Athena Unleashed

***

Athena bounded up the path from the sea caves, leaping the old steps two and three at a time, scattering kaleidoscopic clouds of birds and bugs. Her muscles burned as she pushed herself harder in anticipation of reaching the crest of the ridge. That’s where the lush emerald tunnel that crowded the trail since it turned inland from the coast gave way to the sun, the breeze and panoramic views of the whole island. From there it was a mostly level jog along the snaky trail as it followed the knife edged ridge to the cliffs. At the end of the trail there were old naval gun emplacements at the bottom of another set of cracked concrete steps some doomed Japanese soldiers had built a distant age ago. She knew the path so well she could run it in the dark. Sometimes she did.

She broke from the trees and was in the sun again. Athena kept running; muscles stretching, lungs heaving, skin perspiring, mind focused only on her next few footfalls. As usual she ran barefoot, wearing a headband and a sports bra. She wore nothing else.

She loved to jog along her jungle trails in the nude but, unfortunately, her breasts had developed to a point where that was no longer practical. She resented the large, teardrop shaped mounds that stood out from her chest and awkwardly bounced and swayed with every movement. She especially hated the way they collected sweat underneath when she slouched in a chair to read or bent forward to pick through the streams and tidal pools. Ingrid had laughed at her annoyance. She confidently predicted Athena would one day be glad to have such a “spectacular pair of ta-tas”. But when pressed for details, the stout German matron would only grin and say, “You’ll see Boo-boo.” Athena had not been convinced. However, when she noticed how her rapidly transforming body evoked so much distress in her father, she realized perhaps there was power in those ridiculous mounds after all.

Irritating her father and the flunkies he’d employed as her keepers had become something of a hobby for her. Bored and lonely, she lashed out at any convenient target. So when she saw the growing distress in her father’s eyes when confronted with her increasingly adult body, she knew she’d finally found her perfect weapon. She became a nudist. Max, her bodyguard, and her father fussed and yelled, but they found that, after having already taken her freedom from her, they had left themselves no effective punishment.

So, a nudist-of-spite she remained. Max and her other handlers had finally stopped even trying to get her to clothe herself unless her father was around. And he was around precious little. He had left this morning, in fact. He’d only stayed three days, enough time to wish her happy birthday and introduce her to her latest voluptuous “step-mom” before flying away again to be absent for months and month.

Her irritation and hopelessness spurred her into a sprint. The effort cleared her mind and soothed her simmering anger. It occurred to her she hadn’t heard the helicopter return. Max wasn’t back yet. Good, she thought. In her opinion it was ridiculous to have a bodyguard on this boring little island. Max struggled to justify his position as though a regimen of unnecessary patrols and lengthy, painful martial arts lessons imposed upon Athena several times a week. All that was bad enough, but to Athena his presence was yet another reminder that her father had deemed her too valuable to be free.

And so she ran; nearly naked; from one end of the island to the other; day after day after day; beautiful, sleek and a little crazy – a she-tiger in raised in too small a cage.

She now loped easily along the more or less level trail that snaked along the spine of the heights. She looked off to her left at the white, loosely clustered buildings of the failed resort her father had bought and converted to serve as her spacious prison. She scanned the usual view: the azure lagoon; the northern valley cloaked in emerald jungle; the rocky hills wreathed in blue mist. But when she looked ahead she saw the short, stout form of Ingrid standing at the junction of the trail back to the cabins. Something was wrong. Ingrid’s damp, florid face registered sadness. She raised a hand and called to Athena. She was saying something…

***

Athena never remembered Ingrid telling her that her Father was dead; she only remembered having been told. It was as if the course of her life had suffered a fracture and the crack had left a gap. She only remembered standing at the trail junction, bare-bottomed, sweaty and unsure what to do or how to react while her hefty German matron started walking back to the compound, sadly shaking her head.

Athena felt shock, but she did not feel sadness. Actually, honestly, it was as if her prayers had been answered in every detail. When her father had only promised to “think about it” when she demanded her freedom on her eighteenth birthday, she had asked God for some horrible things. And – apparently – God had listened. She was free.

The helicopter had killed him, Ingrid had said. It had crashed. Athena remembered Victoria, the latest step-mother. The sadness finally came. She’d actually kind of liked Victoria.

Victoria was a blond, eastern European woman with blue eyes, big boobs, curvy hips and about fifteen more years than Athena. She was exactly the type of short-term step-mother she’d come to expect from her father. But Victoria had been surprisingly different. Unlike the others, Victoria had shown real interest in Athena. They had spoken as equals, like friends, or even sisters. Victoria had even spoken frankly about secret things everyone else had been too scared of her father to discuss. They had spoken of the world beyond the horizon, of boys and men… of sex. After years of being surrounded by the people her Father had hired to raise her, the two days with Victoria had been the nearest Athena had to a friend in half a lifetime.

She paused to get to her knees in a dusty patch of grass. She prayed that Victoria was OK.

Dazed, Athena walked aimlessly. It was hot. She peeled off her top to enjoy the feeling of the sun and wind on her bare body. She drifted down off the ridge, past the old overgrown bunkers and into the trees before she found herself back by the eastern edge of the old resort compound, not too far from her bungalow. She found a hose hooked to a working spigot and rinsed the sweat from her unruly black hair with the cool water. The chill was brief, the air being so warm, but Athena enjoyed it, admiring her own goosepimply skin and pert nipples. She raised a hand to caress them wistfully.

She was suddenly giddy. Good God, she was free at last. The thought of being able to leave this island and finally live her life gave her a thrill. Cupping her left breast in her hand, she drew her fingertips down her belly and flicked at her public hairs a few times. She thought of the things she wanted to try when she got off this island; things her Father had marooned her here to keep her from. Her finger was just beginning to glide into the damp, tender folds between her thighs when she thought she heard a voice from around the pool house.

She peeked around the corner to see Chin, the old caretaker, walking away while the two handymen watched him go and shrugged at each other. The handymen were Australian, brought in to fix the storm damage from the big cyclone last month. They were younger than the men her Father usually hired; the blond one was perhaps thirty and over six feet tall; the brown-haired one was a little younger and a lot shorter. They were both shirtless, working under a tarp with their tools and the disassembled water filter spread out around them. She had seen them only twice before and both times they had refused to even look at her, no doubt pre-warned by Max to avert their eyes from his charge or else.

Keenly aware of her nudity for the first time in years, her skin was electric with anticipation and a little fear. She stepped from behind the white stucco box of the pool house and began walking towards the handymen. “My handymen,” she reminded herself.

The shorter one noticed her with a wide-eyed double take and nudged his colleague. They both faced her with slack jawed surprise as she walked up naked, her tanned skin glistening with sweat. Her large brown eyes met theirs. The mere fact that they didn’t look away this time sent a tingle through her body.

“We’re, uh… We’re sorry to hear about your dad,” said the taller one, straining to conduct himself coolly.

“Yeah,” added the other one, nodding sympathetically.

“Thank you so much. You’re very kind,” she answered formally.

An awkward pause enveloped them. The tall one shifted nervously from foot to foot while his friend absentmindedly opened and closed a pair of grimy pliers. She noticed how they kept looking down to grab glances at her body, how their eyes had an animal hunger in them when they looked back up to her face. She could feel their barely contained lust wash over her like a physical force. It was intoxicating.

A gush of wind riled the trees all along the valley. The dappled light filtering through the palms around the pool skittered and danced over the small group. Athena felt a sudden lurch of nausea as the guys’ faces seemed to grow washed out and grainy. They appeared to develop harsh black halos in the shifting, strobing sunlight.

“Oh no,” she said weakly, throwing her hands up over her face to shut out the suddenly too intense light as she sagged down in a rush to get to the ground before she blacked out. She hadn’t had a seizure in months. Why now?

The world receded as she rolled onto the flagstones. She was dimly aware of the two handymen buzzing around her, trying to help. She couldn’t focus on their words, but their frantic voices were charged with panic. She pressed her forehead to the hard, cool ground fighting fiercely to keep from slipping into a seizure. The coolness soothed her over-agitated mind. The heaviness of thought began to recede a little and she knew she’d won. It had been close.