Seawater Pours From My Heart Ch. 02

I was surprised by how quickly part one was read and commented on! I was also surprised by some of the stuff I've been ruminating on made its way into this story. I really appreciate the comments! The one questioning how our protagonist started his fire made me laugh. It was merely not mentioned, similar to not noting characters going to the bathroom. Let me know what you think about the direction this part has gone. Originally, I was going to give it an unhappy ending, and you can see the seeds I planted for that in part one, but I'm a sucker. Enjoy, comment!

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Seawater Pours From My Heart: The Cache of Apples

We spoke no more of my future on the island nor about children.

I started on converting my cave into a home, as long as I'd remain there. I scrounged stones to build another fire pit in the grotto. I gathered useful looking sticks and more sizable leaves to fashion bedding out of.

"Where do you usually sleep?," I asked the mermaid after my last haul. She swam in a circle and then submerged under the pool for a moment. "So you will take me up on my offer after all?"

She nodded with a grin expounding such preciousness I had to kiss her.

"I will be at your side as long as I have you," she told me through the kiss.

"I spent the rest of the day gathering whatever seemed useful lying about the island and stockpiling it in my cave. It was mostly just promising stones and sturdy sticks that could be made into new spears. There was no sign of any man made materials; no refuse or things drifted by the sea onto the beach. Only seashells dotted the golden sand that spanned the circumference of the island. I picked a couple singular beauties to present to my singular beauty.

I dressed, to Mana's displeasure when she saw me again. I shrugged, not wholly native yet. It was nice to have a shield against the sun as well. I showed her the shells, one pure as porcelain and the other red as her eyes. Whether she was feigning gratitude, I could not tell, for a shell to a creature of the sea was likely a common find. She smiled with all her teeth regardless and examined the shells closely before setting them down. She motioned for me to lean close, for a kiss of conversation.

"I thank you. They are beautiful. I will go hunt more fish for tonight," she said through the quick meeting of our lips.

"Happy hunting, dear. I'll meet you back at the cave."

I deposited the rest of my findings in the corner of the cave. The best of the leaves covered the loft of the cave, though I found the texture lacking. I accepted it for the time being and appreciated the little comfort it provided.

I practiced making ties and knots with the palm leaves, vaguely aware of the necessity that weaving so often ranked in ancient communities living in comparable circumstances. I wondered if Mana knew anything that could prove useful to surviving on land. She would serve as the hunter in our little Neolithic lifestyle, I could already tell.

Regardless, I sharpened the best of my stones. The basis of survival was self reliance, even I understood. Thus I spent my time until Ruby returned in the evening. She brought as many fish as she could carry in her jaws, and between her fingers. They spilled onto the cave floor, slapping and twitching in their clamor for air they could breathe. I swiped them, quick to prevent their escape and swiftly executed them.

"Amazing, Ruby! A feast!"

She smirked and sank back underwater, resurfacing with fish of her own to consume.

I got to work on the fire while she toyed with the fish. I found the more primal side of her disconcerting, for the most part. A piece of me couldn't let me hold it against her, however. The peak of those sharp teeth, that powerful tail... they entranced me, my eyes to admire, my hands to explore.

I cooked my fish, and we ate together. It was still a fresh blessing to have enough to eat, but I imagined what it would be like to eat the same thing for the rest of my days. Mana expressed no such qualm or worry; she ate and chimed, content to spend her time this way with me. I smiled, I knew I was content too, deep down. I could think of no routine I had lived more enjoyable than stroking a mermaid's hip, down her scaly tail.

This is how we spent our nights.

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Rain showered down from pregnant clouds that couldn't wait past the morning. I took the opportunity to scrub at my skin while fresh water was freely available to even my share of the world. I swallowed as much as I could to moisten my parched throat.

Mana danced in the sea while I dug holes to contain the invaluable rain. She dipped and undulated to the side while her tail did the same thing in the opposite direction. Her hands plucked at invisible harps in the air, perfectly in tune with the music she heard in the rain's downpour. She delighted herself to the chorus, a steady ray purer than any an angel could produce was issued from her perfectly tuned throat. Her eyes were closed, more so out of devotion to the dance than to withstand rain drops.

I let her be. It was too beautiful to interrupt. Once I had plenty of holes dug, I sat on the beach and watched the mermaid dance in a world of water.

The days passed. Two weeks of weaving, hunting, and gathering. It rained several more times, and Mana danced more gloriously each time than the last. We did not make love again. She was intent to let it be my choice if we were going to couple again. The possibility of creating a child had persisted within my mind, admittedly, and caution won out. I could not abstain from cupping a breast or running my hands over her sides while we kissed and conversed, however. She exuded raw beauty, proud yet innocent of what my perception of her was. Her grace was natural, and underlined her more savage behavior. I was glad to be her mate, even if I didn't wholly understand the extent of the bond.

She told me the history of her species during one of our intimate conversations over this time.

There were, in fact, males of her kind, but they seemed to exist only to further the species, before heading wherever instinct led them, never to lay eyes upon their spawn. She had never seen her father, and her mother had never seen hers. It became a sort of knight errant's quest of nature to search out for a mate when the females matured and set out on their own in the ocean.

Mana had been on her own for a few decades already. She hadn't seen any other of her kind since she left her mother, only her teachings followed to aid her along great currents from sea to sea. The urges to mate and reproduce stirred within her a decade prior, but she hadn't been able to place the feelings until she saw me. She was much older than me, but physically, she assured me, we were comparable in age. This drove her desire to be mated with me. For her kind, it was still likely a decade or two longer until she would come across a male, and then, he would leave her.

A dark thought gave me pause that disconnected me from her mind.

I could never leave.

The predicament I was in was totally in the mermaid's favor, I realized, and it was only a matter of time until she did, too. She had trapped herself a mate, and had me to herself for as long as I lived. Perhaps if I attempted to test fate once more and swim out into sea, injury and death awaited me, should she be driven to drag me under or put me back on the island rendered incapable of swimming away from it again.

"Where have you gone?" her voice gently prodded. She had gotten ahold of my tongue with her own.

I returned to the kiss, desperate to conceal the cold sweat of fear that had broken out over my body before she got the scent.

"Oh, my apologies. Just thinking on tomorrow. Come here." I kissed her, and I kissed my future, for better or worse, I realized.

The next day I started on becoming proficient with my hunting spear. The mermaid finally relented and let me hunt for our next meal. She granted me privacy and I waded into the ocean in solitude. I practiced thrusting and extending the stick away from me, becoming more familiar with the movement as I imagined slow moving fish to spear. Eventually, one did meander toward me. I remained perfectly still, waiting for the prime moment to strike. The tail stilled, the body was defenseless, broad and fat. My arms burst through the water with a loud splash and a solid stab into flesh. I hoisted my spear up, the catch run through, wriggling at the top.

I rejoiced in my prize, and hopped from one foot to the other back to shore. I was excited to bring the fish to Mana and show her I could be useful as well. I stopped; there on the beach was a wooden cargo crate. I looked around, then to the horizon. No ship loitered or listed lifeless as far as I could see.

I set my spear down and approached the box. I was shocked to see something from my world on the island. Something intact, as well. All four sides held and appeared merely sodden, without a scratch. A seal representing a woman's profile topped by a ship captain's hat was emblazoned in black on the top of the crate, above the branded letters F. E.

I pried the lid from the box with the end of my spear. It creaked from the frame and finally snapped apart, rewarding me with a fresh scent of fruit. It was a cache of apples, filled to the brim with bright red imperfect orbs that shone in the sunlight. I plucked one of the treasures and brought it to my nose. A rare cargo to transport by sea, and a rarer smell for a castaway to experience. I took a bite, finding the skin crisp and the meat juicy. I sat down on the beach, forgetful of the fish and luxuriated in the rest of my apple.

Mana's song drifted close and ceased, replaced by an inquisitive whistle.

"Ah! Come, Mana. You must try one."

She swam to the shore, her face a mix of curiosity and distrust for my food. I tossed her an apple, and she caught it, surprised. She looked to me and took a hesitant bite. The crack was a new kind of music to my ears as her teeth separated a piece from the apple. She munched on it cautiously until she decided she liked it and a girlish smile adorned her full cheeks. She motioned for me to kiss her.

"I like it! But where has it come from?" was the message conveyed by her tongue.

"It appears to have fallen overboard from a ship nearby. Not the one I was on, though. Nothing aboard bore this seal."

"Seal?" she asked.

"Yes, a picture, like this." I drew a crude sketch of the woman's head in the sand. She studied it but beckoned me into another kiss.

"What is it a picture of?"

"A woman's head, I believe. She wears the hat of a captain. Must be her own line."

"A woman..." she whispered into the space of my mind.

"Yes, it is uncommon to come across a lady with her own ship. Perhaps it is merely a design."

Mana broke the kiss and nodded. She seemed put off by something. Perhaps the mention of other humans who could rescue me?

"Here, have another," I said, handing her an apple to distract her from the matter. "I have an idea."

She munched on her apple and I took off my shirt. She perked up a little at this and watched me intently. I laid as many apples as I could upon the shirt, wrapping them into a bundle with the sleeves and then clutched it to my chest. Mana's interest shifted to puzzlement seeing me rush back to the cave as cautiously as I could.

Mana watched me transport the loads of fruit without a sound. Only an increasing level of conflict tightening her features. Only a handful of apples remained in the crate after my final trip. I offered one to her, which she accepted after a spot of apprehension stayed her hand. I took one myself and got busy rendering it down to its core. Mana finished hers first and silently demanded I kiss her.

"What are you doing? Why did you take the rest away?" she asked, her voice a medley of emotion.

"I've thought of a way to send for help, Ruby! We will eat the apples I've set aside in the cave, and the rest will serve as a message that someone got into the box and, after eating the apples, deliberately set it back out to sea. If they're still nearby or looking for their cargo, they'll come searching for who sent it! You say there are no nearby inhabitable islands, so they will come to the conclusion that someone is out here in need."

"There are no humans anywhere near here, no. Only their ships come and go. Now, you will go?" she stated more than asked.

"Mana, I can't stay here. It's not where I belong. It's like you said about your kind belonging-"

"You are my mate!" she said, a flash of anger bursting through the threshold of her previous dejected tone. "You belong with me. I can give you all you need to survive. Fish, stones, my love, my body." Her voice broke into pleading.

"Mana," I said gently, laying my hand on hers. "I can't live on fish alone. I can't sleep in a cave forever, or depend on the weather if I'm going to be thirsty or not.

"It's nothing to do with you, I owe you my life! You could follow the ship back to wherever it takes me. I could live on the wharf until I find a place by the sea so we can continue to be mates."

Her voice was severe, unaffected by my rationale. Tears spilled over her cheeks that stung her into anger. She balled her fists, forcing me to retract my hand.

"You just want to meet the seal-woman. You want another mate," she spat.

I was taken aback. "The seal-woman? I don't care who it is, Ruby, as long as they have a ship." I attempted to calm her with my touch again but she pushed me away in protest.

Her tongue squeezed mine painfully tight, and she continued. "You are nothing but a survivor, aren't you? You only joined with me because you thought I would eat you. You avert your eyes from my form because it disgusts you, not because of your shame or my honor. I know you don't want to mate with me again."

Her tongue slapped mine away and slid back into her mouth. I stared at her. I looked at all of her, shocked by what she had said.

"Mana..." was all I could manage. I approached her, and after a heartbeat of freezing eye contact, I pulled her to me. My hands cupped her face as I kissed her. I did it gently, cautiously. She didn't reciprocate at first, her anger still held her. But my lips did my talking, instead of my tongue. And she understood. Her fists dropped away to rest on my hips, and our voices were silent in the shared juncture of our minds.

"You don't have to," she whispered, grasping the hands I placed upon her stomach. "My feelings got the best of me. I am a jealous mate."

I broke the kiss and smiled to reassure her. "I want to. I have neglected you, as a selfish mate," I said, sliding my hands up her smooth torso to cup her breasts. She shivered and I knew she really needed it. I sought out her tongue again and caressed it in tandem with the affection I paid her breasts with my hands. A moan eked out of her and I grinned, assured I was doing well. My hands showed her my care, softly, deeply rubbing over and squeezing the ample tear drops of flesh that hung proudly off her chest.

Her body grew warmer, and her humming returned like a lazy bee being rocked to a deep, rumbling sleep.

I laid her down on the sand, and replaced my hands with my lips and my tongue and my teeth. Her tail twitched and sluiced water around behind me, expressing the pleasure she was feeling and communicating her safety in the water at once. I bathed the bumpy not-areolae with my tongue, flicking it across the smooth scales.

Down, past her navel, my hand caressed her hips, seeking her most precious treasure. She granted me access for forcing her to interrupt her humming with a lust-drunk screech to the cloudless sky. The flesh moved, her glorious clitoris was revealed and her leaking hole was free to beg to be sated. Carefully, I laid my hand over the area, and applied the faintest pressure, combing upward with my fingers, brushing over her gem with a feathering of kisses from my fingertips. She groaned and her back arched off the ground.

I grinned like the devil, proud of my effect on such a goddess I was ever bound to meet. I repeated the pets, over and over until her hand snatched the torturous fingers and thrust them into her weeping sex. I pushed them in as far as they'd go, and curled the ends. Mana's song peaked past my capability to hear. Her eyes returned from the back of her head, fiery and positively charged with need, boundless and greedy. She summoned that reserve of strength available to residents of nature to shift me over her hips. I fumbled at my trousers, driving her mad with impatient need. She tore them down my legs with an urgent hand. I kicked them off and lined myself up with her hole. She nodded desperately and I sank into her. Inch by inch, we were joined, and finally, we were one. Looking down, I was nowhere to be seen; my whole length resided where it belonged, within my mate. Her song had ceased and her lips mouthed the climax wordlessly as she roiled in being filled.

I withdrew myself, until only the tip remained inside her, and I dropped down to my knees on either side of her long body. She hissed and squirmed under me, direly in need of my kiss. I grasped her neck and gave her what she wanted; my tongue, my cock. Both stirred rapidly within her, driving us to move faster and faster with the life, the pleasure it fed us.

"More. More! Oh, yes!" she cried within the vault of our minds. I hastened my pace even more, slamming our groins together with every rough thrust. The sound of our flesh clapping together, solid and wet, drove us both even higher in our delirious rush to bring each other to climax. "Fill me, I beg you. Fill me to the brim with your seed."

In my primal state rutting in and out of her, I found a moment of clarity before my final powerful push into her. Whatever dam that held our orgasms back was burst. She arched herself against me, sealing our conjunction completely. She trilled louder and louder, her head dug into the sand and her hands buried themselves in my hair.

Then, she screamed. With the voice I had heard only in my head, she cried out to the sun as the waves of pleasure swept through her from her engorged womb. My jaw was agape in shock, but I held her regardless, pumping every drop of my essence into her like it was an antidote to her look of pain that women only wore when the overstimulation got to them. I roared after her, slumping onto her chest while my hips rose and fell against hers shallowly until I could command them no more.

We panted together, castaways of the storm of our lovemaking that obliterated the vessels of our minds. She held me as we recovered, letting the sound of the waves soothe us with its relaxing music for once.

"I'll set your box out to sea," she said after a while of quiet.

"You will?"

"Yes, mate." She ran a hand through my hair and then held them together behind my head. "I see the selfishness of my ways, now. If you are to die, or live, it should be your choice."

"I appreciate that, Ruby. I know it must be hard for you."

She smiled, bittersweet. "It will be, but it isn't now. We must enjoy every moment we have here. We must make love, we must kiss, we must eat, sleep, and talk! I can speak to you now!" she realized.

I had to kiss her. The girlish excitement that fluctuated her voice was precious to me. "I will miss all the extraneous tongue-play, I'm sure. But now I will know the words of your songs."

Mana bit her lip and said, "Our songs can only be sung in the sea." She whistled and found it inadequate. "I can't do it in this new tongue."

I kissed her cheek and assured her her tongue was beautiful enough to the ear. She murmured thanks and yawned. I rolled off of her and got us a couple apples before sitting down beside her.

"How have you learned how to speak?"