Caribbean Castaways

"Fuck," he yells, while submerged. Not knowing if Andromeda is toying with him, seducing him, or naively-unaware of her actions.

He resurfaces, then walks back onto the edge of wet sand. His back is to Andromeda as he flicks the water off his body with his hands. Twilight is getting darker. There's a decent moon tonight, a waxing gibbous, but their eyes will need to adjust. So he wants to make some final preparations for the night ahead, before it's fully dark.

He's going to leave the dry towel for Andromeda. The air is still warm, so he's happy to air-dry himself. He tosses a fist-sized pumice stone over towards the towel, as somewhere to place the soap without getting it covered in sand. Then takes one more look at the beach-bather's dilemma; as soon as he walks onto the dry sand, it'll stick to his wet feet. No novel solution comes to mind, so he sets off towards the helicopter, encrusting his feet.

His first task is connecting the USB charger to the helicopter's battery, so he can recharge his phone. Then changes into some dry clothes; shorts and another tee-shirt. His 'tent' is only a tarpaulin and a rope, usually strung between two trees. There are no trees here, but he could hang it below the tail boom. The ground there isn't very flat, so he decides to just use it as a ground sheet.

Andromeda arrives, as he's stoking the fire. Bikini in hand and the towel wrapped around her torso.

"Is this where we're sleeping?" she asks.

"I think so. There's no insects here, and it's warm enough. If it rains, we'll just get in the cabin."

"Oh, I hadn't noticed the lack of insects."

"Too far from land for the blood-suckers, which is good. I only have a small self-inflating mattress, you can take that. I'll lie on the sand."

"Such a gentleman. But I think we can dispense with the chivalry. We've crashed on a desert island - surviving all alone - don't we need to improvise, adapt, overcome?" she smiles. "You can be the first man I sleep with."

"What?"

"Sleep with," she repeats. "I've had plenty of sex, but I've never shared a bed for a whole night. Not with a man."

"Oh."

"And, before you ask, the girls were all childhood sleep-overs. No sex."

"I see... But I don't think we'll be getting much sleep," Cob replies.

"Oh?"

"I mean, we're somewhere strange, outdoors, the moon will be bright, the water is close. I just don't think we'll sleep very well."

"Ah. Probably not."

"There's some hot coals now. I'll start dinner."

"You don't have to do everything. You're only being paid to fly the helicopter. I can help when we're on the ground."

"I haven't got you to your destination yet. I feel obligated."

"Well, I want to help cook. I'll just get some clothes on, first," Andromeda says, as she heads to the far side of the helicopter.

Five minutes later she returns, wearing white knee-length pants, with nautical-themed vertical blue pin-stripes, and a sheer-white, button-front, short-sleeved blouse.

"I don't have any clothes suitable for camping. I don't want to wear the bikini anymore. It might become famous and go to a charity auction, some day."

"Well, at least there's no dirt and mud. Just sand, which gets everywhere," Cob responds.

"I see you have a phone charger. Could I use it? My phone has gone flat, suddenly."

"Sure, there's plenty of battery for that. And turn your phone to flight mode, there's no reception here, or very little. It's probably trying to poll the cell tower at full transmit power. Phones always die quickly when the reception is poor."

"Oh," she says, while unlocking her phone. "Still no reception, fourteen percent battery left. I'd better turn the brightness down too, it's getting dark here."

Andromeda places her phone against her chest to mask the light, as she looks at Cob. He groans faintly.

"Something wrong?" she asks.

"No, nothing wrong. Sorry, you weren't meant to hear that."

"Then, what?"

"Your phone. When you put it against your shirt, it under-lit your breasts... Rather captivating."

"Oh," she chuckles, then starts experimenting, lighting her shirt from different angles. "The material is rather sheer. And I didn't bother with a bra."

"I noticed."

She smiles at him. "Show's over. I'd better save my battery," she says.

"Come and we'll put it on the charger, while we cook dinner."

"May as well. I can't get any socials, music, or news. All my apps need something from the cloud."

"You don't get out of the city much, do you?" Cob jokes. "I've got some local games, and music downloaded, just for such occasions."

"Kyle gives tech training to all his clients. Mostly stuff like, don't trust the cloud, don't let your phone get stolen, how to wipe the location data from a photo, change passwords regularly, and such. He didn't warn me to download some apps that'll still work without cell service."

"Sounds annoying. Always having to protect yourself from the weirdos out there."

"At least I'm safe here. Or are you one of those weirdos? Planned this all along?" she laughs.

"I would have planned this better, if I did. We only just made it here. We could have been out there, sitting on the roof, while the helicopter sinks into a sandbar. But now that we're here, I'm rather enjoying it; private beach, pleasant company, nice scenery, no advertising, no traffic, the stars are out."

"I've yet to rate the food. Let's cook."

~

Andromeda's agent, Kyle, is on his second call with the American Airlines pilot, Reggie.

Between calls, Reggie forwarded his two best photos by email. Reggie doesn't know that the woman on the beach is Andromeda, so Kyle tells him this and offers to broker the sale of the photographs to the press. Kyle writes down Reggie's exact reply; "Sheesh, man. I was on-the-clock. I can't take that money."

So they come to a verbal agreement. Kyle will broker a reasonable sale price, then donate the money to a charity of Reggie's choosing. Kyle will honor this agreement - it's the publicity that he cares about, not the fifteen-thousand dollars he can sell the two images for, as an exclusive.

Kyle is eager to draft the photo release form, he knows he's sitting on twenty-megapixels of glorious publicity. As soon as he has Reggie's signature, he'll be offering the pictures to the press. He'll start with his contact at Good Morning America, since they had offered Andromeda the time-slot she'll be missing, tomorrow morning.

~

On the island, dinner is being shared straight from a small pan. Andromeda uses the only fork, while Cob eats with the spoon. Their conversation comes easily, despite their difference in age. When they move on to their 'dessert' - the packet of Peanut M&M's - the topics become more personal.

"Do you miss your daughter?" she asks.

"Yes, and no. I was only with her until she was a year old, when I was posted to Japan. My wife didn't want to go, she said Alana was too young to move that far away. I don't miss changing nappies, and the sleepless nights, but she's past that stage now. I just didn't get to see it, so I'm not sure what sort of person she became. I just don't know what she's like - I don't even know what she looks like. She's eleven, in the last photo I got. She doesn't seem to be on social media, that I can find."

"You don't have any contact?"

"I speak to her on her birthday, and at Christmas, but Sarah - my ex - is always there on speaker-phone. So we don't really talk, we just go through the motions. It always seems awkward, and forced. I don't know what she's been told about me, but I get the impression she doesn't like me."

"Why did you lose custody?"

"I was in Japan. I couldn't afford a lawyer and couldn't be in court, to defend myself. Sarah told the judge I had abandoned them, by going to Japan, and that I was seeing prostitutes."

"Were you?"

"No. I'd sent a photo home, of me sitting next to a Geisha. A tourist-type shot. Alabama judges weren't very worldly-wise in those days, probably still aren't, so it became damning evidence against me. And by the time I got back Stateside, I was already headed for Iraq. Then I lost some friends over there, and guess I just lumped it all in with that. Accepted all my losses as fate."

"When my father died, I was devastated. I've gone over our last conversation so many times, I'm not even sure if it's real anymore. I want, so much, to talk to him again. So keep calling Alana, she may not realize how much it means, but don't take that from her. And it's important for you, too."

"She'll be eighteen soon. Maybe off to college. I only have a number for my ex-wife."

"You can't find Alana Swanson online?"

"Alana Eildon. My wife didn't want to be called Susan Swanson, so kept her maiden name. At least Alana doesn't get called 'Swansong' at school."

"Well, Mister Corn-Cob Swansong, what music have you got on your phone?"

"Both kinds. Classical and Baroque... Classics like Smashing Pumpkins, Metallica, Chilli Peppers, Offspring, or totally Baroque, like The Rolling Stones, ELO, Beatles, and Supertramp."

"You're not that old. I've heard of all of them," Andromeda says, giving him a gentle nudge with her elbow.

"How about some Madonna, as inspiration for a successful career?"

"Yeah. She did good. So much talent."

"I think she had the business acumen, and the desire, to make it work. But not everyone likes the success, if it comes."

"Like who?" Andromeda asks.

"Well, apart from Kurt Cobain, and Amy Winehouse, there's George Michael. He was in a teen-band named Wham. Then he went solo, and tried to break out of that whole sex-symbol image. But Sony Music had different ideas. He took them to court, trying to get out of the restrictive contract. He lost, and basically just stopped recording. Sony eventually resold the rights and he was able to buy back some of his creative independence."

"Damn."

"I'll play 'Freedom,' listen to the lyrics - he sings about his past success, and his cynicism with the industry. He didn't even appear in the music video, which pissed off the record company, no end."

"Ha! My videos are ninety-percent me. I'd never thought about doing it different - at least, not at this stage of my career. Was there dancing in it?"

"No, but a bunch of supermodels. Christy Turlington, Linda Evangelista, Naomi Campbell, and such. I loved that video as a teenage boy, I'd stop and watch every time it came on MTV. Which was a lot. Tatjana was my favorite. And they blew up a jukebox, and torched his leather jacket. Very symbolic, as they were featured in his earlier video."

They lay back on the ground sheet listening to the phone's speakers and watching the stars.

"Oh, I do know this one," Andromeda realizes.

"Look, a satellite," Cob says, pointing.

"That's a plane."

"No, there's no strobe light, it's a steady white, like a moving star. It's heading southwest, when it gets into the shadow of the earth, you'll see it disappear. We should be able to see more of them, this evening. I've got an app for the Space Station's orbit, it's the brightest one, but it won't pass over us tonight. I checked."

"Another app that doesn't need the cloud, I guess?"

"I've got one called Planets, too. It'll show you where the Andromeda Constellation is."

"Oh, show me!"

After fiddling with his phone for a bit, Cob says, "It's back over there, to the northeast. Fairly high in the sky, at the moment."

Andromeda compares the sky to the labeled representation on the phone, trying to memorize it.

"Andromeda was a princess, in the myth. Her mother, Queen Cassiopeia, boasted about her beauty. So Poseidon gets jealous, or something, and sends his sea monster to attack the coast. Andromeda is chained to a rock, as a sacrifice for it, but gets saved by a guy named Perseus. And they live happily ever after."

"It's all Greek to me," Cob says, earning another elbow from Andromeda. Then she rolls onto that elbow to look him in the eyes.

"Are you going to be my Perseus, or do you want to tie me to a rock?"

"Um," is all Cob can verbalize, in his uncertainty.

Andromeda smiles at him. "You're still getting mixed messages, are you?" Then, she turns up the phone's volume and stands at Cob's feet, moving to the rhythm of Supertramp's 'Ain't Nobody but Me.' It's a hypnotic dance, entirely different from the athletic choreography of her videos.

Her petite stature, sexy curves, and snake-charmer movements, remind Cob of Rachel Fury; one of Pink Floyd's backing singers on their 'Delicate Sound of Thunder' tour. A concert video he has watched many times, since he was a teenager.

The track changes to The Beach Boy's 'Do It Again.' Andromeda increases the tempo of her dancing.

"How about this for a hint, Cob?" she says, before turning side-on and twerking. Her 'booty' swings left-and-right a few times, before she moves on to an up-and-down jiggling, that sends quivers down the flesh of her hips and thighs. She has a smile on her face, she is expecting an amused response from him, and Cob is happy to oblige with a laugh.

Andromeda steps back onto the ground-sheet and kneels, straddling Cob's thighs. "What's so funny?" she giggles.

"The twerking. I guess I'm too old, but I think it looks ridiculous."

Andromeda grabs the erection she can see in Cob's shorts, causing him to gasp and slide himself away a few inches. Andromeda walks forward on her knees and sits heavily on his groin. Eliciting a grunt from him.

"Little Cob seemed to get my message. Maybe big Cob needs to stop associating me with his daughter, and start thinking of me as a grown woman. I saw three condoms in the first aid kit. I want us to use all of them. Tonight."

"Well, that's an unambiguous message. I want you, too, but are you sure about this? You're nineteen, aren't you?" he says.

"Yes. And if I had cell reception, I'd probably be on social media right now, feeling the love of my many fans. But I've only got access to one fan tonight, so I'm going to suck all the love out of him that I can."

She leans forward and kisses him on the lips. Cob is still trying to catch up with the changing dynamics of their relationship. The press of her crotch, breasts, and lips, work their magic and he is soon returning her kiss with an open mouth. Their tongues stimulating each other, amorously, while Cob's hands begin to roam across Andromeda's body. He finds it all to be within easy reach.

They kiss, through two-and-a-half tracks. When Blondie's 'Atomic' starts, Andromeda sits up for a deep breath.

"I want you to dance with me, for a bit, first," she says.

"Okay, then. I think it's dark enough for my dancing."

Cob grabs her around the hips, with his right hand, and pushes himself up with his left. Easily rising to his feet, while lifting her slight frame. Her legs wrapping around his hips, as he rises. They finish the song like that, Cob supporting her and swaying to the music while they kiss, again.

The next song to play is 'You Were Meant for Me,' by Jewel. Cob lowers Andromeda to the sand, and they both start giggling at the height difference.

"Let's try this," Cob says, as he repeatedly twists his feet, digging them several inches into the dry sand of the island. He then draws Andromeda close. He's still taller but they can kiss comfortably, again. "And, this way, I won't step on your feet."

Andromeda just moans, in response, as they kiss and sway to the music.

The next song to play is 'Black Betty,' by Ram Jam. "This isn't as romantic, it's more like twerking music. I guess it's time to fetch those condoms and get ready for bed," Andromeda says.

Cob pulls his feet out of the sand and bends over a bit, attempting to twerk.

"You're right," Andromeda laughs, "that is ridiculous... Come on," she says, taking his hand, to lead him towards the helicopter.

While they are brushing their teeth, Andromeda points out another satellite. "That's one each," she says, after spitting. "Oh! And another one rising over there. Two at the same time."

Cob unzips the first aid kit, and looks at the strip of three condoms.

"Are you sure about this?" he asks Andromeda.

"Stop questioning me. I want this. I want to have sex with you."

"Okay, sorry. I'm glad you're candid about it. Have you always been so direct?"

"Not always. I had to find my own confidence first, I guess. You know, I was born on February the second, two-thousand-four, the day after Nipplegate. So, it seems, for my whole life, there's been religious nutters behaving like the Taliban - telling women what they can't do. Telling us shit, like, our nipples are evil. Leaving it up to people like Harvey Weinstein to control female performers. I guess I'm rebelling against that sort of inequality."

"Yeah, I remember the fallout of Janet's breast."

Andromeda snorts, with amusement, "Don't trivialize it. I was serious."

"I know. I agree with you. But we were talking about having sex, and then it got all heavy."

"Hmm. Okay, about the sex; do you remember Yvonne, the dancer with the long hair? She says sex on the beach is awful - the sand gets everywhere and is all gritty."

"Ah," Cob replies, thinking the amorous part of their night may be over.

"I want you to shake all the sand off the ground sheet. And the foam mattress. Then I want you to bring the towel down to me. I'm going to take a quick dip, to relieve my bladder."

"I can do that."

"You don't need to wash again, you smell great," she says, while unbuttoning her shirt.

Andromeda pulls the shirt off her shoulders and lets it slide down her arms, behind her back. The position thrusts her breasts forward. She throws the shirt onto the passenger seat, then unzips and unbuttons her pants - pushing them down over her hips with a rocking of her pelvis, taking her underwear with them.

"Get naked," she says, as she tosses her pants onto the seat, alongside her shirt. "I'll be waiting in the water."

Cob watches her leave. In the moonlight, he can see she's a natural blonde. Either that, or she also bleaches her eyebrows and her 'landing strip' of pubic hair. Her body seems perfect. A balance between athleticism and womanly curves. He had expected as much. Between watching her in a bikini, and seeing her nipples through the sheer shirt, there wasn't much left to be revealed. But still, he watches her until she wades into the shallow water.

Cob starts on his chores. Stripping off his shorts. Shaking the sand off the ground sheet, then moving it to a flatter location, halfway between the fire and the helicopter. Laying out the self-inflating mattress on the ground-sheet, then spreading the opened sleeping-bag over it. Leaving the condoms within easy reach.

He fetches the towel from where it is hanging over the tail boom, then wanders down to the waterline, beating the dried sand off his ankles as he walks. He stops on the damp sand, not wanting to get his feet wet again. He watches Andromeda swish water over her breasts, wiping underneath each bosom. The splash of her movements are louder than the tiny waves lapping the shore. All of the larger swells are being blocked by the vast shallows around them.

"There's another one. About thirty degrees up, climbing to the right," Andromeda says, pointing to another satellite. "Three-to-one."

"That's not fair. I'm distracted," he says, watching her breasts dip into the ocean.

Andromeda stands and walks to Cob, her movement disturbing the water's surface, glimmering in the moonlight.

"Hey, I've been watching you, too."

"I've got twenty-twenty vision, but I think your younger eyes are better. You saw this island before I did."

"Are you going to give me that towel?"

"If I must... Here, dry off and I'll carry you over to the bed," he says, handing her the towel.

They watch each other in silence, as Andromeda dries herself. When she's done, she steps closer and puts her right wrist up on his shoulder. Cob leans down, lifting her into his arms, and they resume kissing.