Chapter 5
After their encounter at the swimming pond, Sally, Mollie Curtis and Bart Williams made it almost a ritual to go food hunting and gathering together, and more often than not their daily excursions ended at the swimming pond, or at some equally shady and secluded spot in the forest where they could undress, relax and enjoy each other without restraint. Sally found herself becoming more uninhibited by the day, and in only one respect did she consider herself the least bit prudish.
Twice in their recent three-way encounters, Sally had seen Bart Williams inserting his cock with apparent glee in the clinging little rear channel of Mollie's rectum. The luscious secretary also seemed to derive great pleasure from the act, but on the one occasion when Bart had tried it with Sally, the young blond had refused him sternly, unable to suppress her fear of pain and the inbred idea that such action were somehow inherently unnatural and perverted. Williams had not pressed the issue, preferring to let Sally enjoy their sex together in the ways she felt most comfortable with.
Their fourteenth day on the jungle island, the second weekly "anniversary" of the tragic shipwreck, was hot and muggy. Returning from their obligatory search for food, Sally and her two lovers decided to bypass their usual liaison in the jungle and go directly back to the beachfront camp, since the climate along the beach was kept considerably cooler by the nearness of the sea. They walked more slowly than usual through the forests, conserving their strength and talking softly among themselves as they strolled along, bringing home the daily take of melons, other fruit, and another of the turkey-like birds which had become a regular source of protein for the groups.
Sally knew they were drawing closer to the beach as the trees about them began to thin out. Already she imagined that she could hear the voices of their comrades, and from the number of different voices which she could make out, she decided that all the others had decided to return early as well.
When they were within perhaps a hundred feet of the treeline which would delineate beach and forest, Bart Williams put a restraining hand upon each of the women's arms, halting them in their tracks for a moment.
"Hold on," he said softly, pausing with an ear cocked in the direction of the beach. "Something's going on here. Let's take us a little look-see."
Together, and feeling very daring as they crept through the trees like spies on some secret mission, the man and two women neared the breaking-off line of the trees. Cautiously, slowly, they peered through the lush greenery and down onto the white sand ribbon of beach which separated them now from the azure sea.
Something was indeed "going on" at the beach camp, for all the other members of the little community were on hand. Sally quickly counted heads and saw that Captain Pierce and Jason White were there, along with her friend Jennifer Tendall and the two handsome young bachelors, Jack Morris and Tom Waverly. They were all milling around, and at that moment it seemed to Sally that Jennie was the immediate center of attraction for the four men.
After a long moment, in which Bart Williams whistled softly between his clenched teeth, Sally suddenly, jarringly realized what was wrong with the scene spread before her eyes. Of late, she had become so comfortable with her own total freedom in the threesome she had formed with Bart and Mollie, that impromptu nakedness had ceased to affect her. But now, to her considerable dismay, she noticed that Jennifer and all four of the men were stark staring nude!
Sally looked closer, now seeing that Jennie indeed was the center of attention in that nudist gathering. The men had all grouped themselves around her, and she almost seemed to be doing some sort of hypnotic little ritual dance, undulating and slithering for their viewing enjoyment, while they stretched out their hands from time to time to caress, stroke and fondle some favorite part of her curvaceous, writhing anatomy.
Sally admitted to herself that she would not have been at all surprised to find Jennifer naked and alone with Jason White, but she was frankly stunned to find her sporting her charms in front of four naked men, obviously enjoying their lewd attention and manhandling of her tremulous flesh. Bart Williams had no such qualms or hesitations about what he saw, however, and with a lusty shout of "Let's go!" burst through the trees and onto the beach. Sally saw that he was already stripping off his clothing as he ran, practically naked by the time he got within twenty yards of the circling nudist groups.
Sally and Mollie exchanged furtive little glances, Sally looking curious and concerned, the luscious secretary's face wearing a flush of mounting excitement. Sally read the message written there, but before she could utter any word of caution or hesitation, Mollie had followed Bart out of the trees and onto the strip of white sand, her blouse trailing uselessly from one outstretched hand and her pink tits gleaming in the late afternoon sun as she ran.
Sally still hesitated, undecided as to how far her newfound sexual freedom could carry her. So far, she had acquiesced in the lusty little trio with Bart and Mollie, but the scene on the beach was quickly shaping up into an all-out sex orgy. Already Bart Williams had found a place in the trotting, growling circle around Jennifer, and the group of men was dividing, Jack Morris and Tom Waverly now transferring their lecherous attentions to the rapidly stripping Mollie Curtis, who seemed to be enjoying their advances immensely.
Sally moved slowly out of the trees and onto the beach, walking like a woman on the verge of a catatonic state, her bare feet scuffling on the fine sand. She told herself in a sluggish mental voice that she had no intention of joining the others in their debauchery. She would not ... could not ... submit to such group sex, without inhibitions or restraints. It was wrong. Perverted. Unnatural.
All the while she was walking, drawing steadily closer to the two whirling groups of men and women which had now begun to merge and flow together, Jennie and Mollie moving to center stage as the men grappled at them and pulled them down, pawing their naked flesh and tugging them to the earth, clambering over them as each man sought some bodily orifice into which to thrust his rigid cock, thereby venting his lust.
Sally could not believe her stunned eyes. She was standing directly behind Captain Phillip Pierce, watching his naked, sweating back heave as he struggled to pry Mollie's thighs farther apart, remembering what his rigid cock had felt like inside her body, his hot jism blanketing the inside of her womb.
Slowly now, almost unconsciously, certainly without pausing to think through the consequences of her action, Sally found herself stretching out a hand to tap Pierce lightly on the shoulder. Surprisingly, he turned to her at once, not in the least irritated at being so rudely interrupted on the very verge of screwing the sexy woman who lay before him.
Pierce's handsome face broke into a broad smile at sight of Sally Porter standing there before him. "Hey," he cried jovially, his voice lacking the expected dripping tones of animal lust, seeming somehow totally at peace and free, "I've been wondering where you were. I'm glad you decided to join us."
Sally shook her head dumbly, but all in vain, for Pierce was already reaching up for her, drawing her down beside him in a kneeling position while Tom Waverly smoothly took his place between Mollie's writhing thighs. The Captain's fingers were working busily at the buttons of Sally's blouse, despite her ineffectual protests and half-hearted efforts to resist him, peeling the useless garment off of her naked shoulders now to reveal the proudly quivering cones of her naked breasts, each surmounted by a cherry little nipple which was already stiffening into pronounced erection.
Pierce cupped and fondled those flowing mounds of breast flesh, brought his mouth down upon them and enveloped one of her burning nipple buds in his hot oral cavity. The world swam around Sally and she felt herself sinking slowly down onto the fine sand as his tongue flicked into action upon her nipples, teasing and taunting first one and then the other, driving her into a paroxysm of ever mounting passion with each stroke.
As Sally reclined upon the sand, sighing in grim resignation under the sucking and licking of her tits, she felt new hands upon her, busying themselves with the fastenings of her skirt, releasing the garment at her waist and then tugging it down the trembling shafts of her thighs and calves, totally stripping her as she lay writhing there on the white beach. Curious without being alarmed, Sally craned her neck to see who it was who had finished the task of undressing her, and found herself staring into the lust-glazed eyes of the Orion's first mate, Jason White.
The young woman had no time to evaluate that mental image or to read the expression on White's young face, for he immediately ducked his head forward, plunging his nose and mouth into the curly forest of her pubic triangle, locking his eager lips tight against the swollen little nether lips of her pussy. Sally's body convulsed, arching upward off the sand at the dual oral stimulation of Pierce's mouth on her nipples and White's tongue probing and slurping along her vaginal furrow.
As she lay there, undulating with slow, almost unconscious surpentine response to multiple carnal assaults upon her naked body, Sally retained the presence of mind to glance about her, collecting fragmented mental images of the orgy in progress on every side. She caught a fleeting picture of Mollie Curtis, head lolling from side to side as Tom Waverly energetically skewered his prick in and out of her cunt with loud slurping noises.
Sally's head lolled to the other side, catching a blurred image of Jennie Tendall and the two men who had pounced upon her nude form. Jack Morris crouched between her legs, his face buried in the forest of her pubic curls, sucking her cunt avidly just as Jason White was even then sucking Sally's. At the same time, businessman Bart Williams was straddling Jennifer's chest, fondling the fleshy orbs of her breasts with one of his big hands while he used the other to guide his stiff penis into contact with her lips. While Sally watched, she saw Jennifer seem to pass on into a trance-like state, eyes rolling back in her head while her pink little tongue tip flicked out, making experimental contact with the underside of Bart's gleaming purple glans.
Sally Porter had no more time to gather mental images of what was happening to the people around her, so intense were the feelings which even then were being evoked in her own twisting, churning body. Jason White was running his tongue energetically along the entire juicy length of her tiny cuntal slit, and at the same time, Phillip Pierce was cupping both of her tits in his big hands, compressing them until he was able to cover both of her nipples with his gnawing mouth at the same time, driving her even wilder with passion at the unusual form of dual stimulation.
Sally's head lolled from side to side on the fine, soft sand, her silken blond hair shimmering about her face in a glistening golden wave, complementing and contrasting with the native-dark tan of her flesh. A ruddy flush of passion was visible now in her cheeks, and her mouth was open, her breath wheezing from between pearly little teeth in airy, panting gasps.
Sally was lingering on the very brink of orgasm, and she knew it. In spite of the way her mind cried out for her to dissociate herself from the wild orgiastic scene, she found that she had become inextricably involved, and was even more stunned as she realized that this was what she had craved all along, that she would not, in fact, have had it any other way at all.
Jason White's hot tongue tip was doing crazy, unbelieveable things to her vagina, swirling around the clinging mouth of her cuntal channel with fiery strokes, then tracking deliberately onward and upward to taunt the tingling little pleasure bud of her clitoris until she rocked and writhed with passion.
Sally felt her orgasm waiting in the wings, lurking at the rear of her mind, taut and wound up like the tension spring of an alarm clock, about to unwind with shattering explosive force, shooting out the now-familiar fiery tendrils of ecstatic release that she now craved. The young blond's entire body began to tremble from head to toe, as if in the vise-like grip of some wild, uncontrollable palsy.
Phillip Pierce and Jason White seemed to recognize the storm warning signals of Sally's approaching orgasmic outburst. They exchanged furtive little glances, one to another, and then suddenly began to shift their positions, tugging and pulling at Sally as if they sought to change her position on the ground. Both men were breathing heavily, their eyes glowing like hot coals as they concentrated intently upon their latest task at hand.
Sally was shocked by the sudden withdrawal of those inciteful hands and mouth from her yearning tits and cunt. She glanced hurriedly about, a moan of almost angry frustration escaping between clenched teeth as she scanned the two men with curious eyes.
"Wha ... why ... why did you stop?" she asked breathlessly. "What are you trying to do??"
Neither man answered verbally, merely gesturing for her to cooperate as their hands struggled to reposition her pliant young body. Sally went along with the charade grudgingly, only hoping that she would receive some other form of stimulation and gratification in short order.
Now Sally found herself being turned over and half lifted at the same time, tugged and hauled into a semi-erect position until she was poised on her hands and knees, with one of the men at each end of her body. She poised there, like a small child imitating some sort of wild animal, her watery blue eyes locking firmly with Phillip Pierce's gaze and reading an expression of unadulterated lust.
Phillip was kneeling directly in front of her now, his long rigid cock spiking outward from his loins and wavering directly in her face, on a level with her lips and nose. Sally was both fascinated and repelled by the sight, staring at that fleshy wand of passion like a bird hypnotized by the approach of a snake. She focused her eyes on the pearly drop of semen which glistened at the cyclopic eye of his purple glans, catching the sunlight and reflecting it back at her with almost dazzling intensity.
Sally was at first curious and uncertain about what Pierce wanted her to do, but the last trace of uncertainty vanished as he swung his hips slightly forward, bringing the wet tip of his cock into nudging, tingling contact with her full and sensuous lips. She cringed slightly, feeling the slick traces of his pre-ejaculate fluid left behind on her lower lip by his cock. She flicked out her tongue unconsciously, tasting the salty residue of his jism and finding it not at all unpleasant.
The Captain's hips surged forward once more, and again his purple glans made nagging impact upon her lips, forcing those lips apart this time and nudging against her pearly white teeth. Sally recoiled instinctively from the intimate oral contact, but Pierce would not let her escape, fishing a hand forward to cup the back of her head, fingers tangling in her hair as he held her head tightly in place, her lips grazing lightly against the tip of his prick.
Sally Porter was mentally debating whether she should give Pierce what he obviously wanted or make some effort to break away from her captors and run naked into the forest to hide. The issue was suddenly taken out of her hands and mind, however, by a sudden touching sensation at the opposite end of her body, reminding her of the presence of Jason White, whom she had all but forgotten as Pierce's cock entranced her.
From the feelings which enveloped her lower body, tingling outward from her hips and loins, White was obviously kneeling between her slightly spread thighs, waggling his long hard prick in chafing contact with Sally's freely juicing cunt. She shivered with uncontrollable little tremors of lust, incited once more to a high level of erotic excitement by the continuous driving impact of White's blunt cock tip against her clitoris and tight little vaginal mouth.
It was not her cunt, however, which seemed to interest the Orion's first mate primarily. To her great surprise, Sally now felt the wet tip of his prick leaving her ripe cuntal furrow, tracking moistly upward into the deep cleft between her taut, plump ass cheeks. As she knelt there, cringing and trembling, she felt the first tentative contact of that blunt fleshy instrument against her puckered little anal sphincter.
The young blond woman was instantly repulsed by what Jason White obviously wanted from her. She had refused Bart Williams the same intimate act, and she had no intention now of allowing a virtual stranger to penetrate her virginal little asshole.
Jason White was insistent, however, and while Phillip Pierce held Sally pinned by the head and neck, his long cock tracing continuous wet patterns along her full, panting lips, Jason seized her about the hips and began nudging his cock more insistently forward against the cleft of her ass. A sudden spasm of pain seized Sally's entire torso as the blunt head of his prick pushed inexorably against the clinging little outer ring of her rectum.
"No!! Stop it!!" she cried hoarsely, in real pain now. "I can't take it there! It's too big!!"
Jason White only snickered, a deep, lusty and somewhat evil sound, deep in his throat. His hips churned inexorably forward, worming his cock deeper into Sally's clinging little asshole, until suddenly the entire helmet-shaped head popped inside with a little plopping, sucking sound.
Sally gasped aloud, almost gagging at the waves of burning pain which washed over her now. She squirmed her body forward, struggling to escape that cruel penile invasion of her virginal asshole, but all in vain. Her surging forward movements only served to force her sensuous lips tighter against the tip of Phillip Pierce's penis, and as Sally opened her mouth to cry out in pain, the Captain took the opportunity to slip his cock half way into the warm, moist cavern of her pulsating mouth.
Sally felt totally lost for an interminable moment, gagging on the girth of Pierce's slick penis as it buffeted forward against the back of her throat, and at the same time pinned and helpless with the burning agony of Jason White's thick cock burrowing ever deeper into her cringing little asshole. Her body twisted and writhed, while squealing little wordless cries for help slipped from her mouth around the fleshy gag of Pierce's penis.
The two men had Sally pinned now, skillfully trapped between them and with no possible hope of escape from their dual lascivious fucking of her mouth and virginal rectum. It was almost too much for Sally, to have those men possessing her in two ways she had never attempted before, forcing her simultaneously into acts of both lewd oral sex and increasingly uninhibited ass-fucking.
Jason White was driving his penis ever deeper into the tight channel of Sally's never-before-fucked little rectum, grunting with the exertion and quivering slightly as he savored the sensations which her clinging rectal walls evoked from the passion-charged staff of his cock. Finally, with one mighty thrust that rocked Sally's curvaceous frame, he buried his long prick to the hilt in the blond girl's tight, clasping ass.
Sally was in too much pain now for even Pierce's thick cock to completely stifle her cry of outrage. She was mewling little cries of pain constantly now, her entire body writhing in an effort to escape the cruel double ravishment she was experiencing.
"Aaaaaaaarrrrrrrrggggggghhhh!!!!" she moaned around that gagging filling rod of cockflesh. "Sssssssttttttoooooopppppp!!!! You're killing mmmmmmeeeeeeeeeeee-ee!!!!"
Her cries and pleas did nothing to dissuade Jason White and Phillip Pierce from their course of action. If anything, they now redoubled their efforts, White skewering his cock in and out of Sally's asshole with mounting speed, noting with silent satisfaction the way in which her clinging rectal muscles seemed already to be loosening slightly, expanding to accommodate the skewering passage of his rampant penis.
At the same time, Phillip Pierce had taken up a similar fucking rhythm of his own, sliding his thick pole of cockflesh in and out of the wet oval formed by Sally Porter's red lips. The girl had been forced to relax her throat and tongue muscles in order to keep from strangling, and in an effort to find some minimal comfort in her intolerable situation, she was constantly shifting her tongue from side to side in the cavern of her mouth. Unconsciously, she had actually begun to lick and stroke the underside of Pierce's skewering cock with her hot tongue, only succeeding in inciting him to ever more powerful thrusts of his pelvis and hips. His blunt penile head buffeted strongly against her palate, clogging the circle of her throat on every inward thrust.
Sally felt as if she was on the verge of unconsciousness, her limbs trembling and threatening to spill her face downward onto the sand in total collapse, thus freeing her from the two cocks which pinned her like a roasting hen on a spit at a barbecue.
Pierce and White were determined not to let her fall, however, and they managed to support her in her crouch without missing a single fucking beat of their energetic double rape. Above the sluicing wet fucking sounds generated by the two cocks slicing into her body, Sally could also detect other sounds, the mounting passionate cries of the other avidly fucking people on either side of her. From what her addled brain could hear and digest, it was obvious that all of the others were by now far along on the dizzying road to orgasm. Sally was certain that she could pick out the high voice of her best friend, Jennie Tendall, crying out breathlessly, "IIImmmmmm ccccuuuummmmmmmiiiinnnngggg!!! Jesus, I'm ccccuuuummmmiiiinnnngggg!!!!"
There was little time for Sally to take in the rest of those sounds, however, for now her own body was taking over, betraying her once-ironclad sense of what was right and wrong, what was natural or perverted, and she found herself almost unconsciously responding to the lewd double fucking Jason and Phillip were administering to her mouth and asshole.
Sally began to tremble, not with pain now, but with mounting lust and passion. Electric little shivers of desire raced the length of her twisting spine, setting her nerve ends jangling. She felt herself about to explode in the blissful oblivion of climactic orgasm, and she welcomed the feeling as it rapidly raced forward to engulf her body, mind and soul.
Pierce and White, avidly fucking Sally Porter in her mouth and clinging little asshole, could plainly sense the turnabout in her attitude toward their actions. Detecting her sudden receptiveness, they redoubled their fucking efforts now, churning their twin cocks into her with ever increasing vigor, driving her inexorably onward toward the mutual release which they all needed and craved so badly.
All other sounds around that avidly fucking, sucking trio had ceased, and Sally Porter noted that sudden silence with a tiny corner of her conscious mind. She opened her slitted eyes a notch further, risking a quick glance around before shutting them tightly once more, almost as if afraid that the magic erotic spell which entranced her might somehow be broken. She saw clearly that the other five members of their tiny island community had finished their own uninhibited sexual acts, and had now formed a ring around her and her two lovers, avidly devouring every movement of their three bodies with rapt attention.
Suddenly Sally felt as if she was at center stage somehow, the star and main attraction of a lewd, pornographic film or play. Oddly, where the very idea would once have repulsed her as much as the thought of taking a man's penis in her mouth or ass, it now seemed only to excite and arouse her further, stimulating her to even wilder fucking and sucking gyrations, as if she was determined to satisfy not only her dual lovers, but the members of her impromptu audience as well.
Sally had taken particular erotic delight in the broad smile which graced the face of her best friend, Jennie Tendall. Sally supposed that Jennie was satisfied now, having at least been indirectly responsible for Sally's learning to become a true woman at long last.
Such philosophical thoughts were beyond Sally now, however, as she locked her mind on the narrow and all consuming goal of explosive orgasm. She sucked and licked strenuously at Phil Pierce's cock, and all the while her ass cheeks were fucking back at Jason White's driving cock, challenging the ship's mate to bury even more of his rigid genital flesh deep inside her.
Sally felt her climax coming like the approach of a runaway express train which threatened to run her down and flatten her in its passing. She began to shiver and quake, trembling from head to toe as her muscles answered a primeval call over which she had absolutely no control whatsoever. Her head was spinning now, the world reeling before her narrowed eyes, sound first blaring and then fading out so completely that she thought she must have gone suddenly deaf. Nothing existed for Sally Porter but her own all-consuming need, and the driving, skewering action of the two hot cocks which promised to fulfill that need in short order.
Young Sally Porter came with the force of a miniature nuclear explosion, her entire luscious torso writhing and heaving as if in the throes of a powerful epileptic seizure. Her muscles and tendons alternately tensed and relaxed, activated by the racing hot and cold chills which dominated her jangling nerve endings. Her long blond hair shimmered and danced about her heaving face, slightly obscuring the action of her swelling cheeks as she sucked all the more avidly at Phil Pierce's penis.
As Sally climaxed explosively, her tight little rectal muscles transmitted a silent but forceful signal of success to Jason White's pistoning prick. The ship's mate felt those internal muscles seize his penis as if in a violent death grip, wringing electric jolts of pure erotic sensation from his glans and penile shaft as they struggled to hold him, imprison him in the velvety depths of her bowels. Jason groaned aloud, then shouted his rushing bliss as the milking action of Sally's ass muscles drove him, too, over the verge of climax and into the misty, swirling bottomless pit of orgasm.
"Christ!" Jason grated between tightly clenched teeth. "She's making me ccccuuuummmmmmmm!!!"
An awed sound went up from the tiny group of spectators as the man's body went rigid in turn, every tendon and vein standing out beneath his tan flesh like steel cables. Inside Sally's tight little ass, his prick seemed to suddenly balloon to twice its size, and then the dam broke, flooding Sally's clinging insides with a creamy flow of jism, blanketing her rectum with the outpouring of Jason White's sperm.
That white-hot eruption in her asshole suddenly pushed Sally over the edge for a second orgasm of even more shattering proportions. Her ass continued to nibble and milk at Jason's captive cock, and now her lips and tongue redoubled their efforts of Pierce's penis, determined that he should not be left out of that mutually blissful moment.
Sally had nothing to fear on that account, however. Captain Phillip Pierce was already on the very razor's edge of climax when she strengthened her oral assault upon his cock, and that final added stimulus was enough to trigger his own climactic explosion of release. Sally almost choked as his cock, stiffened and pulsated, jerking spasmodically in the grip of a passion which is beyond control.
Phil Pierce's semen erupted into Sally's hot little mouth in a milky flood, threatening to drown her in the fruits of his lust. She reacted quickly, more by instinct than by conscious thought, swallowing swiftly and gulping down every last drop of the ship captain's super-heated jism. To her considerable surprise, Sally found the taste of that life-giving elixir not at all unpleasant, sufficient in fact to prompt a third orgasm on her part, and her most powerful of the day.
At length the lustful trio separated, feeling no compulsion to utter meaningless endearments or pleas for forgiveness. The entire company relaxed there on the white sand in the waning afternoon sun, relaxing for what seemed a blissful eternity, but which, judging by the progress of the tropic sun on its slow slide down the sky, could not have been more than an hour or so.
Their spell was abruptly shattered when Jack Morris rose to his feet, moving lazily from his present position in search of a more shady spot in which to rest. Before turning toward the jungle tree line, Morris allowed his eyes to briefly scan the vista of the ocean, and they were riveted there by something which stunned him and brought a strangled cry to his lips.
"A ship!" he croaked hoarsely, sounding as if he was reluctant to accept the evidence of his own eyes or the report of his own voice. Slowly, he repeated the message. "A ship ... yes ... right out there!"
The others all followed his pointing finger with their eyes, picking out the growing white speck which now marred the blue horizon. Muttered words of wonder and disbelief were quickly exchanged, along with some half-hearted hand wringing, back-slapping and hugging. Their elation began to fade quickly, however, and the joyful expressions on their faces slid one after another into frowns that mirrored worry, concern, and something very much like regret.
The group had sat in grim silence for what must have been five full minutes, no one speaking, every eye turned outward from the little island which had become their world, riveted upon the steadily growing white dot which was at last their link and lifeline to a tenuous thing called civilization. At long last, it was Sally Porter who gave voice to the question that preyed on every mind.
"What do we do now?" she asked grimly.
The three young sailors stood on the white sand beside their lifeboat, frothy surf washing about their ankles, drenching their shoes and pants legs. One of them wore the insignia of a ship's officer on his stiff white collar, and the others were dressed in the garb of ordinary working seamen.
"You sure this is where you saw 'em, sir?" The question came from a grizzled old sea dog who stood nearest to the lifeboat.
"No doubt about it, Schmidt," the young officer replied. "There were four or five of them at least, probably more. And they were right here."
"But sir, this island has never been inhabited. You know that."
"I know what I saw, mister." The officer was becoming angry now, more at his own frustration and uncertainty than at the verbose sailor.
The trio stood together in grim silence for long moments, their eyes scanning the nearby jungle for any signs of life, and finding none to fasten on. A dull ache of certain failure was growing steadily within the young officer, and he feared it, hated to give in to it.
He had no choice. "Well, Christ," he swore at last, spitting onto the sand, a signal of final resignation. "We don't have the men or the time to search for anyone in the forest."
"No sir," the two seamen answered as one, glad that their superior was regaining his senses at last.
"Very well," the officer said with a tight grimace. "Prepare to cast off."
They clambored back into the lifeboat, one of the seamen pushing it outward and free of the clinging sand, then joining the others inside. They bent to their oars, moving swiftly now in spite of the breakers which beckoned and tugged them back toward the pristine shore.
After they had passed through the surf, not far from the line of the reef which broke the water's surface with a jagged line of white foam, the officer paused and looked back. A sound had come to his ears, and he glanced to the other sailors, but they had either heard nothing or were afraid to acknowledge the evidence of their own ears. Still he glanced toward the beach, and for one fleeting instant he could have sworn that he caught a glimpse of a young woman, blond and beautiful, naked and unashamed, standing there at the rim of the trees and waving. Waving at him!
The officer started to lift his hand in an answering wave and then thought better of it. He passed a hand over his eyes, and when he looked back to the beach, the golden image of Venus was gone, withdrawn like a wraith into the jungle.
He turned back toward his men, bending to his oar with a muttered curse that the other men studiously ignored. He could hear the sound again now, knew that they had heard it as well, but were deliberately ignoring it in order to mock him and make him look like a fool.
Never mind. He had heard the sound, and recognized it, filed it away for future reference in a portion of his mind which he reserved for dreams and pleasant fantasies that never saw the light of day. Oh yes, he had recognized that sound.
Laughter.