Beating The Curse Of Lahaina

Puzzled by her pensiveness, I made small talk as we walked to the base of the falls. "Where does all the fresh water come from...to feed these falls?" I asked.

"Rainfall," she answered. "Hana gets 90 inches a year, and the mountain areas get over 400. In Kihei, they only get about 13, even in Winter."

"Wow!" I exclaimed. "Four hundred inches of rain!"

She was walking ahead of me, her shapely bottom that I now knew so well twitching in a pair of white shorts. Finally, she stopped and turned, looking up at me, and said, "I'm not on birth control pills, you know."

"Huh-uhh?" I stammered, astonished.

"Women in the medical field don't get pregnant, Chris...unless they want to," she said, looking seriously into my eyes.

"Yeah?" I questioned, not understanding.

"Last night we conceived," she whispered, soberly, her chest heaving in its floral halter top. "The time is right, and when you exploded into me I actually felt...heard...us make a new life. I've never been so happy as at that moment. But, early this morning I felt differently. That's why I terminated it."

"Whattayamean, 'Rina?" I gasped.

"You're holding something back from me," she uttered, wrinkling her brow and stifling a sob. "I took the morning after pill – RU-238 – 'cause I feel like something bad is going to happen."

"Aww, 'Rina...honey," I cooed, wrapping her in my arms, my mind boggled by her clairvoyance...her extrasensory perception.

I took her hand and we walked to the edge of the huge pool that was formed by the crashing waterfall. I sat her on a rock and knelt before her. "What haven't you told me?" she asked loudly, since I could hardly hear her over the cascading water. "Is there someone else?"

"In a way. I've gotten orders from my Reserve Unit to ship out to the Middle East," I answered, also loudly, acknowledging that she'd been correct in her forewarning weeks before about the Marines being the first to go.

She looked into my eyes...for the longest time...and then held my face in her soft hands. "You must know that I love you, Chris, from the depths of my being...my soul. But, I'm not going to give you up to the fucking Curse! I'm gonna stop it right now!" she said, her eyes flashing.

"I'll be okay, baby," I said, with the bravado shown by generations of warriors soon to be – or later – dead in combat.

"You will be...with my help," she said, threateningly. "It's that stupid thing in Iraq. Well, you'd better do exactly as I say, Buster – starting right now – 'cause when you get back I'm gonna marry you and have your babies! C'mon, let's go for a swim!" she said, rising and walking to the pool.

"What about your suit?" I asked, dumbly.

"I don't need my fucking suit!" she said saucily, and dove into the water. I caught up with her after shedding my tee shirt, shorts and sandals. She threw her arms around my neck and her legs around my waist and plunged her tongue to my tonsils in a breathtaking kiss. "When I've cooled off," she whispered, gasping her honeyed breath at me, "I'm gonna take you over into that big fern forest and we're gonna fuck 'til dark."

"Thought we were going to the winery," I said, shivering from the cold.

"Would you rather drink or fuck?" she asked, smiling wickedly. "Better enjoy me while you can, Marine, 'cause I'll be sick from the pill tonight and who knows when we'll be together like this again?"

I'd never made love under a fern canopy before. And I'd never been fucked so completely...so carnally...as Karina did with me that afternoon. She was indefatigable – tireless – and took particular noisy delight in bringing me off orally and anally, as well as between her breasts and – need I say it – into her womb.

When we left the falls at dusk, I'd promised Karina that I'd not remove her stone amulet from around my neck until I'd returned safely from my tour. She was guardedly optimistic that by so doing the Curse's pattern might be broken.

Epilogue

That was fifteen months ago. I shipped out to Al Anbar province in Iraq, attached as a Crew Chief to a Medium Helicopter Unit. After fourteen months I've seen my share of cynical, though unrealistically optimistic, totally self-reliant guys – as I used to be before being with Karina on Maui – die while they still wondered why the Iraquis don't love us. Unfortunately, such gung ho – always advance – optimism is intertwined at all levels of the American cultural DNA. It's a blind faith, inaccessible to the light of disproof, yielding no treatment but death.

I've kept a daily diary to Karina, using snail mail, and e-mail when I could, and am very much in love with my Island goddess. We freely admit to "cleansing ourselves" when the tension gets too great, and I find myself whispering "Aloha, 'Rina," at the peak of my imaginative passion.

I have 30 days to go 'til I return home, and haven't once removed her amulet from around my neck. Last night she sent me a homely, hopeful littlehaiku, saying:

My man is off to war,

But we have beat'n the Curse of La'hai'na.

And a final note concluded her letter: "Keep your head down, Chris, my darling...my love. Don't be a hero."

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