard. Chris must have heard it. “It was as if–” As if I’d lost the world.

The silence was just long enough.

“You should have awakened me.” Chris soothed with the backs of his fingers, warm to the cool skin of Manfred’s shoulder. ”I’m upsetting you and myself. I swear, I don’t mean to.” He peered at Manfred. “Love?”

“Yes.”

“I remember the way we started. You allowed it–”

“That’s only between us.”

“But that wasn’t how I wanted it to be! I wanted to be gentle to you, as you deserved. I wanted your love… I ended up making you give it to me.” Some faint shudder through the strong body made Manfred wonder how Chris recalled that time. As he himself did? With a kind of awe at what he’d done, what he’d found in his own most secret heart? What he’d been willing to give up….

“I start thinking about the past….” Chris went on. “The future…. Serves me right if I’m insecure where it concerns you.” He caught Manfred’s look. “Yes. I still am. With you lying here willingly beside me…I am. It’s like a wonderful dream. I don’t want to wake up. But all the time I know I’m dreaming!”

Manfred wasn’t sure how to put his reply, exactly, but this time he tried, very hard. “Waking up…this is a gift of life. It is life!”

Chris flopped away, patently frustrated. “How in the world can you be so endlessly–hopeful?! About everything?”

Manfred regretted the distance between them, even knowing it wasn’t his fault. Chris evoked patience in him, just as clouds brought rain. “Chris…. Don’t be angry–”

“I’m not.” Chris looked at him again, more gently. “Really. I’m not. I’m sorry, too.” He reached out with a tentative smile. “I’m a jackass; what more can I say?”

“There’s no one like you,” Manfred observed–it was honesty. Lying down, he kept looking at the person opposite him. Could his life be long enough for him to tire of looking at this face?

“Let me take away the bitterness,” Chris offered, desiring to make amends. And Manfred was happy to let him–but perhaps it shouldn’t be too easy.

“Kiss me again,” he invited. “Like before.”

Chris leaned in toward him, seductive and, by now, clearly seen. “Gladly–”

Manfred interposed, smoothly. “Then I can sleep.”

Chris’ face fell. “Sleep?” His entire expression seemed to ask, “Do you really mean it?”

Manfred embraced him, with deep amusement.

********

Christian had never enjoyed such a lengthy love affair. In his previous life, a month would have amounted to a prison sentence. That wasn’t the case with him and Manfred.

Wanting to live in this state of grace, of first love, forever, could not make him believe in forever, no matter how he tried. What was holding it all together, to begin with? It disturbed him that still, often, he didn’t know how to behave, what was expected of him–or even what he himself expected.

What if it was too late for him to love anyone unreservedly? What if he’d missed his chance for that kind of love, even with Manfred? Asking the questions was difficult, the answers impossible to accept. His real concern was beginning to be not that they wouldn’t be rescued, but that they would…. Living in the real world would surely take the measure of his love and, without doubt, find it wanting.

********

The day turned clear, the sailor’s sight beautifully unlimited. Chris longed to sail–not for home, but for old time’s sake. He settled for working on their craft, with its twin hulls lashed together and moving rudder, though his heart wasn’t much in it…. It was almost finished–was as good as. They could take it out tomorrow, if they wanted to; the day after, anyway. He looked at Manfred who was concentrating on caulking the remaining chinks with a thick mixture of straw and clay. The fine hands were muddy, dark profile tight with industry.

He’s got the right idea. I have to start concentrating on our survival. Can’t fool myself this trip won’t be dangerous. Rafts are uncertain at best.

He was almost sure the thing would float, but how long would it have to last? I won’t see him drown…die out there…. Not through anything I could have prevented. He renewed his effort, more determined this time, thinking with every tug of twine, every knot, that this–or this–could mean the difference between life and death.

A few minutes later, something made him look up. Manfred was a portrait. Chris smiled in spite of all his worries. You satyr. “What’s on your mind?”

“You,” Manfred said, before turning to lead him. “Let’s go inside.”

“Are we ever going to finish this–?”

“Later. After I taste you.”

********

He welcomed Manfred into his arms, into their intimacy, and from there nature took its course. Manfred knew what to do. That dirty hand slid across his belly, marking him, exciting him strangely. Sprawled, he watched the mouth playing tenderly up, down, and around the taut column of his cock. He was proud to have so much of it to offer. But Manfred finally took it all and stole his sight, his consciousness. He cried out with the profound shock, hearing his own harsh voice.

When he became aware once again, it was of simple, physical things–his heart beating, a bead of sweat tickling the centerline of his chest, his breathing against the weight of Manfred’s head on his belly.

“What’d you do to me?” he asked, not much above a whisper, body shaking.

“What I learned to do.”

“Oh, no….” Chris caressed the dark head, feeling lazy. “Nothing I taught you.”

“Oh, yes…you,” Manfred purred an amused accusation, then laughed outright. “You think perhaps I knew another man?”

“You’d better not have,” Chris threatened, idly. His lover’s ease was equal to his, he noticed; Manfred radiated a kind of subtle music of satisfaction. “Did you lose it?”

“With you.”

“That’s beautiful,” Chris said, softly, aware of his own smile, of his lightened, if not completely unburdened, heart. His hands urged Manfred up easily, into his embrace. Gazes locked, they moved together, settling.

“You’re so sensitive….” Chris whispered, admiringly. “I think I could ask you to and you would. Wouldn’t you?” he teased. No reply but the kiss, the wet sound of it, time passing. Later he’d make love to this sweet fellow properly and give Manfred the best–perhaps all–he felt capable of giving. Later, he promised, silently.

********

Chris was forced to declare the raft complete, so for days after that they gathered stores for the imminent journey, filling containers with water and sealing them, drying fish and fruit to keep. The reality of departure was beginning to hit Chris. What would become of them, back in the real world? To avoid confronting that question, he tried to focus on their safety, checking everything twice, compulsively.

“I’ve figured all along that we’re somewhere in the Bahamas,” he said over an evening meal, lying by a bright fire. “I’ve just never been sure where. Not sure enough to make any difference. Those stars up there can’t tell you much if you don’t know where you are in the first place. Polaris gives a hint but only a hint. I’d need a sextant to judge the altitude, and I lost that–” He caught Manfred’s furling brow. “The altitude of Polaris–that’s it.” He pointed and Manfred’s eyes followed, obediently. “The Pole Star. Where it sits in the sky tells you where you are above or below the equator. Judging by eye, and from plain experience, I know broadly where we are, how far south, but that’s not enough.”

Manfred nodded attentively; a good audience. Surprised, Chris realized that he could have taught his friend much more about the heavens: the stars, constellations, and planets that had been his only friends long before he met Manfred, the names of which he’d known well from boyhood.

“We’ve got two choices,” he went on. “If we head out east we could get picked up by the Gulf Stream, drift north into the shipping lanes. We’d stand a fair chance of getting picked up by somebody. Maybe better than fair. Our other choice depends on where we are exactly–heading due west ’til, I’m trusting, we hit the coast of America. But it could be 50 miles or 750. Either way…. We stand the risk of just drifting until the raft breaks up. Or we run out of food and water.” He examined Manfred for reaction. “What do you think?” He noticed his hands were shaking, unaccountably, and occupied them.

“West,” Manfred said. “We couldn’t miss a thing as big as America. Could we?”

“The sea has a way of disappointing. And dashing hopes.” Somehow it had never seemed so true as it did now, even with everything that haunted his past. Chris probed the trusting gaze until he felt himself on the verge of drowning in its beauty. He took a badly-needed steadying breath. “We’ll count on ourselves; it might be enough.” Unable to bear the responsibility of total trust, afraid of losing it, he got up and was almost running. Sensing Manfred’s move to follow, he forestalled the action. “I’ll–” He scrabbled for his composure. “I’ll be back.”

“No!” Manfred roared, startlingly, grabbing his arm. “I won’t let you close me out anymore! Never again.”

Chris turned angrily, mouth open to say something ill-tempered. The man he confronted was deadly serious, in no mood for evasion. Chris was familiar with the look. He sighed, knowing he couldn’t compete with it. Still, he made an effort. Their gazes fought, with deadly seriousness.

“What is it?” Manfred asked. “You don’t think we can make it? Be honest with me.”

Chris stood there, wanting to turn away. But he couldn’t. It was fruitless. He had to look to his lover–there was really no place else he wanted to look. He shook his head, defeated.

Manfred took firm hold of both his arms and looked at him, more squarely. “You don’t want to go at all,” he said, with such penetrating insight Chris was undone.

Manfred’s eyes widened impossibly with the realization that he’d been right. “You don’t, do you?” he said.

Chris agonized. “I’m of two minds. Yes, I want to go, but I’m afraid we won’t make it. Afraid I’ll lose you. And I also know that if we do get back, we’ll both lose something– I’m not sure what.” He touched the earnest face. “The freedom we have.” There was so much more to it than that, but far beyond what words were capable of. “Here we can make our own rules–” Not the least what we choose to do in bed.

“Then we won’t go,” Manfred interjected. “We’ll stay. I’ll stay with you.”

The silence was a long road after that, and they traveled along it, staring at each other, holding on for what felt like dear life.

“What did you say? All our time building this thing? Just thrown away?”

“Chris….” Manfred’s voice was quieter than the breeze. “The place I live is beside you.”

********

They fell headfirst into a bout of stormy, tender love. It held the strange sweetness of battle, the give and take of a vital discussion. Chris found it much harder to sleep, after, than Manfred. He was spent, satisfied, but his heart held too much. He kissed his sleeping companion’s cheek, touching the dark lashes before rising.

He walked down to the beach, head raised to the breeze and the stars. They seemed warm and close tonight, like ten thousand hillside fires. They were his stars now. And Manfred’s. Ours. Maybe we can make them our own, in time. We’ve got a world to make.

Manfred filled his mind. So I’ve given my life to you, to this place. Perhaps he’d been unfair, asking Manfred to stay here with him, to give up his own life, future prospects, but it seemed…neither of them could do otherwise.

He looked out to sea, eyes instinctively seeking far. And he saw something he’d never dreamed, in all this time, that he’d really see. Was he dreaming, now? He blinked twice. And then once again. Out on the water he could make out a clotted gray shape against the vast, dove-gray backdrop of a false dawn. It was a ship, like a pinpoint angel breasting out of the mist.

Chris rubbed his eyes, wanting to make certain he was seeing aright. A ship, making landfall, fair sails billowed.

He sat down, heavily, on the sand–had lost his legs. “My God….” Just as he’d made his peace with all of it…. Peace….

He stared, hardly realizing he was muttering aloud. “I don’t have to say a word. He’s asleep; he need never know….” But even as he said it, he knew he had no right to make this decision for both of them. He had already forced Manfred to stay, hadn’t he? He couldn’t expect to take more as his right, too.

He got up, more slowly than he had ever had in his life. Sleepwalking, he went back to their sleeping fire and prepared a torch. He set it on the beach, where it could be seen for miles. Even if the ship hadn’t planned to anchor offshore, which, by all the signs it was, this time-honored signal would lure it. Then he went to wake Manfred.

He touched a warm shoulder, living this moment-before-knowledge intensely. This would mark the last time they would ever be truly alone together. “Manfred.” No response. You’re a sound sleeper once you start, that’s one thing I’ve learned about you. He shook the prone figure gently. “Manfred. There’s a ship.”

Manfred stirred. “Mm?”

“Wake up. There’s a ship, making landfall.”

Manfred jerked awake. The whites of his eyes shone like wave-bleached shells. “What did you say?” he asked, almost breathlessly.

“Come look. It’s there.”

“Am I still asleep, Chris?”

“No,” Chris answered. “I wish we both were. But it’s time to wake up.”

They walked down to the shore. Once Manfred had seen the still-distant object his eyes sought, he reached for and took firm hold of Chris’ hand. “It’s true,” he whispered. “As you said.”

“Are you happy?” Chris had to ask it, knowing the tone was wrong, double-headed.

“I don’t know,” Manfred said, glancing at him by guttering torchlight. “We decided–” He was well aware of what this meant.

“Forget about that. Something wants us to go. Even brought us a way. It’s meant! It’s all been decided, and nobody asked us what we thought.”

“But–”

Don’t make this harder. “It’s fate, Manfred! That–Hebrew God of yours, maybe. There’s nothing we can do about it. We can’t not go, with a ship dropped right into our laps.”

“Yes we can, not go,” Manfred insisted, the sentence a slipknot of grammar. “Put out the fire, Chris. If they come, we can hide.”

Chris laughed, bitterly, inappropriately. “You really do love me, don’t you?”

“Yes. Anything…. I would do anything for you.”

Chris sighed. He was panting as if he’d raced Manfred here. “Kiss me, then.” The desperation he felt was real. “We won’t be able to do it, free like this, for a long time I think.”

The kiss Manfred gave him seared his mouth and cheek, branding him forever. “Will you stay with me,” he asked. “When we go back to the world?” Foolish to beg for such a promise, now.

“Will you stay with me?” Manfred asked, almost distantly, looking back out toward their approaching saviour. The ship was a plump hen, now, sitting her eggs.

“I want to.”

********

The ship was one of the last of her kind; the Rand, a majestic three-masted merchant sailing vessel out of Havana, heading for Charleston harbor. By dawn, she had anchored, and in due course, seven men came ashore in a longboat. The ship’s master, Thomas Andrews, clearly shocked by the presence of marooned white men on this island in the middle of nowhere, introduced himself, extending his hand.

Chris took it, wondering why it should feel so pleasant. Andrews’ suit of navy wool was very startling to his eyes. Andrews stared at them, too, for long minutes at a time. He was bemused, if not amazed, by their appearance: two near-naked men with long hair and sun-tarred skin.

“Would you mind–telling us where we are?” Chris asked, aware that it must seem like an odd question.

“You’re on one of Great Abaco’s pickaninnies,” Andrews said. “N’more than two hundred fifty mile out from the coast of Florida.”

“Good lord.” Christian turned to Manfred, stunned. “You hear that? We could’ve made it after all. Two hundred fifty miles is two-three days’ good sailing. A week on our raft.”

Manfred nodded. He’d been watching the strangers, carefully, hanging back.

“There’s fifty-dollar worth of these little hummocks out here,” Andrews explained further. “More than you could ever count. You’re lucky we decided to stand down on this one. I’ve been here before, you see. It’s the first land you’ll see due sou’ west of Bermuda. I knew there was sweet water here.”

“You’ve been here?!”

“Eight-nine years past. Sure. I’m a long time sailing these parts. All these waters; I know them that well, like the back of my hand. And you, captain of the Trident. Young Hutchinson. Picture it. We heard of her going down, ‘course; all hands, it was said. But you were remembered as a fine captain. And yours wasn’t the only ship to go down in that hurricane. The Redoubt, the Paramour….”

“This man here is the only other survivor,” Chris said, indicating Manfred by a hand on his shoulder.

“And you’ve been here more than a year. Well, you were each company for the other,” Andrews said. “No shame in it.”

What do you mean by that? Chris’ eyes narrowed.

********

So they began the voyage home, dressed in nautical odds and ends, shaven, shorn, shod, and filled to the brim with a watered-down joy. Chris looked back at their island until it disappeared from sight. Once he’d wanted nothing more than to leave it. Now…. “Godspeed,” he muttered, painfully aware that he would never see this place on earth again.

Skies were fair but the sea was heavy, and soon Manfred was as sick as a poisoned cat. He huddled on deck, gray at the gills, able to keep nothing down. He looked even sicker with all that dark, wild hair gone (Chris had wanted to save a piece, but had felt odd doing a thing like that in front of the Rand’s barber–he’d watched, regretfully, as it was all swept overboard). Manfred was in utter misery, and there was no help for it. Chris wondered. Had his friend suffered like this on the first voyage, too? Luckily, then, was this journey brief–or so he prayed.

What bothered Chris more was that his companion, who’d labored so hard to learn, and who loved to talk and share his thoughts, was completely uncommunicative. Manfred seemed to have temporarily lost his capacity for speech–in English or any other language.

It was a wedge inside their closeness; Chris felt it as such. He stayed near, tending, anxious. But for the entire four-day crossing, Manfred seemed to make little distinction between him and any other man on board.

 

Part IX

The America Manfred had dreamed of before he came to its shore had been like a perfect gem, absolute and never-ending; a place capable of meeting all possible desires, of being all things to all people–heaven on earth.

The America he found in reality was deeply flawed. To a European, a newcomer like himself, it felt uncomfortably…unfinished. America was a man leaving the house in a big hurry, jacket still unbuttoned, tie undone, looking for his hat. Its sheer movement had left Manfred dizzy when he first arrived.

By now he’d seen enough to know that he’d come to a world of both plain beauty and squalor, of unforced kindness as well as cruelty–each seemed to come as easily as breathing to its blunt people.

To his fresh eye, America suffered under a great spiritual darkness, like a man carrying a stone. Still, above all shone a light, as after a storm when clouds are rimmed with silver. Everyone here seemed, somehow, to hold inside a private spring of hope, a talisman they kept safe within themselves. Americans seemed to truly believe their futures could be better than their pasts.

However, to walk on certain streets presented a teeming vision of humanity at its very worst. Manfred had seen–with his own eyes!–slaves; black African men, women, and their babies bought and sold like any other material goods. He’d looked to Chris for explanation, but Chris, grave-eyed, had had none, agreeing that it was wrong, saying only that he had never, and never would, captain a slave ship.

On such streets lived men with daunting scars, thugs of every variety, pickpockets, dock-wallopers, rough boys, opium addicts, and piss-soaked sots, shockingly painted women who hawked their bodies under the watchful eyes of panders.

America had many poor people. Manfred hadn’t expected that. A majority of the local children seemed held together by not much more than the dirt and tattered clothes on their bodies. This was a thing he hated to see. And while these children smiled, laughed, played like any, too many peered suspiciously at the world, on the lookout for what they could get; seemed already adult, with set jaw lines, knowing too much, resigned to surviving at any cost.

Other streets revealed to Manfred a kind of paradise, but one evidently meant only for a chosen few. He’d had glimpses of a way of life beyond his ability to imagine before he came here; large pastel houses with walled gardens and courtyards, from which liveried carriages arrived and departed, bearing women and children dressed like gay flowers and stately men in high beaver hats, with shiny buttons on their silk or linen coats. In America, just as in the old country, there were those who lived above and those who lived down below.

For the last week it had been raining in Charleston, the port he and Christian had, for the time being made their home. Never far away from any point in the city, the blue sea fell into mourning on a day like today; it seemed to have the consistency of oil, and turned like a slow, endless beast. In this oldest section of a city already old (for America), the wharfs laid their perfume thick on the sultry air.

Early morning, the city’s limbs beginning to stir…a good time of day. Produce and seafood vendors were setting up, delivery men starting out in their wagons and carts. Horse’s hoofs echoed on the rain-slick cobbles. Darkened doorways loomed at Manfred’s shoulders, but a few of the windows up above glowed with the evidence of lamps already lit. From one of them an irritable baby wailed.

Abroad on the streets were working men like him, silent wayfarers who knew this complexion of day well. At home Chris still lay abed, but Manfred bore his friend no resentment. An early riser all his life, he couldn’t stay in bed long after waking, so it was just as well he work. Submerged in his thoughts, he walked past landmarks become so familiar he didn’t have to see them anymore to find his way.

The stoops were empty. On sunny days, big-armed matrons leaned out of these upper story windows, and below one would have to pick one’s way through the jumble of the buildings’ inhabitants. Every day they spilled out and down to the sidewalks and the narrow street. Arguing, fighting, laughing gossiping– virtually living their lives–outside had to be preferable to staying in where five, six, seven slept to a sweltering bed; where the walls were as thin as pasteboard and sweated the smell of rancid cooking oil, old wood, vermin, and countless human beings past and present–where there could be no secrets….

The rooming house where he and Chris lived also had thin walls. Without trying, they could hear the married couple in the room next door busy at pleasure (like clockwork, the same two nights of the week, every week), a fact that–among other things–had altered the nature of their own sexual expression. This necessity hadn’t presented much of a problem, however. They’d had very little to express in recent weeks. He and Chris might just as well have been brothers.

He sighed, heavily, considering his need, trying to put it to the back of his mind.

Their boarding house was shabby but clean enough, and almost respectable, run by a large stern woman who insisted on being called Madam Rostand; she tended a patch of long-faded gentility in the slum acres that, over the years, had developed around it. Chris had nodding acquaintances here and in the neighborhood; men he had sailed with or drunk with or fought with.

The two of them shared one room, on the top floor, corner. From the high, narrow window, they could see the masts of ships in the nearby harbor, and the sea beyond.

Christian had told him that this was probably the best they could do for a while until he got his affairs straightened out. He’d been advanced a lump sum of money by the trading company that employed him. But, as Christian explained, earnestly, a ship’s captain only made money if he brought a ship successfully home. Christian had decidedly not done that.

He’d get another ship, soon. Then, he’d promised, they could begin making a better life. “Together. Here’s my hand to God.”

Naturally, he’d meant to reassure, but Manfred had been oddly troubled. Yes, it was a wonderful thing that Chris would have his work again. But if he did get the ship, he’d be away for long stretches of time. That was the life of a seafarer; no other way to live it and keep the name. Those who loved such men waited at home, left alone for weeks, months.

What was it like for the ones who waited? What would it be like for me? Manfred wondered. Would he and Chris be “together,” in any sense of the word? How could it be a better life?

He hadn’t wanted to bring up his concerns about this; they seemed selfish. And he found it difficult to express exactly what he did want Chris to do, or how he wanted things to be. It couldn’t be fit into one small box.

Besides, from what high place could he make judgment on what a person’s life should be? His own wasn’t perfect; it had never been. Who was he to complain in the face of so many other imperfect lives? He wanted to be at Chris’s side. That he knew with the most certainty; that was the end-all of his desires.

So far his fortunes had been good and bad. Brought low by some mysterious malady, he’d lain abed for days after their arrival in the “real” world, lacking the strength to eat, to reach the chamber pot under his own power, or even to talk.

Chris stayed with him as much as possible, and helped him, but they had both been, each in his own way, alone during that whole strange time, locked away inside themselves. In effect, it was as if they’d become aware of themselves again as separate beings.

When he recovered, he’d looked for and quickly found employment in a foundry, doing the kind of work that required only a strong back. Not for a minute could he delude himself that his job had anything to do with the talents of a craftsman.

Nor would the foundry boss allow him to observe the Sabbath, or any holy day–even as much of them as he might still have felt compelled to observe. Just as well. His faith was bittersweet to him now.

In his explorations of the district he’d come upon a place of worship, small but beautifully adorned, at the heart of the tiny Jewish community he’d also discovered. Though he did not feel fit to enter into the apparently thriving, close-knit community or the synagogue, he’d sit on the stoop of the bakery across the street and listen for the benedictions and the prayers; to follow along with the familiar Hebrew: “Come, my beloved, to meet the bride.”

By his own admission, he was no longer the proper vessel for such fulfillment–he’d been shaped to other use, now. Self-imposed exile from his faith was something he kept private, a severe bargain he’d struck with his own soul. What it meant was separation from the God of his father, from atonement, and from the blessing.

For Chris he was willing to pay an extremely high price, one treasure of real value–his religion–in trade for another. For Christian. Piously, Manfred offered a personal sacrifice: his faith in trade for the sin of loving a man and going so eagerly–passionately–against the Law. That he didn’t regret it didn’t make it less a sin.

At the foundry, he was paid three dollars a day, seven days a week. All the immigrants who worked there…Kreuze the young Alsatian, Mläjik (another Pole, a Catholic, who’d become a friend), Gianetti the Italian, were paid less money than any American man. However, for five, almost six months he and Chris had managed to live decently–modestly–on his pay, supplemented by the dwindling advance. So far, the money was enough to get them by; enough, that is, to pay rent, buy food, and to slake Christian’s thirst.

Chris had spent his first days back on American soil reordering his life, establishing an existence that had been in limbo; his solicitor had thought him dead.

Supposedly he was writing in a journal, hoping to have his recollected experiences as a castaway–missing a few important passages–published. This opportunity came to pass after a brief account of their adventure and rescue appeared in a Charleston newspaper. A man from a small publishing house had read of them and made a firm offer. The story had to be written, first, though….

…Which clearly was a difficulty. It had become increasingly obvious that on most days Chris had been drinking heavily when Manfred came home to him, and that no writing whatsoever had been done. More and more often, he was not there when Manfred arrived.

Alcohol did Chris no good at all. Some men it made happy, some sad. With Chris it was an alarming mixture of both. Why are you drinking like this? Manfred kept wanting to ask, though he had his suspicions. Of course the young captain enjoyed his whiskey–Manfred knew that, accepted it though he never touched drink himself.

But when had “enough” become “too much”? Manfred didn’t quite know yet how to broach the subject, understanding Chris well enough to know that he wouldn’t take criticism of his behavior kindly.

Biting his tongue, Manfred left the sore spot alone.

For now….

On his own account, he’d been striving to improve his English, learning to read it a little, and even to write it–a very little, so far. He’d never learned to read and write his own language.

When Chris first began the writing, Manfred had watched, fascinated by the mysterious grace of the black ink line that formed words on a cream-colored page. Caught by the magic of the process, he’d discovered in himself a wish to set his own thoughts on paper, too–perhaps one day to trace his own, more secret and still untold, side of their journey.

Chris had tried to teach him in spare moments. Sadly, there’d been less time for such things since he’d started his job, fewer and fewer moments they truly shared.

Adding to Manfred’s distress, their physical relationship became first casualty of a new order of living. When Chris forbade him making any public demonstration of private feelings, saying it wouldn’t be looked on with tolerance, would make them objects of outright scorn and even persecution, could harm their livelihood, the warning had been chilling. Manfred did understand–with his reason if not his heart; he knew about persecution. But living with an eye out for it every second was hard, and painful…especially when the private demonstration of private feelings ceased as well.

Because of the nagging restrictions placed on their sexual lives, simple togetherness was what Manfred increasingly looked forward to, even more than sexual pleasure and satisfaction. Chris was becoming more of a last-ditch refuge for him than a completion of his body and soul. When Chris was there, Manfred clung shamelessly to him. Even if there was no response….

Lying against Chris’s back in that dark room at night was the only time Manfred could feel certain anymore; not only that the man he held was truly his, or that the experiences he’d had with Chris on the island had been real, but that he was real, that his life had any validity or purpose at all, now. These moments were becoming rare, and therefore he grasped at them the harder. He missed the closeness he’d known on The Island (they’d never named it anything else but that), and in a poignant, incurable way the place itself.

The sounds of the Mercator Street foundry signaled his arrival at the threshold of his day–of all the days he could foresee. He looked up from his pensive musings to face it.

********

“He thinks I’m ashamed of ‘im,” Chris slurred the words into his chest. “And he’s right.” A pause was necessary to refill the glass, drink it straight down. The burnt-maple tasting liquid seared his insides as he went on talking to himself. “He’s right. I am. ‘Cause he’s a better man than me.”

“Shame of who, suh?” The lissome black whore leaned into his line of sight, her piquant, raisin-colored face wearing its look of amused indulgence and deference. Chris had forgotten she was there.

“None of your business,” he said to her, shortly. “I haven’t got any more money, if that’s what you’re buzzing around me for.”

“You done pay me for my time, handsome suh,” she said, in her well-tutored, persuasive way. ”You like to go upstairs now?”

“No.” Chris stared at her. He’d come here to drink; for the life of him he did not remember hiring a whore’s services. Yet here she was–opportunity in the flesh. But no, he belonged to somebody else, somebody he wasn’t worthy of, a beautiful man who shamed him by not being ashamed.

He hadn’t realized how it would be. Wanting so single-mindedly to return home with his prize, to be Manfred’s hero and love, he hadn’t considered how it really was for men like– Me. Men like me. Sodomites, catamites, buggers–no sense mincing words; others wouldn’t.

How can I love him here? Men who love other men are pointed at and mocked, or arrested and tried for their supposed immorality; humiliated, reputations ruined…. And this is the place I promised him would be so good.

He sighed, with great weight. Perhaps it is–but only for some. This love of theirs demanded a steep payment, tribute paid in the coin of guilt.

“But you pay Miz Ruby, already,” the girl insisted. She tempted him, taking his hand to guide it. “Ione’s got somethin’ juicy here.” Her thighs within the thin paisley cloth of her dress clamped around his fingers. She tantalized, moving. “Sweet…. Jus’ for you.”

“I paid you to please me,” he pointed out, harshly, taking back his hand. “And it would please me a great deal for you to stop talking now.”

With a submissiveness that didn’t fool him, the fine head with its coal-colored ringlets went down. “Yes, suh.”

He catalogued her features; supple figure, high jutting breasts, flawless skin; she had lips like heavy wine drops, lashes like gleaming crow’s wings. Another time, another place–hell yes, without a doubt.

Need hadn’t stopped with him. Sex with a man was still what he needed, what excited him. Physically, for him, Manfred was nigh impossible to resist. But the ability to love, to nurture, to sacrifice, to bear up under anything for the sake of a love–all that was being ground to powder by the slow pressure of mundane living; this lingering consumption for which there was no cure.

I can’t make love to him. It’s nothing but a lie for me to take him for my own at night then deny him in the light of day. Another drink went quickly to quench his rising sadness. I’ve made a mess of this almost from the word ‘go.’ Can’t ever pick up a goddamned egg without cracking the shell.

What brought him more grief than anything else was that Manfred’s love for him hadn’t wavered, had not once flagged. There was still such bottomless worship in those eyes when they looked at him; he couldn’t live up to it. Increasingly, he couldn’t even face it.

One small incident remained in his mind with such diamond clarity that it seemed a malediction laid on him forever. He could never forget Manfred taking his arm that day, in innocent comradeship as it turned out, nothing more. As if he’d been branded with hot iron, he could still feel the touch, the dependence in it….

Fearing exposure (for what he was–it wasn’t even as if the accusation he expected would be false!), he’d yanked his arm away, and it had been too late to prevent the look of shock Manfred had turned on him–as if ice-cold water had been dashed in that faun’s face.

Too late to prevent himself from showing a detestable truth of his own: the shame he hadn’t had the deftness to disguise. What ruling was strict enough for the man who would do that to his beloved?

I can’t change, he thought, angrily. Good reasons why I stay friendless. Standing, grasping his bottle; without a word and wanting no responsibility, he took the colored prostitute up a narrow, whispering stair.

********

At three in the morning, almost insensible with the aftereffects of powerful drink and sex, Chris was finally thrown bodily out of the 17th Street bawdy house. When he drank as much as he had this night, he took a thoroughly wicked pleasure in fist fights. He’d done some damage before he hit the pavement.

Now, a solitary reveler, he wandered in song up the canal street, knee-deep in creeping mist, not at all sure of his destination.

“Ahh, yes,” he drawled, remembering. “Home; that was it. I’m going home.” His laugh had nothing to do with a light heart; it was horribly bitter, mean-spirited. “Home to my love,” he sang, off-key. ”Nothing left for him, though. Not a drop. I gave Ione your share, Manfred. Prize-winning ride if I say so myself.”

He laughed once more, then abruptly stopped, imagining his lover standing before him at this, the worst of all possible times. Sudden shame had a sobering effect. ”You ask me why?” he said to the vision. “I don’t know why! I’d like to know, too. Why in God’s name am I doing this to you? To myself? Damn it!”

The bottle he carried was empty he found, and he smashed it blindly against the nearest wall. “Because you’re a greedy little bastard. You know how to get to me…. You-you ask for too much, without saying a single word. You’re kind and you’re patient. Waiting for the crumbs I toss your way….” He groaned. “I don’t deserve you, Manfred. I could drink your kindness dry. You hold up a glass to all my failings and I can’t look away! But I can’t show less courage than you expect of me– You love me.”

He said it again, softer. ”You love me.” His body sagged, heavy. “Curse you, why?”

For a moment, there was a distinct possibility he might sob out loud. But no. Somewhere he’d lost his voice, and his tears. In any case, what happened to him now was much harder than simple weeping. He could have found release in that. Instead, unable to maintain his posture, he was a melancholy drunk going down on hands and knees in a puddle of dirty water. Spasms racked him to his core, but produced nothing.

Eyes still dry as powder, he got up slowly, his insides, especially his heart, sore, strained. Suddenly he felt worn out, the earlier night’s glee gone. The bacchanal was finished. He staggered home, not from intoxication but mental exhaustion.

He climbed the stairs to the room. When he approached it, he found himself hoping, not for the first time, that Manfred would be asleep.

No such luck. A lamp’s naked glow greeted him inside. And Manfred lay propped in bed, facing the door.

Grave eyes were the first sight that greeted him. They held him squirming there in the doorway, under their figurative thumb. The expression in them was odd. Not anger, Chris decided, frankly puzzled by that lack. Instead, what he’d come face to face with seemed more like cold determination, the gaze of an ancient oracle. Somehow, Manfred knew all.

Chris’s skin crept with something that wasn’t physical; mouth bloodied, hands dirty, coat torn, he hadn’t a leg to stand on. Manfred’s unleashed temper, bad as it might be, would have been a blessing compared with this–what?–Inquisition?

Chris could say nothing and (prudently, he sensed) didn’t. The man lying in bed had lost every bit of that patience Chris had foolishly counted on.

Those eyes followed him the whole time; that singular gaze unflinching, unrelenting as he awkwardly pulled off his boots, stood to strip away his shirt, peel off trousers. He felt like a moth caught in a spyglass. But when he was down to his long drawers, Manfred turned away from him, turning over in bed, wrapping arms tight around the flat pillow.

Blowing out the lamp Manfred had left burning for him, Chris got very gingerly into their bed. Taking a chance, he reached longingly to touch the sleek muscled back. His fingers made the barest contact with silk, but Manfred pulled away. The way he did it was strangely without reproach though, making Chris somehow more uneasy.

“Don’t touch me until you wash.” The dark voice warned almost as a doctor’s might. Then, simply, matter-of-factly, “You stink of her.”

Chris’s heart sank a mile. “Of–of her?” Knowing he’d been caught made him stammer. And Manfred’s distaste embarrassed him acutely. His lover was a man who kept himself as clean as a priest.

“I saw when you took off the shirt,” Manfred explained. “Somebody scratched you. I didn’t.” His tone said, ‘Don’t take me for a fool.’

“Manfred, I’m sorry. It just–happened. I was drunk….”

“Drunk.” Manfred’s contempt was audible. “I’m damned tired of hearing this word.”

“Ssh.”

“No.”

“Let’s not argue, Manfred.” Chris fell back, wearily. “I don’t want to argue.”

“I’m not arguing,” Manfred said. “I’m saying. That’s all. I’m talking.”

“I’ll apologize to you if you give me a chance,” Chris said. Seems I’m always on my knees to you. Why is that? “Forgive me.”

“Like always,” Manfred retorted. “I must be made of forgiveness.”

That brought Chris up short. Once again, he’d neglected to give Manfred credit for an adult’s perceptiveness; continually made the mistake of thinking his lover a complete innocent because he had little English. It had never been true; Chris had just mislaid certain memories.

“You want me to let you off the line,” Manfred analyzed, voice striving to remain firm and unemotional. “When it’s over you can put it behind you–until the next time. You take me for granted.”

“I know, I know. I do.” What point in denying it?

”Why?” Manfred asked, implacably.

Chris clamped his jaw and remained silent.

“If you don’t answer, I will,” Manfred told him. “You take me for granted because I let you. Because I won’t punish you.”

That last stabbed sharp. “You’re doing a good job of it right now,” Chris said, hotly.

“What you do a good job of,” Manfred moved on, a slow and dogged flood, “is getting fall-down drunk every day.”

“Not every day!” Chris protested, his own deep-seated anger, tightly repressed until now, flaring.

“Every other day, every third day–is still as bad. Am I blind and deaf?”

Chris let his head sink on the pillow next to Manfred’s. He was tempted to put it over his head and keep it there.

“Leave me alone, Manfred. I’m in no shape to thrash all this through tonight–today–this morning. Whatever the hell time of day it is! I’m not asking you to forget what I’ve done to you. Any of it. Just–”

“Accept it?” Manfred sounded tired, suddenly, as fatigued as Chris. “I accept you,” he went on, stressing the word. “Because I love you.” He seemed to wait for some response, but got none. “Then did you stop loving me?” he asked. The resignation behind the question was heartbreaking.

“No!” Chris stirred in alarm. “I haven’t stopped,” he swore. “I don’t think I could.” If anything, I love you too much.

“Then, why do you go and get this woman?” Manfred pressed, his own emotion revealing. “While I-–“ His voice made an odd shift in register. “I long for even a kiss from you?”

The knife had just been slipped between Chris’s ribs, softly, with regret. “I hate myself, Manfred,” he blurted out. “And the more I hurt you, the more I hate myself–”

Manfred turned over to him. “I thought I had cured you,” he said, his tone changed.

“There is no cure,” Chris said, desolate. In the silence he got up and went to the washstand, poured water from the pitcher to the bowl. He’d been ordered to wash–it was the least he might do; it was something he could do. But a bath would least of all cure what ailed him. His own life ailed him. The stain it had left inside him was blacker.

He set to work scrubbing briskly, using plenty of the strong lye soap. With Manfred looking on, it became a kind of ritual for him, preparation for a sacrifice. Before going under the knife, he’d been charged with the task of purifying himself, and he did so, until his skin turned red. He scoured and rinsed his mouth. After he finished washing, he took the towel they both used and dried himself with painstaking thoroughness.

As he was doing this, he heard their bed complain behind him. Manfred approaching? He half turned to find out if this was true, but by then a pair of warm arms had already stolen around him. As they tightened, he couldn’t help the sigh that gushed up out of him.

“Forgive me,” he asked, this time in a prayerful whisper.

“I did.”

“Manfred….” Chris sighed. “I suppose I’m really drinking–and everything else–because I know that it puts some distance between us,” he said. “I let it. I look in your eyes–and I want to give you everything–”

“I have everything I want.”

“But I feel–I know I’ve disappointed you, Manfred; betrayed you, even. Letting you think that the world I lived in was the place for you? That I was the love for you against all odds. I must’ve been crazy.”

“You disappointed yourself, Chris,” Manfred said to him, wielding the phrase like a tenderhearted surgeon. “That’s the hardest to bear, isn’t it?”

“You know?” Then he thought, Why am I surprised?

“I know. Listen to me.” Manfred held his gaze. “You are not a bad person. No matter what you think, or say, or try to do to prove it.” He grasped Chris’s arms and shook him a little for emphasis. “I-want-nothing-from-you. Nothing you can’t give. I don’t ask you to be some kind of angel, always perfect, always good. I ask to live with a man, love a man, not a painted picture.”

Chris took in these words with a sense of abject disbelief.

“I beg you to stop drinking because it hurts you. Because I know you can stop if you want to,” Manfred said, sincerely. “But I don’t stop loving you. What kind of husband I-I would be to you? Even what kind of friend?”

Husband…friend, Chris echoed in thought. I wanted to be those things to you in the way you deserved; in the way you are to me.

“What kind indeed?” he said, sourly. “The thing is, I can’t keep–” Start again. “This isn’t the island, where we could make our own law, do what we wanted. For your own good, the sake of your future, find yourself a woman, marry again, have some children…. You’d be safe, Manfred! You’d be in the right. Understand? Not some kind of an invert. You’d stand a chance of-of fitting in somewhere, making a life.”

“You don’t mean it! You couldn’t. But anyway, isn’t that my choice to make? I choose to be with you; who’s forcing me? Fitting in like you say, that’s not important to me. As long as I stay with you, I can be happy. My love is good steel. You understand what I mean? Can’t be broken.” He turned Chris, gently, and Chris came, ready this time to face him.

Manfred reached up to touch the point of his cheek.

“Ow.” He flinched away, if only slightly. The cheekbone hurt–must have been clipped in the tussle that had ended in his forcible ejection from the bordello. “Is it bruised?” he asked, breath hissing in a little.

Manfred nodded. He stretched to plant a whispering kiss on the spot.

“I have my worries, you know,” he confided then. “Just like you. You’re not the only one….”

“What do you worry about?” Chris asked, taking hold of Manfred’s upper arms. Soothing someone felt better than being soothed; he found it a relief.

“About–how it will be to live here without you. I don’t want to.”

“What do you mean? Without me?”

“When you go back to sea. I don’t want it to happen. I know you have to do it. But I worry I might never see you again. It’s possible–”

“A second shipwreck happening to the same captain would be the damnedest kind of luck,” Chris pointed out, comfortingly.

“It could happen,” Manfred hurriedly insisted, probing Chris’s face with desperate eyes. “Or something else bad–”

Chris held his lover’s shoulders, looking at him. “The sea’s part of me. I don’t know another way to live my life.” He smiled, ruefully, wondering if that was indeed true. On the island he’d learned to love a man. And life had been for the most part good; peace and plenty for everybody…for two. All that was over, though, wasn’t it?

He stroked Manfred’s now brief curls. “At sea, at least, I know what I’m doing. I tend to find trouble when I’m on solid ground.”

“I heard that someplace,” Manfred nodded, chin held high. He gestured at Chris’s bruise. “The same place where you got that,” he said, prickingly, making Chris flush down to his breastbone, the skin warming.

Still, Manfred seemed to be taking Chris’s feminine liaison reasonably in his stride. Undoubtedly it had hurt him. But maybe because he was a man himself, or maybe because he knew Chris, he pardoned, did not condemn. What he would not pardon or accept was being lied to.

“She was pretty?” Manfred asked.

Chris nodded, swallowing.

“Is that what you like, Chris?” The dark eyes were searching, vulnerable. Then the lashes swept down, concealing them. “I-I haven’t forgotten what a woman feels like.”

Dear God. “No.” Chris swore, wanting to kiss these suddenly so-inviting lips. “Nothing compares to you.” A little kiss to start? Soft…welcoming? He sought it. “I regret it, and I’m sorry. Sorry….”

They both ventured into an embrace, wary for a moment before melding their lips together.

“It’ll never happen again,” Chris promised, in his heart of hearts believing he really meant the promise this time, and wasn’t just taking for granted that he did.

They shared another kiss, and then another, the trouble smoothing over, desire long put off or denied, rising. Love was life, it was here; and perhaps the only thing in the world capable of leavening the heaviness of living.

They did both so want things to be right between them. The fact at bottom was that they cared for each other more deeply than either had ever cared for anyone else.

After the waste of tonight’s act of sex with a paid stranger–the first time he’d been with anybody else–Chris understood the difference. He remembered love. When he considered the way he’d been jeopardizing it since the beginning, testing it sorely, trying for all he was worth to spoil it, he couldn’t see the sense. He could have lost it all.

I don’t dare lose this, he thought, burning the warning into his brain, in the hope it would take. If I do, I’ll have lost everything I find worth having in this world. How many more chances can I expect him to give me?

 The lovemaking Chris gave him was gentle and good; one-sided but so overwhelmingly necessary for Manfred as to be painful. Having done without for days and days, he couldn’t keep silent. But concern had to come after, if at all, not during. Not this time. With no regret, sated, he slept nestled in Chris’s arms the remainder of a night soon to end.

Before daybreak Manfred rose to prepare for work, but Chris stopped him.

“Not today,” he said, drawing Manfred back, a cat tugging on a bowl of cream, just about to upset it. “Today.” he said, “we spend together. I’ll go out for breakfast. Rolls, milk, those big peaches you love, from the one-armed produce man? The captain orders you to lie here until he gets back.” Pausing, he lifted Manfred’s palm to lay against his face. “He intends to love you. Spend hours at it….”

“I’ll be let go,” Manfred protested, pushing away temptation. “We have to eat.”

Chris smiled at his dedication as at a charming flaw. “You’re too responsible by far. Piss on that miserable job. Let them hire back all the mules you replaced.” He laughed and Manfred had to grin, too; Chris’s laughter, when it was warm and genuine, had a way of infecting him. He relaxed, feeling free of trouble for the first time in too long.

“I expect to hear something about my new ship in a day or two,” Chris went on. “Whereupon my stock in this town should go up considerably. You won’t have to work anywhere.” Idly combing through the wintry sunlight of his hair, he drifted into his thoughts.

Contrarily, Manfred felt a cloud descend on him. “A matter of days?”

“God willing, yes.” Glancing at him, Chris seemed to be reminded of Manfred’s concerns. “Everything will be fine. In fact, I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit. And it’s possible you could ship out with me. I can’t see why not. You could sign on same as any man, Manfred. Be my shipmate. Might be handy to have a talented ironworker aboard. You’re a really fine carpenter, too. I know that for a fact.”

All Manfred seemed able to think about was the debilitating seasickness he was so susceptible to. He gulped, involuntarily. “I don’t know. I–”

“It’s perfect, Manfred,” Chris enthused. “I don’t know why I didn’t think of it before! Of course, I didn’t know how staying behind would bother you until last night. Well, this solves everything.”

Manfred groaned, unconvinced. “The ocean….”

“But you’d be with me,” Chris said, taking gentle hold of his face. “We’d be together. It’d be worth it.”

********

“Back-slider” was a new word for Manfred. Acquainting himself with it, he had difficulty with the way it fit in his mouth; the sounds fell out crooked, bumping and jostling each other.

He’d heard the somberly dressed temperance women use it–the “League Ladies” who clustered like somber coveys of quail on various street corners. The word might never have meant anything to him, except that it applied so accurately to Chris who was slowly, slowly sliding back (after a brief respite) into the embrace of strong drink.

Manfred sometimes felt, strongly, that his beloved drank only because it was there, readily available. When Manfred first saw Christian, he’d been drunk as an Irishman. After that night he hadn’t had any more alcohol–there’d been none–but he hadn’t seemed to need it, either. Here he seemed to use it to avoid his problems. Back there, problems couldn’t be washed away; they had to be faced open-eyed, clear-headed.

Manfred wished more and more often that they could go back to the island. He missed their patch of sand; there were places on it, angles and qualities of light and cloud, times of day, odors, and tastes, still so piercingly fresh in his mind. When he thought of it, it was like remembering a happy childhood or some paradise left behind in a dream. Lost forever when the sleeper abruptly wakes….

But since returning there was an impossibility, what other solution could he find to Chris’s drinking problem? Was there nothing he could do except stand by and watch?

There was no good news about their ship. It existed, yes. Manfred had seen it, docked in the harbor. However, financing for the refitting and overhauling of the Cold Harbor–Chris’s new vessel–and for her cargo was tied up in a dispute among the syndicate of her owners. Chris hadn’t even been allowed to set foot on board her, yet.

She was beautiful; tall, harmonious, spirited. A mature lady made all of wood and metal and cloth, deep-breasted for cargo. Seeing Chris’s face when he looked upon Cold Harbor was almost enough to make Manfred jealous.

“She’s one of the last of them,” Chris had said, admiringly. “Every year we’ll see more and more steamships. Sure, they’re faster, I’ll grant that. But I’ll take the feel of this beauty any day.”

He seemed changed, transported when he talked about ships; it was a side of him Manfred loved to see. At such times he felt he could look at this handsome, searching face forever.

But that same night of the morning they went to look at Cold Harbor, Chris abused Manfred in bed, ramming in as if tryin to locate something he desperately had to have.

As if he’d needed to exert his strength over someone or something, he’d held Manfred uncomfortably immobile; seemingly wanting neither participation from his partner, nor to be touched by the body he invaded.

When he could speak, he apologized profusely, of course; many soft kisses, an embrace, words…. He said he had no idea what had come over him.

“I felt that you meant it,” Manfred whispered, a long time after, questioning the face in the dark. “To hurt.”

He was afraid. And not for the reasons Chris might have thought. To him a terror seemed unmistakably present. Their love, as he’d known it, was drying up, burning off, and there seemed nothing he could do to prevent it happening.

After tonight, he feared more than anything what might replace that love. “Did you?” he asked.

“No,” Chris assured. “No, Manfred. I swear– I didn’t.”

Manfred accepted the falsehood, mind removed, looking for an answer; if there was one. If they could start over, get enough breathing space to talk–if they could afford honesty….

He decided the next day to accompany Chris on the Cold Harbor when the time came, despite the seasickness, despite everything. Chris would be different at sea, Manfred was sure of that. The sea would heal him a little, wouldn’t it, and ease Manfred’s way in to find the root of the trouble.

********

The door swung open, Chris bursting through, all grins, dimples showing. Walking fast had mussed his hair. “The suit’s settled,” he exclaimed, striding to the window and back. “I sail on the 2nd, bound first for the British Isles, then back by way of Cuba to Charleston.”

“I’m going with you,” Manfred said, pausing in the task of wringing out a freshly washed shirt.

Chris looked at him, sharply. There was a silence, not an encouraging one. “Yes, yes. Of course. I want you to.”

You did, but not now, Manfred observed, keenly. I wonder when you changed your mind. Chris turned to the window. Avoiding eye contact? Well, you should have told me, Manfred thought, perversely self-satisfied. It’s too late for you, now. “I’ve made up my mind,” he announced.

Chris wouldn’t be able to get rid of him that easily. Their relationship had to be given its chance. He refused to be left behind. Manfred saw a course of action clear before him, and he resolved then and there to see it through.

“We have to make it plain,” Chris said, then, doubtfully. “That you’re to sleep in my cabin.”

“No,” Manfred said, simply.

Chris whirled. “No? What do you mean, ‘no’?”

“Meaning ‘no’. I’ll sleep with the other crew, where they sleep.” Manfred shrugged, philosophically. ”I’ll eat with them and do my job…. It will be fine.”

“But, Manfred, that’s–” Chris was plainly flummoxed. “I mean, what did you intend we should do about our-our friendship? I mean– You know….”

“The captain decides what his men do, doesn’t he?” Manfred said, ambiguous, and deliberately so. “When the captain wants to see me, let him call me in. I couldn’t disobey.” He knew Chris would never do any such thing.

“Call you?” Chris’s fair brow knit. “I think I would’ve preferred to keep things between us a little closer to the vest, Manfred.” He was a study in skepticism. “I guess I’d planned it differently.”

“It’s better this way, Chris,” Manfred said, calmly. “After all, do secrets on a ship stay secret?” He went on without waiting for an answer, cutting Chris off. “If I stayed with you,” he reasoned, “they’d wonder, wouldn’t they? They’d think the very worst. ‘Why does so-and-so sleep in the captain’s quarters? What are the two of them doing in there?’ This way, if you did call for me once in a while, and I stayed for a few minutes, nobody would think much of it. It won’t have to be secret; we won’t be hiding anything.”

Chris just stared.

Manfred turned away before he made the mistake of letting his concealed amusement percolate to the surface at Chris’s expression.

“Your wisdom’s admirable,” Chris said, behind him, doubt and confusion in his tone. “Maybe you can explain it again, sometime,” he muttered under his breath. “and it’ll make some sense to me.”

“Tell me what to do when I sign up,” Manfred said, changing the subject.

********

The sickness had been terrible. The first day out Manfred would have begged to be put to death–if he’d been able to speak. But he felt he was getting a grip on it, finally. This morning, the seventh out from Charleston, he’d kept his breakfast down for the first time.

Actually, when he wasn’t emptying out his guts, he’d begun to rather enjoy the life on board ship; the constant salt wind that raced his blood and washed the city out of his nostrils, the daily routine of useful work, the singing and music at sunset when the work was done.

So far the captain hadn’t called him to those private quarters. The first days Manfred would’ve had nothing to offer, anyway; not hanging over the ship’s rail an hour at a time.

In any case, Chris was too busy for sex. More to the point as far as Manfred was concerned, he had no time to drink. There was rum on board, but Chris had almost defiantly allocated it all for the men, keeping no personal store for himself. Admirable, even if probably done only for Manfred’s benefit.

Manfred went by the evidence he could see, and Chris was sober. So far, the signs were hopeful that a change was possible; more so than in months.

********

The crossing took a mere three-and-a-half weeks, with favorable winds and friendly weather. The Cold Harbor docked at Southampton in the early morning hours of the thirtieth.

By that time, Manfred could’ve called himself a seasoned sailing man. No longer helpless victim of the sea’s motion, able to hold up his end of the work, he’d unintentionally earned himself a real place in the crew.

 

The first night nearly all of the crew went ashore for the expected fun and frolic. Chris remained on board, closeted in his quarters, as he usually had been at night.

And Manfred stayed, volunteering to take the watch. He sat content, listening to the cries of gulls, and watching the slowing activity of the harbor. The blood of sunset washed over everything with a kind of sweet sadness. The ship was quiet, breathing against the water that buoyed her, and he sighed, touched by the timeless beauty of the evening.

He did not go in to Chris. Tonight Chris came out to him. Manfred heard the footsteps, measuring in his mind’s eye the length of leg, the body’s weight. His lover’s slender appearance was deceptive. The ears heard a big man.

“Hello, there.”

Manfred turned, looked up. “Hello.”

Chris was looking down at him. The blue eyes were clear and straightforward. But he hesitated, not speaking again for a moment, as if deciding whether he should.

“A lovely night tonight,” he ventured. “Don’t you think?”

“Yes,” Manfred agreed. “I was just thinking so.”

“Feels as if I haven’t talked to you in years, Manfred.”

“I know. But we’ve both been busy, haven’t we? Working hard….”

“That’s true.” Chris’s voice had a feathery quality. “Look, will you have dinner with me?” he asked, as if it had taken a lot of courage for him to make this simple request. “I’ve asked Cooky to set something…. Maybe you’d like to come and enjoy it with me.”

Manfred nodded. “I would enjoy it.”

There was a complex pause on both their parts, collision of the inner thoughts of two minds.

“Will you sleep with me tonight?” Chris asked.

Manfred looked down over the side at the water. “Because we have the ship to ourselves?” he asked.

“No,” Chris brushed the question aside, impatiently. Manfred felt him looking. “Yes,” came the admission, a stab at candor. “But more because I long for you, Manfred. I want to touch you, be with you–taste you….”

Taking a long breath, Manfred looked at him, then. “And I, you,” he admitted, something inside him beginning to tremble. I shouldn’t…. But you’re so beautiful, right now. I have no resolve when you look at me this way.

“You do?” Chris asked.

Manfred stood. His knees trembled a little. “I can show you,” he invited, gently.

********

Chris’s narrow captain’s bed creaked. Muscled form adorned by lamplight, Manfred was riding him slow and hard; moaning soft and completely unashamed. Chris stroked the cord and fur of his lover’s arms, scorched by Manfred’s beauty.

At first Manfred had been very much in control of the situation, using his strength to demand pleasure, pressing Chris’s shoulders into the pillow. But now Chris took charge, pacing himself, timing the stroking of his right hand with the movement of the rest of him, with the part that burned inside Manfred, that threatened any second to escape his control.

After taking turns for the last few delirious moments, their separate voices began to agree. Their eyes met, held as they struggled to find the right combination. For a suspended moment it seemed inevitable that they would arrive together, but Manfred lost the thread first, gasping, helpless, breaking the beat to spatter Chris. The orgasm marked its own time, slowing to the last, slow beat.

At last Manfred collapsed, eyes closed, arms and legs sprawled, draped over Chris’s body. Chris could feel his lover’s heart hammering fast, feel how ragged Manfred’s breathing was by the pressure of the chest and belly hard against his.

The young blacksmith whispered then, almost sadly, “I don’t want anybody else.”

“Am I the one?” Chris asked, taking pride in it. With care, he changed their positions, placing this incredibly pliant body to his advantage, his every thought, every intention seemingly foreseen by Manfred, taken into account. With his lover prepared for him, Chris began to move, the supple channel he navigated a familiar place. Sighing, Manfred rubbed his jaw, slipped the lobes of his ears between thumbs and fingers. Capable hands slid down his shoulders, chest, and sides, adding to his enjoyment, urging him.

Watching through hazed eyes, Chris witnessed pleasure reawakening and worship–the only word to describe the expression on Manfred’s face, clear as water, all for him–renewed.

He sweat to be worthy of it, reaching the limit of his endurance, in the process forcing a second climax for Manfred. It seemed to shudder from deep inside his companion. Chris felt the action of the muscles tightening inside, contracting in abrupt waves–Manfred provided him with pleasure, didn’t only take it. Gripped by this tender vise, Chris finished with a long-drawn sigh, utter release flooding him, washing him clean, breaking him on a distant shore.

They remained joined for a slow spell of time passing, both satisfied to stay that way. For what seemed like hours they simply existed together, as they had not in a very long time.

They parted. They talked. The ship rocked them as tenderly as a young mother, and from somewhere ashore drifted the sounds of a concertina, a woman’s raucous laughter.

The man lying now beside Chris was warm as fresh-baked bread, everything about him a delight. The odor of his body, salt and soap and sex–quaked Chris’s senses.

He was stunned by the ecstasy they’d been able to achieve with each other. There’d been so much conflict before, a lot of bad feeling; there was the separation, which circumstance had imposed on them for the length of this voyage. Chris had been sure nothing would ever be quite right again between them.

But it had been very right. Perhaps because he’d wanted, out of such private terror, for things to work that he’d labored triply hard to make sure.

“You loved me, tonight,” Manfred murmured. “Gave me….” He caught his breath at a touch, Chris’s fingers brushing across his mouth.

“I feel you drifting away,” Chris told him, wanting eagerly to share thoughts with him again. “I can’t let it happen.” He paused, wanting to hear Manfred’s denial.

Instead, eyes lazy as honey, full of warm fires, Manfred leaned over to nuzzle him. “Your breath is sweet,” he remarked in a whisper. “The way I remember.” He took Chris’s mouth briefly, wetly. “Almost I can taste the juice of a mango on your tongue–” The next kiss was hungry. Then there was another, a maddening series of them; quick and slow, deep or elusive, with no rhyme or reason. Manfred was irresistible, that talented mouth trailing lower.

Chris was being seduced, his heart staggering, losing its balance. He found himself completely caught up by his lover’s provocation.

********

Three bouts of sex left them blasted, wrecked, sprawled like the victims of a battle. Had there ever been war in heaven? Then peace like this had to be the aftermath.

Manfred sighed.

Lost in his thoughts, Chris concurred with a sigh of his own. “That was….”

Manfred’s fingertips stroked his flank, burning his nerve endings. “Worth the wait?”

Chris smiled in answer, mouth stretching wide. “If I were a Turkish sultan I’d reward you for tonight with your weight in sapphires. Have you ever seen one? A precious stone the color of your eyes.”

“You couldn’t give me what I really want tonight,” Manfred remarked. “Nobody could.”

“What is it?”

“The island where I found the most happiness.” Saying this, Manfred seemed, not unhappy, but wistful. The wish he made was full of regret, painful to hear.

“The island?” Chris asked him.

“Home,” Manfred clarified. “A place given to us. Everything ours.”

All this jolted Chris and came as rather a surprise to him, out of nowhere. Never since they’d returned to the world had either one of them expressed outright words of longing for their former residence. They’d scrupulously avoided mentioning it in fact, consciously or unconsciously. Chris had sometimes wanted to, except he’d been so certain Manfred wanted America and had reached the destination toward which he’d struggled so long and hard.

“You’d go back?” Chris asked him. “If you had a choice?”

Manfred sighed, turning his head toward the porthole, to the splendid swatch of midnight blue sky and stars they could see from Chris’s pillow. “Yes, I think so. Wouldn’t you?” He sounded tentative, unsure how Chris would receive his statement.

“Ah, love,” Chris breathed, close to him. “Yes. Honestly yes, I would.” He stroked Manfred’s hair. “We’d decided to stay, remember? And then….”

“Yes. Then. My fingers itched to douse the watch fire,” Manfred confessed with a shaky laugh. “But I thought you so badly wanted to return home.”

Chris replied, wryly. “How could you not think that, with me only telling you what I thought you wanted to hear?”

“What I wanted to hear?”

“Believe it or not, I was trying not to decide for you. I ended up doing that anyway, it seems.”

“I’m as much at fault,” Manfred protested. “Making pretend I was glad the ship came. That I was glad to be going to America. I wasn’t. I was damned afraid.”

“No more than me. Here’s one you haven’t heard. I almost didn’t wake you when I saw the ship.”

“Yes?” Manfred asked, surprised. He shook his head. “Everything happened so fast, at the end.”

“I know.”

There was a silence longer than any previous. They lay, comfortable with it. Manfred took Chris’s hand, held it companionably. In another moment, he turned his head a little to speak.

“I wonder if it’s the same there, now. The same we left it. Clean….”

“I like to think so,” Chris said. “Hard to say if an island that size could support two people for any length of time. I mean, it was no more than a glorified sand bar. Sometimes these little bumps on the ocean just aren’t there anymore when you go to find them again.”

“Not there?”

“A big storm’s capable of scouring a low-lying island like ours right off the sea. It’s happened before. I’ve heard old sailors talk about Hepue in the South Pacific. Prosperous port of call, disappeared in one night back in 1802 after a monster of a cyclone.”

“I’d be sorry if that happened to ours,” Manfred said. “Sometimes, you know, I like to think about what we could take back with us, if we ever did have that chance. Just to imagine.”

“Books,” Chris said, right away. “I missed not reading.” He thought some more. “Tooth powder, and soap. A really good knife; and a grindstone to keep the edge sharp. Matches; flints for when the matches run out. A checker set…. Oh, yes; blankets.”

“A hammer and nails,” Manfred put in. It was a game, and he loved games the same way he loved singing and dancing. They’d enjoyed simple things like that, back when they were supposedly lost at sea. They hadn’t been lost; it was possible that when the Trident sank and left them there on the island, they had been mercifully found.

Manfred’s expression livened as he let his thoughts go. “With one good hammer and a few boxes of nails I could build a house for us. Or even a boat; a real one.”

“Well, with a tight craft we could take a look at the other islands around there,” Chris proposed, extending the reach of his vision. Inexplicably, his heart thumped, speeding up. Yet his words slowed, enabling him to really listen to what he was saying. “Look for new sources of food, or better fishing….”

Strange…. He was realizing somehow for the first time, that with maps, a few instruments, and a proper boat, they wouldn’t necessarily have to be marooned anywhere. The realization was like having a mountain dragged from in front of his eyes, like the sun coming out of eclipse. And him a life-long tar.

They could live on their island, by choice.

Islanders did, didn’t they? There were old salts all over the Carib who led their own solitary lives on this or that islet, the way they wanted to. We could even come back to the mainland if we felt like–though I doubt we would. I certainly wouldn’t. I found unhappiness in my homeland; I didn’t belong there anymore, if I ever did.

The last time they’d had very little to work with; a wrecked ship by definition left them no choice as to whether or not they wanted to stay where they ended up, or what resources they had to work with. But look what they’d done with mere scraps. This time they could be prepared.

This time, Chris scoffed, feeling foolish. What am I talking about? This is just useless dreaming. A man needs civilization to feel and act like a human being. Doesn’t he?

They were looking at each other. “It’s a mad idea,” Chris said.

“I know,” Manfred answered. But his thoughts, clear as Bermuda water to Chris, didn’t reflect the lip service he was paying. He leaned over and rested against Chris then, but for the moment didn’t say anything more.

“This voyage would leave me financially secure,” Chris argued. Against what? Manfred had said nothing. “I would have bought a house for us in a better section of town…. What I mean is, the way we’ve been living, all that would have changed. Will change.”

“Would it?” Manfred asked.

“You don’t agree?”

“I think I will lose you.” Manfred gazed at him, uttering what Chris knew in his heart was probably true.

He grimaced as it hit home. “I’d’ve driven you away, wouldn’t I?”

Manfred didn’t answer the question directly. “If you destroyed yourself,” he said, quietly, slowly–saying everything without needing to say more than those four words. “I’d be destroyed, too.”

“It’ll happen, won’t it?”

Manfred nodded, solemnly. “Then you know, too.”

“Yes. As usual, you’re my truth, Manfred. And I love you for it.”

Nothing was settled. In the silence that ensued, they both eventually fell asleep. When Chris woke, very early the next morning, it was to find that Manfred had left his bed and responsibly taken the watch, part of the crew again.

********

What they’d talked about would not leave Chris. Manfred saw it in his every move, in his restlessness, in his periods of distant thought, looking out to sea.

It had certainly not left Manfred, either. For himself, there was a relief that was like bliss. He’d said it, he’d confessed, brought his longing to be back on the island out into the open where it needed to be. The possibility was real. And Chris saw that; but he couldn’t be rushed to decision. He needed to reach it in his own time. Now, however, Manfred felt there was all the time in the world. He waited patiently.

A sudden squall midway the Atlantic had brought back frightening memories of the Trident’s end. But such a fate was not to be for Cold Harbor. Delayed a few days, the ship pulled through and soon arrived safe and sound at Havana.

Havana was like a land in a storybook to him; completely alien, overwhelming in its heat and color. They spent four weeks there loading cargo, making repairs to the ship. Chris, given every opportunity, drank nothing stronger than fruit juice.

The remainder of the voyage was uneventful, for the most part. Manfred had seen a bit more of the wider world, and was grateful for the chance, but there was only one speck of it he’d learned to miss.

********

Manfred’s eyes stretched at the house Chris had brought him to, pale brick with wrought-iron fencing around the patch of garden in front, enormous arched windows graced with acres of glass.

The carriage had deposited them on this tree-shaded block of tall, fine buildings standing shoulder to shoulder. Here the scent of the sea could be detected in its purity. The laid-brick street was spotless. There was no hint of the rotting fish and produce of the wharf district.

“We’re to live here?” he asked, disbelieving.

Chris’s smile was enigmatic. “You guessed it,” he said, taking a key out of his pocket. “I’m only renting it for the time being. But it’s ours as long as we stay here.” He took Manfred’s elbow. “Come inside.”

“You keep good secrets,” Manfred commented. They walked up the massive stone steps. When Chris opened the door, Manfred couldn’t bring himself to enter. He peered inside first. Chris laughed.

“It is safe to go in, you know,” he suggested. “I wouldn’t lead you into a lion’s den.” They entered, and Chris closed the heavy door behind them.

Wood floors gleamed. A grandly carved and shaped oak banister spiraled up to a second floor. The main parlor was furnished with the kind of tables and overstuffed chairs Manfred had always imagined kings and princes taking for granted. The room, with its acres of creamy wallpaper, looked out on a side garden.

“How in the world can we afford this?” Manfred wanted to know. He looked about him. “I don’t believe it–”

“Because I have 5,000 dollars resting comfortably in the bank,” Chris answered. He laughed. “I’ve hired a cook and a housekeeper for us. They don’t live in, but that’s perfect for us. A Miss Courson and her friend, Miss Welch. I think they’re devotees of Sappho, if you know what I mean.”

“No.” Manfred shook his head.

“Well, they love each other as you and I do. In every way.”

“Ah,” Manfred nodded, thinking, Servants?

 

Manfred found intense discomfort in being waited on. But Miss Courson, a large woman with hair so blond it was silver, worn in two heavy twists, insisted on serving the food she cooked.

She poured him more tea while he fidgeted, picked at the sleeve of his white shirt. He couldn’t get used to it. Chris was watching him he found when he glanced up, with a bemused expression.

Manfred waited until Miss Courson returned to the kitchen. Upstairs, angular, red-headed Miss Welch, was changing the sheets on their bed, fluffing their pillows, folding their clothes.

“Chris,” he said. “All of this,” he indicated the table, the woman, the house, “is not for us.”

“So tell me,” Chris said. “What don’t you like?”

“The house–everything–is like a coat that’s too big. We-we don’t wear it; it wears us. We have to do what it wants us to do, the way it wants.”

“Manfred,” Chris half-laughed. “You make it sound as if you were being held prisoner here. We’re free to do anything we choose. And we have been.” They had gone on-excursions, to fancy restaurants, to industrial exhibitions to view modern wonders.

Manfred pushed the bone-china tea service away from him, making it rattle. “Chris. This isn’t who we are. We don’t do anything. Are we to lounge around the rest of our lives, drinking tea? Buying new clothes?”

“You want to go back to the foundry?”

“I wouldn’t say no to a day’s work.”

Chris sighed with frustration. “For God’s sake, I thought you wanted a better life.”

“This is better? I want to build my life, not have it handed to me. I want to feel my blood moving in my veins.”

Chris set down his cup, plaited his fingers. “Isn’t there anything I do that pleases you?” he asked, coldly.

“Chris–”

“I keep trying.” Chris shook his head. “And I keep failing with you.”

“Why must you take the blame? My life isn’t your responsibility.”

That seemed to strike Chris dumb. Manfred hadn’t expected to say those words–he was shocked himself by their implication. Chris’s expression made his heart sink. “That’s not what I meant, Chris.”

Chris got up and left the dining room. Manfred heard him stride out to the foyer. “Chris!” There was a long silence and then the sound of the front door opening and closing.

********

The bed jostled, abruptly waking Manfred. He lay there, eyes wide in the dark, every cell aware of Chris getting in.

Chris had been gone for three days and two nights. Tonight Manfred had literally wept himself to sleep, worried that Chris might never return at all. Hurriedly, he turned over to burrow into Chris’s arms, his own arms going around to capture his treasure. “I’m sorry,” he breathed. “So sorry–I thought you were never coming back. I didn’t mean it. I do need you. I need you like water, like air to breathe.”

He didn’t realize he’d lapsed into Polish until Chris pushed him off a little to look at him with confusion.

“What are you saying?” he asked. He still had his clothes on. “I only understood a couple of words of all that.” Long fingers wiped away moisture Manfred hadn’t known was there. There was no hint of liquor about his person, but Manfred wouldn’t’ve cared.

“I apologize for staying away,” Chris said. He kissed Manfred’s eyes. “Ssh. Don’t get yourself so upset. Ssh…. I’m here.” He stroked soothingly. “I’ve been sitting in the Hotel Barnard on Camber Avenue for the last two days. I wasn’t drinking,” he made sure to add quickly. “I-I was writing, believe it or not. Started out for the journal, but I don’t think it’ll ever be read by anyone. And it helped me, Manfred. Helped me sort out my thoughts.”

“I don’t care if you drank, Chris,” Manfred exclaimed. “Long as you come back home. I don’t want to drive you away.”

“I hope you don’t mean it,” Chris said, tracing the straight line of Manfred’s nose, and kissing him again. “I want you to care if I drink. Nobody else on earth does. Calm yourself, now…. Am I worth all this?”

Eyes filling again to his shame, Manfred nodded. He managed to settle down but it took a little more time than it should have.

“Would you like to hear what I wrote?” Chris asked. “I distilled it down to a few paragraphs.”

“Yes.” It must be important, Manfred thought, sitting up by now, attentive.

“Listen….”

********

One morning, no more than a week later, Christian woke him; it was that early, still dark.

“Nothing bad,” Chris reassured. “Get dressed.”

Curious, Manfred obeyed. As he put clothes on, he watched Christian gather up three specific things.

Chris picked up the journal, the compass he kept on his person (one of his few treasures, passed down to him from some long-dead seafarer of whom Manfred knew nothing), and his spyglass. He was carrying a leather satchel and put the objects inside it.

The whole rushed scene was full of quiet expectancy. By now, Manfred’s curiosity was more than whet, but something about Chris’s attitude silenced all his questions. He simply followed Chris out of the house, down the steps, and down the street. He never thought to look back, and Chris did not.

They walked down to the harbor, where at this time of day, there was little or no activity. The stillness, the cool darkness of pre-dawn, made the place seem charmed, eerie. Or perhaps the mystery of it all colored perception.

They came to a slip at the far end of the dock. Here Chris stopped.

“There she is,” he declared.

Manfred looked at the sailboat before him, painted blue and white, with all its sheets furled.

“A 40-foot ketch,” Chris said. “She’s old, but she’s sound. You couldn’t find a more reliable boat between here and Maine. I took her out yesterday morning, and she’s got a feel to her…can’t describe it. She leaps to my hand, the way a boat ought to. She’ll take us wherever we want to go, Manfred. The owner christened her ‘Nymph.’ But I want to call her ‘Love.'” He looked at Manfred, then. “Come aboard.”

They stepped on board. Manfred smelled fresh paint and seasoned wood. Chris indicated all the fine points, the tiny galley and cabin below, the new rigging and sailcloth.

“I can teach you to sail as we go,” he said. “Don’t worry about that. I promise there won’t be any surprises. You’re already a good hand, anyway; you know the ropes.”

Manfred finally found his tongue. “Chris….” He gestured around. “What is this?”

Chris’s eyes shone in the half-light. “We’re going.”

“We–” Manfred stared back, his own eyes round.

“If you still want to…. Below you’ll find everything you asked for, everything we need. Blankets, tools, seed, fishing line and hooks, nets, some dry goods. What we don’t have, we can do without. At least for a while.”

“All to do what?”

“To make a new start.” Chris took a breath. “I-uh, I bought her a week ago.”

Manfred couldn’t believe what he was seeing, hearing. He looked about him almost dazed, befuddled. “You bought her?”

“She’s ours. She’s waiting to take us to–our place of happiness.”

“We’re going to the island?” Manfred felt the sting of tears as Chris nodded, as he realized the truth of it all.

“Right now,” Chris said. “This very hour.”

“But what about–?”

“What about what? Your job, the house, all the rest of it? What about it? As of today we no longer exist.” He took hold of Manfred’s arms. “Except to each other.”

“Chris, are you sure?”

“Aren’t you? Don’t tell me you have doubts now.”

“No.” That had to be the simplest shortest truth ever uttered by a human being. Manfred meant it with all his heart. He shook his head. “No. I just–I didn’t dare to believe it could ever happen.”

“It will. It is happening. Nothing to stop us.”

“Nothing.” Manfred echoed the word softly.

“Let’s make her ready, then. Come, I’ll show you what to do.”

“Chris, wait.” Manfred held him back for a moment. “It doesn’t matter now, does it? If someone sees?” He took Chris in his arms and kissed him long and hard. It was a moment of freedom he would remember for the rest of his life.

The sun just at that moment blushed the sky eastward. “Hurry,” Chris said, touching him once, meaningfully when the kiss ended, looking into his eyes. The young captain was happy as Manfred had never seen him. The weight of the world had slipped off his shoulders. Together they made sail and raised anchor.

Nobody saw them off and where they were going, out toward sunrise, nobody waited to greet them.

Epilogue

In 1934, a local yachtsman out from the city of Miami with his wife and 22-year-old son, experienced engine trouble and came ashore on a small islet in the southeastern Atlantic. While he made repairs to the fuel line, his wife and son did some exploring.

To their amazement, they found evidence of long ago human habitation; the shell of a once substantial house, remains of a boat, a wooden relic sunk in the sand.

Inside the profusely overgrown house which, located in this broad clearing, facing the ocean, must have once been very pleasant, the woman and her son found ramshackle furniture: a bed, table, chairs–all handmade, and rotting. They also found an old trunk, crusted with mold. The son pried it open and found a cache of antique objects in surprisingly good condition: compass, spyglass, shaving mug, rusting razor, a moldering leather strop….

“Appears to be nineteenth century,” his mother said, though she wasn’t much of an historian. She did, however, love antiques.

Also found was a mildewing journal, which they opened eagerly. The swollen book had suffered water damage and was rapidly decaying, but it was still readable in parts.

The woman flipped carefully through the pages. Not all of them were still legible, but toward the end she found something that caught and held her. Reading silently at first, she looked up at her son when she’d finished. “Listen.” She read the short passage to him:

I am doing what I cannot do in the here and now. lf any person of some future time should discover these words, this document, I would want them to know the only important thing about me. That I, Christian, loved Manfred.

In the sight of his God and mine, we have taken each other in marriage. Only we ourselves can separate us.

I admit to you, whoever you may be, and to him, that this love has shamed me. No longer. That is in the past. Manfred is once and for always, my love, my world.

Perhaps in your time, in your present, men need not fear to love each other. If they love as I’ve learned to, they would do so willingly, forgetting all their fears. And may they be lucky enough to find a place, as I hope to–as I intend to.

Signed, Christian Hutchinson
for Manfred Starezhka, my beloved, who cannot write.
Bless his heart.
Bless us both.

“This was their place,” the boy surmised, after a moment’s silence. They both looked about the clearing, the surrounding island, as if with fresh eyes.

The book, the spyglass, and the compass were taken as souvenirs; the rest left behind.

Nearby, to their utter amazement, they found human remains. Very little scattering of the weathered bones had taken place; they lay roughly lengthwise along a slight mounding of earth. When the woman noticed the makeshift cross not far away, the two visitors realized that this was a gravesite.

“It’s a man,” the son, a pre-med student observed, after kneeling to examine the bones. “Pretty old. He must’ve died right here on the spot.” They looked at the grave and the forlorn skeleton for a long time, both putting together what must have happened.

“There is quite a story in this place, Joseph,” the woman said, finally, visibly moved.

“Yes,” the son agreed. “But we’ll never know, will we? There’s no name on that cross.”

They took it upon themselves to give the remains a decent burial, placing the bones in a shallow, quickly-excavated hole beside the existing grave and covering them over for all time.

They wondered which of the men had buried the other.

The End