She kissed my neck, licking and sucking her way down to my shoulder. It felt incredible. I pulled her dress over her head, and lifted her off me, easing her onto her back. I hooked my fingers under the waistband of her underwear, and she raised her hips so I could take them off. I kissed her frantically, my hands roaming because I couldn’t decide where I wanted to touch her most.

“Slow down, T.J.” she whispered.

“I can’t.”

She reached between us and tugged on my shorts. I pulled them off and as soon as I was naked, she wrapped her hand around me. I came twenty seconds later, surprised it took that long.

When my head cleared I kissed her and ran my hands over every inch of her, slowly this time. I touched her in places I never thought I would and listening to the noises she made, I guess it must have felt pretty good.

When I was ready again, which was very soon, I pulled her on top of me. Being inside her was like nothing I’d ever felt before. Emma had been nervous and tense, and I’d worried about hurting her, but Anna seemed relaxed, like she knew what she was doing. She sat straight up, her hands flat on my stomach, moving at her own pace. The view was amazing. I watched as she closed her eyes and arched her back, and a few minutes later, when her expression changed and she cried out, I held her hips tight and came harder than I ever had in my life.

Afterward, I put my arms around her and whispered, “Was this just a one-time thing, you and me?”

“No.”

Chapter 27 – Anna

We went into the house when darkness fell and the mosquitoes descended. T.J. lay down beside me and covered us with the blanket. He wrapped his naked body around mine and fell asleep seconds later.

I was wide awake.

When he kissed me, I hadn’t stopped to think before I kissed him back. We were two consenting adults, but no matter how I spun it in my head I knew if we ever got off the island, and people found out what we’d done, there would be repercussions for my actions. As I lay there in the dark with T.J. spooning me I justified that what we had done felt good, and if anyone deserved that, it was us. What we did was our business and no one else’s.

At least that’s what I told myself.

***

I knelt on one knee wearing T.J.’s baseball cap, my hair pulled back so it wouldn’t get in my way. The curved stick T.J. used to start fires, two small chunks of wood, and a dry nest of coconut husks and grass were spread out on the ground in front of me.

A week or so after we killed the shark, T.J. pointed out that there was one thing I didn’t know how to do. He always made our fires, and he wanted to make sure I could make one, too. He’d been teaching me, and I was starting to get the hang of it, although I had yet to produce anything other than a lot of smoke and my own sweat.

“Are you ready?” T.J. asked.

“Yes.”

“Okay, go ahead.”

I picked up a stick, threaded it through the loop in the shoelace, and used the bow to spin it. After ten minutes, I had smoke.

“Keep going,” he said. “You’re getting close. You have to spin the stick as fast as you can.”

I spun my stick faster and twenty minutes later, arms aching and sweat running down my face, I noticed a glowing ember. Digging it out, I nudged it into the flammable nest beside me. I picked up the nest, held it in front of my face, and blew gently into it.

It burst into flames, and I dropped it. “Oh my God!”

T.J. high-fived me. “You did it!”

“I know! How long do you think it took?”

“Not too long. I don’t care how fast you can make one, though. I just want to know that you can.” He took my hat off and kissed me. “Good job.”

“Thanks.”

The accomplishment was bittersweet, because even though I could start a fire by myself, the only reason I’d ever need to was if something happened to T.J.

Chapter 28 – T.J.

We were eating lunch when a chicken walked out of the woods.

“Anna, look behind you.”

She turned around. “What the heck?”

We watched as the chicken came closer. It pecked the ground, not in any kind of hurry.

“There was one more after all,” I said.

“Yeah, the stupid one,” Anna pointed out. “Although it’s the last one standing, so it’s done something right.”

It came right up to Anna and she said, “Oh, hi. Do you not know what we did to the rest of your kind?”

It tilted its head and looked up at her as if it were trying to figure out what she said. My mouth watered. I thought about the chicken dinner Anna and I would have. But then she said, “Let’s not kill this one, T.J. Let’s see if it lays eggs.”

I built a small pen. Anna picked the chicken up and put it inside. It sat down and looked at both of us like it was happy with its new house. Anna put some water in an empty coconut shell. “What do chickens eat?” she asked.

“I don’t know. You’re the teacher. You tell me.”

“I taught English. In a major metropolitan area.”

That cracked me up. “Well, I don’t know what it eats.” I bent down by the pen and said, “You better lay eggs because right now you’re just another mouth to feed, and if you don’t like coconut, breadfruit, and fish, you may not like it here.”

I swear to God that chicken nodded its head.

It laid an egg the next day. Anna cracked it into an empty coconut shell and scrambled it with her finger. She put the coconut shell near the flames and waited for the egg to cook. When it looked done, she divided it between us.

“This is fantastic,” Anna said.

“I know.” I finished my share in two bites. “I haven’t had a scrambled egg in so long. It tastes just like I remember.”

The chicken laid another egg two days later. “That was a good idea you had, Anna.”

“Chicken probably thinks so, too,” she said.

“You named the chicken, Chicken?”

She looked embarrassed. “When we decided not to kill it, I got attached.”

“That’s okay,” I said. “Something tells me Chicken probably likes you, too.”

***

Anna and I walked down to the water to take a bath. When we reached the shore, I dropped my shorts and waded in, turning around to watch her undress.

She took her time, first taking off her tank top and then slowly pulling down her shorts and underwear.

I wish she could do that to music.

She joined me in the water, and I washed her hair.

“We are dangerously low on shampoo,” she said, ducking under the water to rinse.

“How much do we have?”

“I don’t know, maybe enough for a few more months. Our soap supply isn’t much better.”

We switched places, and she washed my hair. I soaped up my hands and rubbed them all over her and she did the same for me. After we rinsed, we sat on the sand letting the breeze dry our skin. Anna settled in front of me and leaned back on my chest, relaxing as the sun sank lower on the horizon.

“I watched you take a bath once,” I admitted. “I was out looking for firewood, and I wasn’t paying attention. You walked into the ocean naked, and I hid behind a tree and watched you. I shouldn’t have. You trusted me, and I did it anyway.

“Did you ever watch me again?”

“No. I wanted to, lots of times, but I didn’t.” I took a deep breath and let it out. “Are you mad?”

“No. I always wondered if you would try to watch. Did I, um…”