Aurora - Wings of the Goddess Pt. 03

Beck shot Vicky a glance. She was still perched on the edge of her seat, eyes closed, head bowed. Whether she was actually getting all this, or still wallowing in her own despair was anyone's guess.

"Couldn't steal the tinny," Beck said, "too noisy for starters and the Maggot had taken the curly-chord. So I looked at the old man's RIB... the rigid inflatable... but the outboard was off and I just wasn't strong enough to put it back on. It was up on davits with a canvas cover over the top, hanging at a bit of an angle, so if you stood in the cockpit you couldn't see in. So I figured maybe, just maybe, I could hide out in there and hope the others figured I'd just fallen overboard. No idea what I was gonna do then but that didn't matter. I had to go. It had literally reached the point of do or die."

"You weren't afraid they'd come looking?" Vicky asked in a tiny voice, "When they saw you were gone?"

"Of course I was. But look, I'm pretty small, and I figured if I just burrowed right down. And if they did manage to find me there was always Plan 'B'... over the side and let the sharks take care of it. Or the crocs. Either way I was done. They could kill me if they wanted, or I'd just kill myself, it didn't matter either way right at that moment.

"And no sooner had I made my move than up they came." Beck raised her hand, finger and thumb almost touching. "Honestly, it was that close... if I'd hesitated even a couple of minutes I'd be dead. And I just lay there, shivering so hard I was sure they would hear, waiting for the shouting to start. Any second now, I thought, and they'd start tearing the joint apart, then open the RIB and that would be that.

"And just like that they took off," Beck snapped her fingers, "the outboard started and off they went as if they hadn't even noticed I was gone. The next thing I knew the yacht's engine started up too, and we were moving. And I thought to myself, maybe she was an angel after all. Aurora. It was a miracle. I was escaping. Damon wasn't doing for me, mind you, he was just afraid the scumbags might come back but that didn't matter. All that mattered was we were getting... the FUCK... out of there and all my prayers had just been answered."

Beck exhaled through puffed cheeks at the effort of telling, then straightened and raked her hair back. "I stuck it out for two days." she said. "Two long, miserable days. I was seasick. I was starving hungry and dehydrated as anything. And I was terrified. A couple of times when I took a peek out all I could see was the ocean, and all I could hear was the sound of the waves and water rushing over the hull. And I shat myself, literally, if you really want the unvarnished truth, so there I was, lying in a pool of my own filth, wondering how much more I could take. But it still didn't matter, because every hour that passed I was further away.

"Then, as if I wasn't already scared enough, we suddenly got walloped by this great big wave. It's called a knock-down, when the yacht tips on its side and almost rolls over. I got thrown round so much I thought I'd broken my neck and Rib's anchor smashed me right on the shin. Couldn't help it, I just screamed, and that's how Damon found me, the poor old boy. Sorry, the Beast. The RIB's cover came off and there he was, standing there holding a speargun. He almost puked at the smell 'cos it was so bloody disgusting, but he lifted me out anyway and took me downstairs. Put me in a nice hot shower then gave me clean clothes... one of his T-shirts that came down to my knees and a pair of his undies, held up with a great big safety pin. And then he fed me. I was so flippin' famished I managed to puke it back up but he still wasn't angry, he just sat there, rubbing my back, comforting me, feeding me soup by the spoonful. Chicken noodle, I'll never forget. And toast. Then he moved his gear out of his cabin and put me to bed. And I have never, ever, ever slept so peacefully. It was over, Vicky. I'd been saved."

Vicky shook herself out of her trance. The story might be true she had to grudgingly concede, but nothing could condone the act she'd just witnessed. "Maybe so," she whispered, "but it came at a price, didn't it?"

Beck squinted at her. "What price?"

"You know what price."

"You mean the sex?" Beck demanded and Vicky nodded. "Have you even been listening?"

"Of course I have!"

"Then why are you getting hung up on the least of the details? Don't you get it? He saved me."

"Right. For himself."

"What bullshit!" Beck railed. "Know what happened first? He tried to take me back. Not to them, of course, because he'd already figured that out, but back to the authorities. The same ones who abandoned me in the first place, who all sat back and let those people ruin my life. Said he'd drop me off at a women's shelter. Where I'd be safe. Safe? What a joke! The Thing used those places like a holiday resort... free food, free clothes, all those fat, stupid do-gooders running around after her. I would have wound up in a place full of women just like her and there was no fucking way I would do that. I wasn't going back I said, ever. I told him I'd jump overboard if he so much as tried, but he turned around anyway so over I went.

"And I meant it, too." Beck said, breathing hard, "It wasn't a dare. I wasn't just doing it to get some attention. I honestly figured I'd be better off dead. Because if he took me back they'd just march me home anyway, and when they got their hands on me I'd be history. They'd done it before and they'd do it again. And it made no difference to him, that selfish old man, because he didn't care about me anyway."

Beck swallowed a couple of times, choking back her anguish. "But he did care, Vicky. He stopped the yacht and jumped right in after me. Right out there in the open sea. Then he fought me off, while I was kicking and biting, screaming at him I wanted to die. He dragged me back, literally. From the jaws of death.

"So we turned around again and off we went, back on the original course. Then Damon came up with another idea. He asked how old I was and I told him, 'eighteen', so he's like, 'Right. You're old enough to look after yourself, so I'll just drop you off at the next major town. Give you some money to buy a bus ticket south and pay for a few days' food. You cool with that?'

"Well the answer was no, I wasn't cool with that. I wanted to stay. I wanted to be out there, on that beautiful yacht with its angel-wing sails, with the wind and the waves and the... emptiness. It was incredible... the quiet, the isolation, the... the... the cleanliness... no dumped cars, no stolen motorbikes, no broken furniture lying out in the yard... just the sea and the sky and the wind and the waves, and no living souls for as far as the eye could see. I wanted to stay with her, Aurora, but I wanted to stay with him even more. The kind old man with the quiet voice who'd just jumped into the water to save me."

Beck fell silent and Vicky looked up to see tears coursing over the little blonde's cheeks. She went to lay a hand on at first but quickly pulled back, still torturously conflicted. The whole thing smacked of an intricate lie, an elaborate fiction cooked up as an alibi. But then again.

Rallying her composure, Beck smeared her face. "I wanted to stay," she said quietly, "Damon wanted me gone. Diametrically opposed as he likes to say. Now. I'd promised myself if I ever escaped I'd never have sex ever again, but if there was one thing I knew it was this... every man has the same fatal weakness. And I could use that weakness to get my own way. I could have a home. A home and safety and someone to look after me. Someone to love. And for the first time in my life someone to love me. I could have a life, Vicky, with a meaningful future, and there was one sure-fire way I could get it. I could seduce him."

"Right." Vicky scoffed. "I bet he didn't take much seducing."

"Well you'd know."

For a moment there was silence as Vicky glowed with searing embarrassment.

"And he wouldn't be in it anyway." Beck said haughtily, with a silent 'so there!' "When I started to push he just pushed back and the harder I tried the harder he pushed me away. To the point he even started locking his door, something you should never, ever do in a yacht out to sea. But he wanted me, Vicky, I could tell. I could see it in his body-language. And I could feel it, even while he did his best to avoid me. I'd catch him looking at me sometimes, eyes so full of longing it almost hurt. All the signs were there and I knew if I just persevered... So that's what I did, cuddling up at the dinner table, making him brews. Asking him to tuck me in, hoping he'd stay...

"And then some time on the third or fourth night out of the RIB, I woke up to the sound of this great big storm. We were bang in the middle, so the thunder and lightning both came together and the wind was making this awful sound, halfway between a moan and a howl as it tore through the rigging. Flash! Boom! Another first for me and I was terrified, so I bolted upstairs in my T-shirt and knickers. And there he was, the D-man, standing behind the helm, looking like some sort of hero straight out of a fairytale. Bravely steering Aurora through the thunder and lightning, through the crashing waves and pissing-down rain. But he was digging it, in his element, literally, drenched to the bone with the spray pelting his body, water running out of his beard.

"Well, he tried to send me back at first but I wouldn't go... if we were gonna die, goddammit, then I wanted to see it coming. Then some of the running-rigging jammed and Damon was like, 'Becky, here, Sweetheart, could you do me a favour. Here. See this compass? Just turn the wheel this way and that to keep us pointing in this direction while I go forward and deal with this mess...' And he left me there, alone, with his most cherished possession in my hands, and if I had to pick the moment I fell in love with him that was it. And I mean true love, right, not a sort of 'what's in it for me' deal of convenience. I was a goner.

"Now, if anything could convince him that was it. Right? He could put me there at the helm of his yacht and I'd do what he told me to do... hold a steady course, not the slightest bit frightened, even while I was secretly crapping myself. Right? Wrong. It was still a done deal. Some time tomorrow we were gonna reach land and he'd be done with me. And just to prove the point, that afternoon he gave me an envelope, with a thousand bucks cash, more money than I'd seen in my life. For a bus fare and food. I've still got it by the way, he said to hold onto it, in case the day ever came when I changed my mind.

"But then the storm was gone and it all went quiet and he made me go back to bed, and when I tried his cabin later of course it was locked. And I didn't sleep a wink all night. After all I'd been through in my previous life I'd found where I most wanted to be, but we were nearing the coast and in a few short hours it'd be over. I was desperate. Just like I'd been given a little peek at heaven, just so it could be taken away."

"No! Heaven's not on this-" Vicky began and Beck cut her off.

"Vicky don't. Okay? Point is the subtle approach clearly wasn't working, so as Damon always says, 'if at first you don't succeed use a bigger hammer.' I'd been hoping I could pull it off without actually getting undressed, because I had such a terrible body image and was really ashamed."

"You?" Vicky asked, genuinely surprised. "But you're... you're... umm... normal."

"That's not what I'd been told."

"By whom?"

"You know whom."

"Da... that man?"

"Certainly not. He is such a sweetheart he pretends it turns him on. The Thing. Zits for tits, boobs like bee-stings, hip bones you could use to slice watermelon. Knobby knees, ribs sticking out. I was convinced I was gross. Still, I figured, it might be worth a try and I really had nothing to lose. And everything to gain if he actually fell for it.

"So when morning came I went up on deck and spread out a towel on top of the yacht. Gorgeous day, sky as clean as a whistle and barely a breeze, like something out of a postcard. And I did it. I took off my T-shirt and knickers, and lay down on the towel on top of Aurora. And waited. And waited. And waited for what seemed like forever, until finally I heard him poking around downstairs. And I thought, 'Here we go'. Sure enough in a minute or two suddenly Damon popped up, looking for me, since my door was open and my cabin was empty. And he just stood there, looking, wondering what to do, then turned away. And as he was leaving, in this deep, gravelly voice he said... 'Careful, Rebekah, make sure you don't get sunburnt.'

"So I asked him, 'Would you mind putting some sunscreen on me?' and held out the bottle he keeps in the cockpit. And he just says, 'That's okay, I'm sure you can do it yourself.' And I said, 'Pleeeease, Damon. Just be nice to me.'"

Beck smeared her eyes again and fell silent again for a modest eternity. "And that was it," she said in a little voice, "he took the bottle and started slapping sunscreen all over my back. And when he was finished I turned over and... well... let's just say he finally caved."

"Poor man." Vicky muttered, scene playing out in her mind. "Must have been terrible."

"I know, right." Beck replied earnestly, ignoring the barb. "A lifetime's sense of moral superiority just blown away. You know he was so sick with remorse after we did it the guilt nearly killed him. He was just so disgusted, thinking he'd taken advantage of me, while all along I was taking advantage of him. I knew exactly what I was doing, Vicky. I was exploiting him."

Vicky got up and wandered aimlessly around the room, grappling with conflicting emotions. Part of her that wanted to believe Beck's incredible tale, while an equal proportion clung doggedly onto denial. "And you honestly believe he's not using you?" she asked in a tiny voice. "Because that's how it looked."

"Using me?" Beck demanded, aghast. She stood, a head shorter than the pacing woman and gripped her wrists. "Do you know I managed to get knocked overboard one day? In a storm? Without a lifeline? And Damon jumped in? So now there's two of us, overboard in the middle of the bleeding Pacific, trying to catch Aurora as she drifted away."

Vicky turned her head, avoiding eye contact. "Has it ever occurred to you?" she demanded sullenly, "His so-called act of 'heroism' might have been self-serving?"

"Self-serving?" Beck's jaw sagged. "How?"

"Well... so he could keep on having sex with you."

Beck shook her head in dismay. "What is it with you religious people and sex? Really. It's such an insignificant part of our lives. We rarely have sex more than two or three times a day, sometimes four, a few more maybe if we're out there becalmed. That's a couple of hours max on your average day. What's that?" Beck stared at the ceiling while she performed some quick mental arithmetic, "It's like not even ten percent. And what about the rest of the time? Hmm? When he's teaching me to sail or helping me with my maths and my English? Or catching food for us to eat or cooking us dinner? Or snorkelling with me, or teaching me binomial nomenclature? Or we're just cuddling in the cockpit counting shooting stars? Or-"

"Thank you Becky," Vicky muttered, twisting her wrists free, "I get the picture." Shuffling back to the sofa she sat down, head bowed. It was only just dawning that she'd made a terrible mistake. Either way. By setting foot on board Aurora in the first place or running away. "So... how many other young girls has Damon had sex with?"

An image flashed through Beck's mind. Of Maya, straddling her old man, hands flat on his chest, madly cranking her hips to and fro as the tip of his prick tickled her tonsils. "None of your bloody business." she said, sitting down beside her. "The same as what you do is none of his. Do no harm, that's our first and foremost rule."

"Really?" Vicky curled her lip, "What's rule number two?"

"If it feels good do it, as long as you don't break rule number one. If everyone lived like that it would be paradise."

And it did feel good when she did it, Vicky thought bitterly. Awesome in fact. She crumbled, toppling sideways so her head landed in the little blonde's lap. A tiny part of her asked, 'What's that nice smell?' while the greater part carried on with the self-flagellation. "I'm so confused, Becky." she whispered. "I've already called Pastor Neil to tell him the news. I'm coming back to he fold. He said to hurry and he said to bring you."

"Fat chance."

"He said Damon is the devil and he wanted to save you."

"Right." Beck snorted. "For himself." She went to stand and Vicky threw her arms round her waist.

"Please, Becky, no. I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm just so confused."

"Mentally defective, more like it." Beck retorted, "If you thought you were gonna hand me over to a cult."

"Oh, god, Beck. I don't want to go back."

"Then don't."

"But I've already booked two tickets, for you and me."

"The only thing I'm boarding is my beautiful yacht. And soon as I do the devil and me are leaving, and this time there's no turning back."

"Becky?" Vicky whispered. "Take me with you?"

"Seriously?"

"Yes... No... Oh, Becky, I'm just so confused. I feel like my feet are either side of a chasm. The Pastor on one side, you and Damon on the other."

"So choose."

Vicky lay her head back down on Beck's smooth-skinned thighs. She could hear the girl's stomach gurgle, smell her delicate musk. "So confused..." she whispered, "so confused."

"I bet you're bloody not."

Vicky stiffened. "What do you mean?"

"Tell me something, Macca." Beck said, absent-mindedly stroking Vicky's hair, "Do you like sex?"

Vicky didn't respond at first, then gave a tiny nod.

"Well I do too. I love it in fact. So why should it be okay for you and not for me?"

Vicky screwed her face up in revulsion. "With the same man?"

"Well he's good enough for you, isn't he?"

Vicky processed Beck's question, then barely nodded once more.

"And he's not my dad, right? So it should be okay. Shouldn't it?"

"Yes..." Vicky said, almost inaudibly, "I guess it should."

"Well? Is it?"

Vicky couldn't answer, because the canny little blonde had her cornered. One of the most breathtaking benefits of Vicky's newfound freedom was the ability to target, flirt with, fuck and farewell anyone she found sufficiently attractive, the whole thing underpinned by a modicum of caution. She was in absolutely no doubt as to Watson's sexual ability, so why should it all stop with her?

"No," Beck shook her head, "It's not okay, is it? Cos' you've just been bitten by the old jade dragon."

Vicky pushed herself up, squinting. "The old jade what?"

"Dragon. You're jealous Vicky. Admit it."

The young woman buried her face in Beck's lap, her body racked with sobs. "I thought I was special." she keened, inadvertently revealing the kernel of her anguish.

"You are special, Vicky." Beck rolled her eyes. "You're special to him and you're special to me. And you're special to Tanya, who's special to Damon. Who's special to me while I'm special to him. We're humans," she said testily, channelling her old man, "not bloody bookends."

"Can I ever go back?"

"To the congregation?" Beck asked. "Fill your boots."

"To Aurora." Vicky sniffled.

"Why not?"

"What about Pastor Neil?"

"Fuck Pastor Neil. He can get his own yacht."

"No. I mean what will I tell him?"

"Know what I'd tell him?" Beck asked, then doubled over and kissed Vicky wetly in the ear. "Absolutely zilch. Let the dirty old pervert and his minions turn up at the airport." She giggled. "Can you imagine? Him. Standing there, rubbing his gnarly old hands together, waiting for the two of us to walk through the gate? I'd love to see the look on his face when that final passenger comes through. The filthy old pig."