It's Me, Dolores

It was a part of the swamp that I did not know well. It was well off the beaten track, and I had prepared myself even to stop and camp overnight with some gear packed into my kayak. I was aware that there were some houses which could only be accessed by water in that reach, some of them old and some more recent structures which sought the privacy of extreme isolation.

There were some that I could see were abandoned or shut up temporarily. I paddled closer to those, and I even came alongside the jetty of one, and had a look around. If they looked occupied, I paddled past and didn't linger in front of them. I felt that if these people wanted privacy, they were entitled to it. But as I got deeper into the extremes of the basin, I came upon one house that seemed a mystery. I had to investigate.

There was a boat tied up, which would mean that the house was occupied, but the boat was half sunk and straining at the mooring line. It was an old wooden boat - the kind that would likely have slow leaks and would need to have its bilges pumped daily if not hauled ashore. I figured that it might have been left unattended only a few days, but the inboard engine was partly submerged and would likely need to be stripped to be brought back into operation.

It seemed to me that the occupier needed to be told that his boat was in trouble. I called out, but there was no reply. The house seemed to be on an island, so the absence of people seemed difficult to understand. I decided to bring my kayak alongside the boat and climb over that to the wharf.

I called out again. This time I heard what seemed like a groan. The door was unlocked. When I went in I found that it was a single room cabin with a bed at one end, a small kitchen with a wood-burning stove and a living area in front. On the sofa in that area a man was lying down. There was a bucket of vomit near his head and his jeans were wet with urine, but he was not old. He would be a strong middle-aged man but for the fact that he was clearly weak with the illness, and undernourishment. There was an empty water bottle beside the bucket.

"Is that you Dolores?" he murmured.

"No, my name is Gary. I just happened on your place. Let me help you." I went over to him.

"Water. Get me some water Dolores. I am so thirsty, Sweetheart." His eyes were open and looking at me. He was clearly delirious. There was a pack of water bottles. I opened one for him and sat him up to take a drink. He sucked feverously on the bottle and coughed a little.

"Is it something that you ate?" I asked. There was a table with two dirty plates on it, with only a couple of flies crawling over the very little left. "Where is Dolores?" The other plate must have been hers.

"Sweetheart, help me get to the toilet," he said.

"Sure," I said. He seemed very uncertain on his feet. There was a door near to the exit onto dry land that was clearly the toilet. I helped him get there.

"My pants, Dolores," he said. I unbuckled them and pulled them down. He wore no underpants. He had an impressive dick. He stepped out of the pants completely, but as they were wet and smelly, I took them and put them on the porch while he did what he needed to do.

But what could I do? The boat was useless, at least for the time being. If I was to take this man to hospital, I could not do that with a one-man kayak. I checked for a cell phone signal without much confidence - I had only brought it for the camera and little music. Sure enough, no signal.

"Dolores," he called out again. I rushed back inside. He was standing there. "Sweetheart, don't leave me again." It was a plaintive cry that touched me somehow.

"Let's get you onto the bed while I find you something to eat," I said. I helped him cross over the room to the large double bed. His side seemed to be to the right, as on the left was a large wardrobe full of women's clothes, and a woman's dressing table. On the right was just a side table.

As I laid him down, he cried out - "Oh no Dolores, what has happened to your face?" His hand had reached out and felt my wispy beard. "Oh Sweetheart, what has happened to you?"

"Just rest," I insisted. "There is nothing wrong with me. You are imagining this."

"Please let me touch your beautiful face," he said.

"Let me get something for you to eat."

The structure was not old and was really quite well thought out. There was 12-volt power for lighting from a solar cell on the roof, and a solar hot water cylinder as well. There was water from a tank and a cool cupboard but no refrigeration. There was the stove and a butane burner, and also plenty of dry and packaged food. Chicken soup seemed like a good idea - that is what sick people are served. The only answer seemed to be to help him get his strength back and see whether we could get the boat pumped out.

But there he was clearly upset by the absence of this woman. While the soup heated on the burner I decided to look for her.

There was not much to search. The house had already been covered. I looked on the boat and found that there was an electric bilge pump that still worked off a battery which was almost flat. The dry land area was small. There was no road or trail because it was an island. There was only a small garden and a slope into the water where the boat could be pulled up.

In the mud on that slope, I saw some large alligator footprints. Perhaps that was the answer. She could have been standing where I was with her back to the swamp. One snap of the giant jaws and she would be dragged backwards into the muddy waters. Poor Dolores.

Poor her man, whatever his name was. He was calling out her name - begging for the comfort of his sweetheart, and instead some hairy man was attending to him.

I decided that I would shave my face. I would let him reach out in his delirium and touch a smooth face and feel better.

In the bathroom I found nothing to shave with. Why would there be? He had a beard - a real beard not like my sad fuzz. All that there was on the shelf under the mirror was a pot of "Femina Facial Hair Remover". I had heard that this stuff was pretty ineffective and not much more than a close shave. I barely even thought about it. I slapped it on and waited for the prescribed time before washing it off just as it started to burn.

I regretted it immediately, but then I heard him call out again - "Dolores, where are you, Sweetheart?"

"I'm here," I called. "With some soup for you."

I put it in a cup and took it to him, helping to prop him up to sip it.

He started to drink it, and I could sense that he was gaining strength with every mouthful, but the delirium seemed constant. He stroked my smooth but inflamed face, and he looked me in the eyes with such love that it seemed to melt my heart. "Melting" is the right word because a look like that could make anybody feel soft. Not that I was the hardest man by any means, but I was a man, and a man should not look into another man's eyes and see love like that.

But for the sake of all that I was doing it just seemed easier to be Dolores.

"Let your hair down," he pleaded. "For me, sweetheart. Let your hair down."

"It is sweaty dirty," I said reaching back to feel my low ponytail.

"Wash your hair my sweet Dolores. Wash your hair with your special shampoo. Put on your blue dress and come an lie here beside me. Please, Sweetheart. Please."

It may sound crazy but that is what I did. It seemed like the soup would help but what the fever ridden man really needed to survive was the woman he craved, even though it seemed to me that she must surely be dead.

I stepped into the shower. There I found her floral volumizing shampoo and the razor that I could not find by the mirror. I washed my hair and thoughtlessly ran a razor up and down my legs. I dried my hair with a towel and went back to the bed and put on the blue dress and I lay beside him.

He just turned his head towards me and with just a few words he seemed to confirm that everything that I had done was right. He said: "I don't think that I can live without you, Dolores."

"You just concentrate on getting better," I told him firmly, but with a smile that he returned.

And then I fell asleep.

I had a strange dream. It was unlike any other dream that I had ever had before. I was seated beside this man I had happened on, still no knowing his name, but he was conscious and at the wheel of his boat. He had an arm around me, and I had an arm around him, and I was Dolores.

I woke up with a start. I was lying face down on the bed with a pillow under my belly and somebody was on top of me, and there was something pushing on my butthole which seemed to be very slippery.

It seems incredible that It would take me as long as it did to work out what was going on, but I suddenly understood that I was about to be fucked up the ass by the man I had been lying beside. But before I could get the shortest world "no" out of my mouth, he was inside me. Just the tip silenced me, and then there was the rest of him to come, slowly and seemingly without end.

I just grunted. If this man was weakened by his sickness, then he still had twice the strength that I did. I could feel that without even trying to fight. He had power beyond belief and there was no better proof of that than the fact that he was fucking me and I was taking it.

I gritted my teeth and waited for the pain. There would be pain, there was no doubt about that. When would it start? What was going on. I found myself grunting, rhythmically, with each stroke.

"Oh Dolores, Baby," I heard him say.

I should be shocked. I was being degraded - dehumanized. It is what every man fears, to venture into the swamp and be fucked up the ass by some degenerate swamp creature. I should feel nothing but pain and shame. But what I was feeling was neither of those.

His hands were now off my shoulders pinning me, and they were running through my hair, that felt full and soft.

"Your hair is so beautiful, Dolores," he said. "Fuck you are just so beautiful, and you are so tight. I am going to come. I am going to come very soon. Oh Baby."

But I came first, maybe by just a second. That was not supposed to happen.

I rolled over. I expected to see this brute sneering at me. But there was that same look that I had seen just before I fell asleep. The look that melted me. Love.

He said: "I have been coming here for years to await your arrival, and here you are."

He lowered his head and kissed me tenderly on the lips. "Dolores, is that you?"

"Yes, it's me, Dolores," I replied.

The End

© Maryanne Peters 2021