The Island, Chapter 21 by Paperbackwriter

Chapter 21After trying to help clean up the massage paraphernalia and being rebuffed and shooed away, I dressed and made my way to the eastern beach. No nude hippies had occupied it yet, and I spent a few minutes beachcombing. I found another fish float, a chunk of drift net, and of all things a Nike sneaker. Even on a deserted island, apparently the rule of only finding one shoe still held. I collected the items and hiked through the jungle to the other side of the island.

I glanced at the sun, directly overhead, and decided it was lunchtime. I grabbed some mango, papaya and pork jerky, and wandered over to the medical hut. Joelle was shredding some seat cushions, pulling out the stuffing and placing it in a bucket. I watched her for a moment, mystified as to what she was doing, until she noticed me standing there and startled.

“Dave! You scared me! Don’t sneak up on me like that.”

“I’m sorry,” I said. “What are you doing?”

She blushed and looked away. “Well, I figured the women are going to be running out of feminine hygiene products soon, and I thought I would try to come up with an alternative. I planned on cutting up the fabric into strips to make belts to hold this stuff in place. It’s a little crude, but better that having to hide in a hut for five days.”

“Good thinking,” I complimented her. “By the way, if anyone has a muscle strain, we have a couple of massage therapists on the island.”

“Who?” she asked curiously.

“Tran and Truk.” I hoped they knew how to give a massage that didn’t involve a “happy ending.” I wasn’t sure everyone would be up for that, especially the women. Then again, who knew? There were supposed to be therapeutic effects of orgasm.

“Did you get one?” she asked with a smile.

“Yeah. She worked me over pretty good. The foot massage was brutal, but the rest of it sure relaxed me. More than you could possibly guess, I thought. “Can I get you something to eat?”

“Sure. That would be great. I could use a break.” I collected a meal for her, and carried it to the hut. “I’ll bring some water; give me a minute.” I returned a moment later with a bottle of fresh stream water and handed it to her.

“Thanks,” she said gratefully, taking a big swig. She looked at the bottle with a frown. “Have you noticed that no one seems to have gotten traveler’s diarrhea? I guess there are no parasites here to worry about.”

“And I would guess none of the bacteria that humans normally carry that give people trouble when they ingest it in another environment away from home,” I agreed.

“Thank God for small favors.”

I told her about our recent pool party (an abridged version) and described the lake and the hot springs. She expressed interest, and I promised I’d take her up there at some point.

“I’m feeling sleepy,” she said with a yawn. “The heat really takes my energy away.”

“Why don’t you take a nap?” I suggested, and she stretched out on the sand in the shade. I sat with her, stroking her hair, until she fell asleep. I was trying to decide if I should join her, when I realized I had left my bottle of coconut oil on the other beach. I quietly got up and left the sleeping nurse, and jogged over to the other side of the island. I found it near the tree line, and was surprised to find it solidified into a white paste. I guessed it needed to be heated slightly to liquefy. Having nothing better to do, I hiked back up to the hot springs, and finding the Vietnamese duo gone, placed the bottle into the hot water. Sure enough, in a few minutes it was liquid again. I pulled it back out and headed back toward the beach.

I made my way through the new jungle path, and arrived at the shallow upper pool to find a figure hunched over near the water’s edge. To my surprise, she was crying in loud sobs. She looked up as I broke from the trees, tears streaming down her face, I realized it was Anne, the pregnant cheerleading coach. She wiped her nose with the back of her hand, trying to stop her crying and only succeeding in progressing to hiccups and sniffles.

Despite her blotchy face, she was quite attractive. She had short, dark brown hair, and a narrow angular face with strong cheekbones and chin. She would have been fairly petite, at about 5’4”, if not for her large, pregnant belly. She was dressed in a pair of beige shorts and a red tank top that was stretched to its limit by her protruding middle. Her boobs were large for her small frame, due to her gravid state, and bulged enticingly through the thin fabric, obviously braless.

“Hey, hey!” I said in a soothing voice. “What’s wrong, Anne? Are you hurt?”

I sat next to her, placing a comforting hand on her back. I barely knew the woman, but I have a knight-in-shining-armor complex and am always moved to help a damsel in distress.

“N-no,” she managed to get out, as her crying gradually subsided. “Everything is just going to shit!” Tears began flowing again, and her sobbing threatened to resume.

“Hey, whatever it is, maybe I can help. Do you want to talk about it?”

“No. Yes. I don’t know!” she nearly wailed. “I barely know you, Dave. I don’t want to burden you with my troubles.”

“Troubles get lighter when shared,” I told her. “I’m happy to be a sounding board. Sometimes just getting things out there can make you feel better, and maybe an objective viewpoint is what you need.”

“I guess,” she said dubiously. “Well, it all started before we left on the trip. I was engaged to marry the father of my baby,” she said, caressing her belly unconsciously, “but the farther along I got, the more he seemed to freak out. Then about a month ago, he announced he couldn’t handle being a father and broke off the engagement.”

“What a dick!” I said angrily.

“I know, right?” She laughed grimly. “I thought he was Prince Charming, but he turned out to be a lowly frog. At least he put a big chunk of money in an account for me to help with expenses. I didn’t even have to hire a lawyer. I guess he was feeling guilty. I did sort of forget to take my birth control pills; he wasn’t planning on being a dad.”

“Still, if you’re having unprotected sex, you need to be ready to face the consequences.” Get off your high horse, buddy, my mind intervened. You’ve been boning everything that moves! Yeah, I answered myself back, but there’s no way I’m going to run out on anybody here on this island! “If he loved you enough to propose, he should have stuck around to support you.”

“So anyway, I’ve been pretty down to begin with, and I’m not going to be able to work for a couple of months, and then I need to arrange child care, and now we’re stuck on this island and I don’t have a doctor any more!” She was working her way into a frenzy again.

“Take a breath!” I admonished her. “Slowly. Get it out, but don’t get too worked up in the process.”

“OK,” she said, taking a shuddering breath. “I guess the final straw was this morning’s cheer class. I saw how your Tae Kwon Do classes really gave a purpose to the kids and helped settle them into a routine, and I figured my girls could use some exercise to do the same for them. I organized the class, but then I couldn’t even do the stretches with them, I’m so fat. I feel like a beached whale! I have stretch marks and I’m disgusting and I hurt all over and I’m not sure I can take this any more!” She began bawling again. “What’s wrong with me? Am I so awful that no one will want me any more? Why did Kevin leave me?” She resumed sobbing, and I hugged her to my side, holding her as her emotions ran their course. I had a bandana in my back pocket, and after making sure it wasn’t too sweaty, handed it to her to use as a hankie.

Once she had calmed down, I tried to encourage her. “You are definitely not disgusting. There are some downsides to being pregnant, but most guys think pregnant women are beautiful. I certainly do.”

“Are you serious?” she laughed. “I’m huge. How can anyone like that?”

“Anyone with half a brain can tell the difference between obesity and pregnancy,” I told her. “Men are wired to admire and protect pregnant women. It’s in our biology. Fertility is desirable. Plus, we like the big boobs.”

That got her laughing as she inspected her chest. “I guess that is one good thing. I was always pretty flat-chested, but not any more!”

“Trust me, there is nothing undesirable about you. And let’s take a look at your other issues one by one. First, you got rid of that dead weight Kevin. You’re better off without him, and you got the best parts of him: his money and his sperm.” She snickered at that. “Second, you don’t have to worry about your job now. No work on this island except surviving. Think of it as a prolonged maternity leave. You’ve got free health care. I don’t deliver babies any more normally, but I’ve done it before, and I remember how. And as an added bonus, you’ve got a ton of free child care. There are a bunch of fellow mothers, and a lot of baby sitters available, in case you want to go out on the town. Or at least out on the beach,” I said with a smile. She laughed again.

“As far as the hurting all over, I even have the solution to that.”

“What?” she said doubtfully.

“By happy chance, I have just learned how to give a therapeutic massage, and I even have the oil to do it with. As your doctor, I am prescribing one deep tissue massage, thorough but gentle, to help with your sore muscles.”

She gawked at me. “Do you always travel through the jungle with massage oil?”

“No,” I said, chuckling. “This just happens to be your lucky day.”