Shipwreck

She cleared her throat and went back to trimming the sandals, eyes focussing on her work.

"... Circumstances dictate behaviour, Bel. I have been taught the most unlikely things by the most extraordinary people. I know you aren't a vegetarian, are you a pacifist?"

"I've never really thought about it."

"Then you aren't. You, just like me and almost every other honest person, know that 'ends never justify means' nonsense is a convenient fiction we tell children and idiots. Of course they do, the only question is 'how much?' You really ..."

Bel realised that Kat's gaze was no longer on her feet. It had moved up her leg, and there was the faintest hint of a smile's warmth behind her eyes. She had noticed.

"...shouldn't feel guilty about whatever you need to do to help yourself cope."

And once again the smile was gone. Perhaps it was not so ludicrous that she might feel sorry for Kat after all.

Kat's shoulder-length hair was barely coping with their situation, but Bel's longer and thicker style soon turned into a knotted and sweat-stiffened thicket. After a few days Kat cut it short as best she could with the knife. She had Bel's hands show her gratitude by giving them both orgasms under her direction. Kat leant back in her customary place, knife still in her hand but almost forgotten, riding the afterswells of her own release as she watched Bel. Kat had not been gentle in her pleasure, the bite marks stood red and obvious even against Bel's rapidly browning shoulders. Bel knew that Kat enjoyed the sight of them, as much as she enjoyed the sight and sound as she gasped and sobbed in her mixture of pain and the undeniable fierce satisfaction that was building inside her. And then Kat, of course, began to talk; began to say cruel hurtful things that would be in Bel's ears as she came. Kat, in the most literal way poor foolish Bel could imagine, came first. Partly because she was simply the more important of the two; partly because she wanted what Bel was doing now to be primarily about her own humiliation rather than Kat's immediate arousal. But most of all, now she thought about it, she wanted it that way round because she wanted Bel to use the same hand for them both. Bel was coming now, however shamefully and unwillingly, from rubbing the juices of Kat's orgasm over her own desperate and hungry clit. Did Bel find that idea as delicious as Kat herself did?

"Please answer the question, Bel. I want to know."

She didn't answer the question, at least she didn't mean to. But as she lay panting and collapsed at Kat's feet and heard Kat's soft satisfied chuckle, she had to admit the truth. That explosive 'oh my God, yesss!' as it erupted inside her might not have been in response to Kat, but it was still true.

Days passed. They did what they could to get by. They found just enough food to survive, even as they felt themselves getting a little weaker each day. Most of their time was spent in the necessary tasks, but now and then Kat beat, or watched, or did the other little things that she needed to keep her mind together.

As for Bel, she felt her own mind falling apart. She found herself unable to truly resent Kat, without Kat she would have died long ago. Despite everything she found herself liking Kat more as time went on. When she was entirely honest with herself, what Bel resented was Bel. She resented the fact that she could still like Kat; resented the way she responded to Kat's peculiar cruelties; most of all she resented the gnawing frustration that Kat hadn't expected one particular thing for the last five days and Bel didn't think she could go without any longer. Not that Kat had ever explicitly told her she couldn't do it alone, but for some reason that wasn't appropriate. For some reason, she wanted that to be shared with Kat.

It was a day when nothing seemed to go right. Kat's temper was shorter than usual. For once Bel's nudity wasn't to amuse Kat, they had given their clothes a much needed wash and now everything wearable except Kat's jacket and the knife-sheath were hanging from a line strung between two trees. They took shelter from the noon sun and Kat lit one of the precious cigarettes to calm her nerves.

"Kat?"

"What?"

"Would you mind if ... May I ...?"

"What is it, Bel? I'm really not in the mood."

"I'd like to ..."

Silence. Awful empty silence of looking into Kat's unsympathetic eyes and wishing she had never started.

"You'd like to what?"

"I want to touch myself."

Standing there in the shade of the palms, feeling absurd and awkward as Kat looked her slowly up and down and finished her cigarette. Then she got up and walked over to the clothesline, to the free end of the parachute cord neatly coiled against the tree trunk. She picked it up and drew the knife from her ankle.

"Do you understand by now just how vital every single piece of equipment we have is, Bel?"

"Of course I do."

"So you appreciate that damaging this cord in any way is not something I would ever do lightly. Yes?"

"Yes, Kat."

Kat cut a length of perhaps four feet from the end of the cord and doubled it over in her hand.

"Turn round, Bel, and kneel down. Then I'd like you to ask me again."

Bel turned her back and knelt on the sand. She repeated her question to the unseen Kat, but she wasn't speaking to Kat. She was speaking to the sea. The was kneeling naked before the great wide world and announcing her depravity. Here she was, in peril of her life and alone except for one cruel and unpredictable companion, and her greatest priority was to be dirty with her own body.

"Please, Kat, I want to touch myself."

She felt Kat's foot push between her shoulders, tipping her forward so she had to put her hands out to save herself.

"Crawl. Down the beach ..."

She began to move, awkward and unaccustomed on hands and knees; trying to ignore the sensuality of the way her breasts swung. Kat walked a pace behind her.

"... Ask me again."

"Please, Kat, I want to touch –"

Kat whipped her backside with the doubled cord. It was so unlike the beating; like a scalpel compared to a club. Thin precise lines of pain cut across her buttocks. It shocked her to a halt.

"Don't stop crawling."

"I'm sorry, Kat. I'm sorry."

"Not this time. I don't want your apologies, Bel. Ask me again."

"Please, Kat, I want to diddle ..."

Whip!

"You want to do what?"

She crawled down the beach on hands and knees, Kat following along and whipping her. What on earth had she done wrong? Why was Kat so coldly furious at something that had amused her before? Bel felt that Kat would whip her all the way into the surf. It terrified her.

"I want to masturbate ..."

Whip!

"... I want to feel my clit ..."

Whip!

"... I want to come with you watching me. I want to do it front of you. Please."

"Stop."

Bel waited, head down and backside stinging raw from the cord. It had not been a conscious action, but she realised her knees were farther apart than they need be, and she could not bear to bring them together with Kat so close behind her. Out of Bel's sight, Kat tied a slip knot in the cord and dropped the loop over her shoulders. She pulled until it came snug about Bel's throat.

"Do it now."

"No, Kat. Please not like this."

"Do it now, Bel."

She wanted to beg once more, to beg to take it all back. Not because she didn't want to anymore but because she couldn't bring herself to admit how much more she wanted after the flogging than before. Her backside was on fire; the combination of crawling and whipping made her feel utterly degraded; she was ashamed beyond anything she had felt in her life that it made her open her legs in response. The tips of the cord had whipped round her hip when Kat flogged her, stinging viciously far too close to her lips. Her mind was invaded by the appalling image of Kat whipping it directly between her legs, of the worst pain in the most sensitive place. The thought of it made her so desperate for orgasm. She took her weight on her left arm and reached her right between her own legs.

As soon as she touched it, Kat' hand slapped hard across her backside. The sound of the open palm on her skin rang in her ears. The impact rocked her forward and tightened the cord on her throat. Panic made her heart pound. She realised it made her hand move faster, far faster than she had ever done for her own pleasure or Kat's amusement. Not slow shy but luxuriant self-pleasure, not even depraved show. It was desperate, frantic, ugly: frigging, wanking, whatever nasty word was nasty enough for the intense animal need to just come as violently as possible as quickly as possible. Kat slapped her again, and again.

"Oh please yes just hit me!"

Another slap, but then the open palm staying pressed onto her throbbing skin; cupping and kneading as it slid slowly round from her buttock and between her legs.

"Are you sure, Bel? Is that really what you want from my hand?"

"Touch me. I want you inside."

She felt Kat's fingers pushing forcefully home, entering so easily and deeply into the wet accepting void of her hungry cunt. Kat's thumb resting on the muscle further back, not pushing inside but thrilling her with the threat of something dirty and depraved enough to suit her sudden mood. Kat's hand pushing her hips forward; pushing her throat against that cord that was elastic enough not to kill but tight enough to make her faint and dizzy as she began to erupt.

"Say the word for me."

"Fuck me. Let me feel you fucking me as I come ..."

Waves bursting inside her body to match the sound of surf in her ears; spreading out from her frantic rubbing, convulsing her around the glorious welcome resistance of Kat's fingers and the awful teasing lack under Kat's thumb. She closed her eyes and let herself collapse forward with her face in the damp sand and the smell of salt water. She shuddered and pulsed as Kat slowly moved her hand with what could almost be gentleness until Bel let herself subside into the sand.

Kat took two steps and stood by Bel's head. Bel raised her face and kissed Kat's toes.

"Thank you, Kat."

This was the bit that terrified her. Not the ways that Kat found to hurt, not the way her body thrilled to that; it was the cold dismissive voice that came after. The moment when Kat told her to get out of her sight, when she realised she had prostituted and degraded herself for someone who felt nothing for her but amusement.

Kat squatted down on her heels, and did the most extraordinary thing. She ran the fingers of her left hand through Bel's untidy cropped hair, almost as if she was a cute child or pet dog. She spoke very gently.

"Hush now, Bel. It's what you need, that's all. Don't be ashamed of that, it's alright ..."

Kat bent her head to give Bel's hair the lightest kiss.

"... Leave it there for me. It looks good on your neck."

Then she stood up and walked away, leaving Bel lying curled foetal and sated in the tropical sun amidst the sound of the waves. Every time had ended the same way. No matter whose hand in whose cunt – even the time Kat had seemed to entirely ignore Bel in favour of her own private caress – all led at the end to Bel's mouth. All led to the taste of Kat's power; to sucking clean and swallowing the evidence of Kat's pleasure and her own degradation. Except that this time Kat had done nothing of the sort; had simply brushed the back of her hand on Bel's cheek in such a way that the fingers didn't even wipe over her face.

Bel's feeling of contentment lasted less than an hour, and then everything was back to normal. Kat took the cord off of Bel's neck that evening and didn't put it back again. She never referred to what had happened: she did not mock, neither did she acknowledge. Whatever emotional contact Bel had thought there might be at the end was obviously only in her own mind. She continued to take Kat's criticism and provide Kat's entertainment.

Why, if they were the only two people left in the world, could Kat not let them be friends? It was a week after the thing that Kat refused to acknowledge, as they sat around the fire at night, that Bel's self-control finally broke.

"What did you say?"

"Please, Kat; I just can't bear this. Will you please let me kiss you."

Kat answered in that distant voice she used when Bel was particularly inadequate to her needs.

"Where?"

"Your mouth, of course."

"I don't think so, young lady. Not unless you want to kiss somewhere else first."

"Would you like me to kiss your feet again?"

"Don't be obtuse, it doesn't suit."

A strange enough thing to say, it seemed to Bel; she felt constantly as if Kat found her entirely stupid. She certainly was not stupid enough to misunderstand Kat's meaning. She was reluctant to use the word, she was reluctant to make the admission.

"Would you like me to kiss your cunt?"

"Would you like to?"

"Please Kat ..."

"Please what?"

"Would you let me kiss your cunt?"

"Are you asking me nicely to let you do that?"

"Yes, Kat. Please, may I?"

"No, Bel. Don't ever ask me that again. Don't ever ask anyone that; if you really want to do it then beg."

It was too much; all of it from the moment she had stepped aboard was too much to bear. She curled in on herself beside the fire and tried to talk through her sobbing.

"Why do you have to be so ugly? Why beg? Why can't women just love each other and do that?"

"When did you become expert on the things women do together to show physical love?"

"Stop it! Stop being vile and cruel to me. Stop!"

"How do you expect this to end?"

"I don't ... I don't know. Why?"

"We're not on some holiday, Bel. We can sit waiting for a rescue that will only come by chance; or we can put to sea again and hope against hope we don't get washed into the mid-Atlantic. Please, Bel, wake up and look around. There is a distinct possibility, in months or years, that one of us may end up eating the other. Do you honestly not comprehend that?"

"I could never do that."

"I think we've had that conversation before, little one ..."

"Don't fucking well call me that!"

"Harsh words, Bel; not like you at all, is it? You see, just at this minute you're simply angrier than you have ever been before. You're not really scared though, you're not dying. You've got no idea ..."

Bel back-handed her and knocked her flying, without even considering what she was doing. She found herself on top of Kat's body, hands locked on wrists and wrestling furiously in the dirt by the fire. Furious – truly as Kat had said the angriest she had ever been – raving and spitting at each other. Kat's thigh came up between her own and she drove herself down onto it. She realised that they were both struggling and swearing but neither was actually trying to hurt the other.

The thigh against her felt so good and vigorous; her hands found Kat's and her nails dug into the palms until Kat put her head back and groaned out loud. Her mouth on Kat's, forcing inside. It flashed across her mind that if Kat was truly the person she claimed to be she could bite out her tongue, but she found she didn't really care. Kat didn't bite at all, she sucked as if she was trying to swallow it. She abandoned herself to the sheer rough pleasure of riding Kat's thigh and mouth, but as soon as she let herself go Kat threw her on her back. Kat's weight on her chest; Kat's hand forcing up between her open thighs and inside her knickers; fingers probing. So long, so unbearably long since before Frank's attention had wandered and Kat had treated her as some perverted doll; and now there was a desperate needy person moving on her body again and it felt so glorious. Kat's voice ...

"Slut."

"Bitch."

"Is this what you want?"

"No!"

"What do you want?"

Sudden stop: wrapped around each other with legs intertwined and hands in each other's hair; panting on each other's faces. Bel heard a voice that was thick and sex-deep but entirely calm, very slowly saying words from the most hidden secret parts of herself.

"I want you to stop camping around like a silly stuck-up lesbian bitch playing at pirates and use that fucking knife for once."

Kat kept one hand locked in Bel's hair as she slowly drew the knife and put the blade against Bel's throat. Her voice was as eerily calm as Bel's had been.

"Take the shirt off."

Bel pulled it up as far Kat's hand let her, then waited for Kat to move the knife down between her breasts instead. She continued pulling, up over her face and then stopped. Barely able to breathe with the cloth against her nose in the tropic night, she wanted to lay under Kat's body and blade as depersonalised faceless tits and cunt for her use. She felt her nipples harden in response to steel gliding along her ribs and imagined how she would pulse within when they shrank away from its direct touch upon them. Kat's other hand drew the cloth slowly off of her face and she realised that yes, perhaps she would rather see them together after all.

The knife was the sort of no-nonsense tool that suited Kat's nature, sharp as it was, the back edge was a thick blunt slug of steel heavy enough to use as a hammer. When Kat reversed it Bel felt the cold and weight pressing down onto her breasts just as she had imagined, with no threat of cutting at all. She needed no order from Kat to ease down and kick away her knickers; no order to spread her knees wide. Kat stroked the thick back edge down and up Bel's inner thighs and watched as Bel closed her eyes and panted to the hard touch. She laid the flat across Bel's navel and heard Bel moan deep in her throat.

"Turn over."

Bel rolled on her front and spread out her arms, resting her sweat-damp cheek on the ground; feeling Kat draw the point lightly and oh-so-slowly the length of her spine. Kat turned the knife in her hand and pushed the butt gently between the cheeks of Bel's backside, just as she had with her thumb before. Bel pushed her hips back against it; feeling the heavy hardness pressing on the most shamefully sexual part of her body and fighting to control the need to beg for true violation. Kat didn't push any harder, but her other hand slid under Bel's raised hips. Fingers pushing through hair, spreading lips, circling ...

"Please. Please, Kat."

Breasts against her back; blade drawn safely light and flat along her outspread arm; hand working under her as her breath grew short and her hips ground back. Kat's weight was pushing down onto her, riding her body as she rode Kat's hand. Cold hard blade stroking in gentle safety at the back of her neck as it built deep down inside her.

For all that her haircut was ugly and untidy and a symbol of her subordination, she felt so grateful to have the back of her neck bared under Kat. She felt blade give way to mouth, and for once not biting but a deep gentle sucking at the base of her skull that sent ripples the length of her spine to meet the unexpected tenderness of Kat's hand.

"Please ..."

Kat, of all people, completely misunderstanding the reason for her pleading.

"It's alright, Bel, it's all alright. Just let it out."

"Please let me ki- ..."

Screaming into the earth as a frustration she hadn't even known was there erupted out of her and she felt Kat's mouth on the back of her neck. Panting and sweating, limbs shaking; begging.

"Let me kiss your cunt, Kat, please."

"It's alright Bel, you don't need ..."

"Pleeease!"

Heavy thud of discarded knife hitting the ground; gentle hands turning her over onto her back; Kat straddling her face and lowering that familiar taste down onto her; so much fresher and sweeter this way than sucked from her own hand. Feeling as if she had come home. Luxury of the movement against her face; the sounds above her as her tongue did what her fingers had before; the knowledge of what she was giving ...