Letters from Blackwell Island Pt. 02

The priestess cleaned the area and regarded her work - the Mahi'ai family's Ohana Māka'u now permanently adorned Lisa's bottom just like her mother and her grandmother before her. The priestess applied a traditional balm to soothe the area, followed by a covering of clear sterile film to prevent it from becoming infected, held in place with some sterile tape. Lisa, visibly smarting from the painful experience thanked the priestess and then rejoined her family.

"Aiden, it is now your turn to receive your Ohana Māka'u, will you please come and lay across the Māka'u Papa," the priestess said as she disposed of the needle and ink she'd used to apply Lisa's tattoo, slipped on a clean pair of gloves and unwrapped a new needle and pot of ink.

Aiden, visibility trembling a little after having witnessed his sister enduring the pain of being tattooed with the traditional equipment, stepped forward and compliantly bent across the Māka'u Papa.

The priestess once more set out the design on Aiden's left buttock cheek with the marker pen.

"Be courageous, my child, you shall feel pain but as a strong man you will be able to bear it," she said as she dipped the freshly unwrapped needle into the ink.

Clearly, as her words were identical to those she'd uttered to Lisa earlier, they were part of a script she'd uttered on many occasions before. I wondered just exactly how many young women and men she'd performed this coming of age ritual on over the decades. It had to be in the hundreds at least.

Poor Aiden grimaced and screwed his eyes shut as the sharp points of the comb-like tattooing needle repeatedly punctured his skin - I could definitely see tears in his eyes as his Ohana Māka'u was gradually inked into his left buttock. Like his sister before him, Aiden prevailed stoically and after a further ten minutes his family's marking was complete. Mrs. Opuni applied some soothing balm and then covered the freshly inked tattoo with sterile film.

And that, as they say, was that - for Lisa and Aiden the formal transition from being regarded as children to being accepted as fully grown adults was now complete. Jackson and Marea thanked Mrs. Opuni with a gift of fresh fruit and flowers - the traditional fee for conducting the ceremony. With the coming of age rituals completed, everyone started to head back down the mountain, chanting and singing traditional songs along the way as they began their descent, their way lit by a variety of traditional flaming torches and modern day LED flashlights. A few of the men stayed behind to help Mrs. Opuni extinguish the now smouldering pyres and to dismantle the Māka'u Papa and the Pampanus mattress and carry them back down the mountainside.

The ascent had been hard work and one would think that going downhill would be easier, but if anything it was even harder going. Less strenuous, but much more jarring on one's knees! I knew I'd definitely feel sore in the morning! It had been an educational experience and an interesting look into the indigenous culture of the island. So much of modern European influence was evident on the island, from the architecture to people's names and the common use of the English language, that it was easy to forget that the native islanders had a rich tribal culture that dated back almost a thousand years. So it was good to see that the traditional culture and practices of the Pā'ele people, bizarre and somewhat erotic though they are, still prevailed after hundreds of years since Henry Blackwell and his fellow mutineers first washed up on the island. I knew I couldn't use all of the ritual that Patrick and I had just witnessed in my next installment of Letters From Blackwell Island for the sake of not making it an X-rated article, but despite that I already knew that the readers of Estelle Magazine would find it both interesting and arousing in equal measure - I knew I certainly did!

Counting Boobies (but not the kind of boobies you're thinking of!)

It was the first day of our fourth month on Blackwell Island, and four months since I had worn so much as a stitch of clothing. Being naked just felt perfectly normal to me now. Even Patrick, bless him, now admitted that he actually enjoyed being naked all day and every day. There were still "certain aspects" of life on Blackwell Island that troubled him however, but I was hopeful that in the time we had left on the island he'd come to be more pragmatic about them as I had now become.

Okay, I'll admit it - I'd ventured into the red zones on several occasions on my own, with the clear and deliberate intention of finding a couple in the throes of wild outdoor sex like when I'd been with Jenni. Guilty as charged, your honour! Now the more I watched people making love outdoors, the more I wanted to do it myself - the only major stumbling block was convincing Patrick to join me.

Since arriving on the island, Patrick and I had grown into the habit of having sex every morning, and this morning was no exception. Sometimes I'm on top and it is a vigorous and energetic affair, other times, such as this particular morning, Patrick is the one on top and making love to me in his usual slow and steady and gradually intensifying way.

I looked up at him as he slowly and rhythmically made love to me, and as ever I was slightly hypnotised by the sight of his antique Saint Christopher pendant swaying two and fro as he thrusted his pelvis. He had that familiar expression of concentration on his face as he focused his mind on giving me as much pleasure as he could, whilst denying himself his climax until he is assured that I've been satisfied. Though there was always the temptation for me to fake an orgasm in order to hurry things along a bit, in all the time we've been married I had never allowed myself to fake it. I always saw faking an orgasm as being somewhat dishonest, and I would never be dishonest to Patrick. So as always I just laid back and enjoyed the feeling of my handsome Irish husband making slow and gentle love to me. There are certainly far less pleasurable ways to start the day!

There is always another way for me to hurry things along that doesn't involve having to fake anything - something that never, ever fails. As Patrick slowly thrust himself into me I reached down and started to finger my clitoris. The feeling of stubble down there reminded me that it was about time we shaved each other (by that time we were shaving each other every week). I ignored that thought for the time being and instead focused on using my fingers to tip myself over the edge. I know Patrick doesn't always like me to finish myself off like this - it always massages his male ego to know that he alone is responsible for my orgasm - but even with the best will in the world it isn't always possible. And besides, I didn't want him to tire himself out so much that he would be too exhausted to enjoy his own euphoric release when the moment for him to come arrived.

Sure enough, my fingers did the trick and I felt my orgasm starting to build deep inside me. The cacophony of sensations - the closeness of our naked bodies and his natural masculine scent, the Saint Christopher medal and his Kāne 'Olo swaying back and forth like a thurible during a Roman Catholic mass, the wonderful sensation of his penis stretching my entrance and plunging in and out of my vagina, my fingers rapidly encircling my clitoris - all these factors drove me careening headlong down the rabbit hole of orgasmic rapture.

And in only a few seconds more I was there.

With my free hand I grasped hold of the bedsheet beneath me as though I was clinging on for dear life on a death-defying white-knuckle ride. My body stiffened and shuddered as I was engulfed in the fire of a truly wonderful orgasm. My naked skin erupted in goosebumps as every single follicle stood to attention. I felt that amazing rush at the back of my head as all my senses went into overdrive. I shrieked and gasped and cried out in joyous gratitude for having such a wonderful man inside me as only a woman who is truly and madly and deeply in love can. I wouldn't have minded betting that Marea and Jackson could hear me across the way in the main house. In fact, I didn't mind at all if they could hear me!

To hell with it - I wanted them to hear me!

The initial rush dissipated but the respite was only temporary - seconds later my body tensed up for a second time, heralding the onset of another orgasm. And after that, a third.

As much as I wanted to savour the multiple orgasms for as long as possible I knew that my dear Patrick was beginning to tire himself out, and so I urged him to let himself go and come in me. And come in me he did! His whole body stiffened and I wrapped my legs around his waist in order to pull him deeper into me. He gasped and grunted and pounded his hips into mine and his already firmly engorged phallus seemed to stiffen and grow yet further.

It was so intense it set me off on an unprecedented fourth orgasm!

"Uhh! Hahh! Mmff! Nggnh!" he huffed and grunted.

And then, with one final, primal, guttural growl that I felt reverberating right through me...

"Uurrgghh-h-h-h-h!"

He erupted inside me and I felt myself being flooded with heat as his masculine essence pumped into me. More waves of heat followed, but as quickly as it began, his orgasm came to an abrupt end. Having done his husbandly duty, and having done it very well indeed, he collapsed onto me and briefly knocked all the breath out of me before he rolled us onto our side. There, with his gradually softening but still gently pulsating member still within me, we kissed and gave thanks for each other as only a couple so deeply connected both physically and emotionally can express. After a few minutes his penis softened sufficiently enough for it to just slip out of me and I felt a familiar sense of emptiness and a yearning for him to make love to me again.

But alas, it could not be - Patrick's temporary inability to attain an erection notwithstanding, we had a date to keep down at the island's main harbour.

After showering together, Patrick went about fixing us some breakfast whilst I opened up my laptop to check my emails - top of the list was a message from mags@estellemag its subject line simply read "latest magazine sales - call me ASAP!" The actual message itself didn't say much more than that, so I checked the time. It was just approaching 8am on Blackwell Island, and I knew from previous video calls with Mags in the past that the UK was ten hours behind us, which meant that at her end it would be just before 10pm. The fact that for us it was Tuesday morning whilst for her it was still Monday evening felt a bit weird, but at least it meant that hopefully she'd still be up.

I opened up the video calling app, spent a moment adjusting the angle of the camera so that only my head and shoulders were visible, and then attempted to connect with Mags, seven thousand miles and ten time zones away.

"Hey! Allie! How are you, darling?" Mag's friendly face beamed back at me.

"Hi, Mags - you wanted me to call you ASAP," I replied to her clear but digitally stuttering image.

"Indeed I did!" she responded after a brief pause caused by the signal delay. "The latest quarterly circulation figures are in, and there's no other way of putting it, Allie, but sales are up - massively!" Mags responded proudly.

"Really?" I responded in mild shock.

Another momentary pause followed.

"Uh-huh! Up by twenty percent, no less, which I'm sure you'll agree is a pretty big pile of extra copies being sold," Mags went on, clearly barely able to contain her enthusiasm. "And our online subscriptions have gone through the roof!"

"Well, that's... that's fantastic! Tell everyone at the office well done from me!"

"Oh, there's really no need for that!" Mags chuckled. "It's more a case of everyone at the office thanking you!"

"Me?"

"Letters From Blackwell Island has proved to be a hit, Allie!" Mags almost squealed in excitement. "A massive, massive hit!"

"What, seriously?"

"Absolutely! Your tales of everyday life on the island where its residents live life naked under the tropical sun have gone viral - we've got people from all over the world subscribing to us. Carole is literally beside herself! Your article for last month about the coming of age ceremony thing became our most read online article ever - so far it's had twice as many hits as the number two article, and it's still rising! Put simply, Alllie, Letters From Blackwell Island has become a sensation!"

And so the conversation went on as my husband continued to work in the kitchen, keeping himself out of sight of the camera on my laptop. Whenever I chat online, Patrick always keeps his distance. Despite the fact that like me he's naked twenty four hours a day and that hundreds of people on Blackwell see him naked every day, he still finds it uncomfortable being seen in the nude by people on the other end of a video call. Even when he calls his Ma and Da he always drapes a towel over his shoulders - they know where he is and what the local dress code is, and though they don't entirely approve of their son living naked and definitely wouldn't pay us a visit here, they at least applaud him for standing by his ambitious go-getting wife. That and making sure he still went to church every week.

By the time I disconnected the call my head was in a spin - I had a suspicion that Letters From Blackwell Island would be well received, but not in my wildest imaginings did I think it might go viral and boost the magazine's sales and online subscriptions to that extent! Patrick and I would definitely be going out to celebrate. But before any of that we had to get ourselves down to the harbour.

Marea had put us in touch with Angela Masterson and her husband Toby. They were ecologists who, twenty three years ago, arrived on Blackwell Island on secondment from a university back in the UK to spend a year studying and recording the local wildlife on Aina Ahi, Blackwell Island's larger but uninhabited neighbour. They liked it so much here that they applied for, and were subsequently granted, full island citizenship. Despite neither of them being naturists before coming to the island, they both quickly acclimatised to living without clothes and fully embraced the Blackwell lifestyle. Eventually they married and brought up two children here.

Unlike Blackwell where the volcanic activity ceased some several million years ago, Aina Ahi's volcanoes are still very much active, which is the main reason why it has remained uninhabited. Just like Hawaii around fifteen hundred miles to the north, the Blackwell archipelago sits over a volcanic "hot spot". I shan't bore you with a long lecture on geology, vulcanology and plate tectonics et cetera, but the simple version is that Aina Ahi is the largest, youngest and most active of the three islands in the Blackwell archipelago. Blackwell itself is the "middle child" of the archipelago, and the tiny crescent shaped islet of Mahina Moku is the smallest and the oldest. You see, the older the island is, the more of it has been eroded away.

Anyway, we had arranged with Angela and Toby to come along on their next expedition across to Aina Ahi to carry out a survey of the island's colony of Blue-footed Boobies (I hear you sniggering out there, but believe it or not that's genuinely what they're called!) I remember seeing the strange seabirds with their peculiar bright blue webbed feet on a BBC nature programme many years ago, and so the opportunity to see them in the wild was not one that Patrick and I could decline.

Marea gave us a lift to the island's main harbour - a cruise ship had arrived that morning, and people were disembarking from the vessel and I couldn't help but make a wry smile as I saw the adult passengers taking their clothes off and placing them in baskets knowing that a few months earlier Patrick and I had been in the same position ourselves. For the first time since arriving on the island, with our all-over tans and wearing our 'Olo's and our Kīeke's and being shaved of all our body hair, I felt like a proper Blackwell Islander. After the tourists' excursions onto the island had come to and end and they were all back aboard ship and back in their clothes, Patrick and I would still be here completely bare-skinned and living in this verdant paradise, and that was a nice thought to muse upon.

Compared to the cruise ship, Angela and Toby's boat, the Aina Venturer IV, was positively tiny, but we were assured that it was sturdy enough to take everything that the Pacific Ocean could throw at it. Well, almost everything.

As fellow outsiders who had come in to the island's community it's fair to say that Patrick and I bonded with Angela and Toby pretty much right away. Angela, despite being in her early fifties, was still an attractive woman - her breasts had a little sag in them, but other than that one could be forgiven that she was in her thirties rather than twenty years older. Toby likewise was a handsome specimen of manhood - he had muscles in all the right places with a rather nice bottom, broad shoulders and a well-defined chest. The only part of him that wasn't much to write home about was his penis - it wasn't especially tiny, but it was clearly short of being averagely proportioned. Patrick's isn't huge by any stretch of the imagination, but Toby's was definitely around half the size. Toby also had the distinction of being the first non-tourist man I'd seen who had been circumcised.

"Welcome aboard," Angela greeted warmly us as Patrick and I descended the ladder from the harbour wall and onto the boat.

"Hi, thanks for letting us come with you," I responded as I stepped aboard.

I couldn't resist taking a quick glance up the ladder to watch Patrick descending, giving me an unprecedented view of his naked body from below.

"No worries - it's nice to have some company other than the wife for a change!" Toby said with a smile as he kissed my cheeks.

Patrick greeted Angela with a couple of friendly cheek kisses and we were immediately put to work. The boys went below to check through all the supplies and equipment for our three-day expedition whilst Angela and I cast us off and piloted the vessel out of the harbour and into the open sea beyond.

"Weather forecast is good for the next few days so we should be in for a pleasant voyage," Angela announced as I joined her in the wheelhouse.

I started my voice recorder app on my phone to record our conversation for later use when I would write everything up.

"How far is it to Aina Ahi?" I asked her.

Although the neighbouring island loomed large on the horizon ahead of us it was difficult to judge exactly how far away it was.

"About twenty three nautical miles," she replied. "Should take about four hours or so."

"How often do you make this trip?" I went on.

"About seven or eight times a year, though we only go over to check on the boobies once a year." Angela answered. "The island is a UNESCO World Heritage site, pretty much equal in status to the Galapagos Islands but on a smaller scale.

"Ecologists and vulcanologists come to the island from all over the world, but Toby and I are the only regular visitors. I guess you could say we've become the island's unofficial custodians over the years - the Blackwell Island government appointed us a few years ago to formally manage the island.

"No expedition is allowed to set foot on the island without permission, and there are strict laws in place to make sure that any visitors don't cause any damage to the island's ecosystems."