Chapter 9: Moira

[Note – this chapter contains descriptions of past physical and sexual abuse that may disturb some readers, and which are not reflected in the story codes - Gray]

I led Saralinda back towards my room. Sometimes it was hard to believe she'd tried to kill herself just days previously, but then she'd say something that would bring it all freshly to mind. My heart ached for the poor girl. I just hoped and prayed that we could keep her safe and heal her and let her know, really know, that hopes were not just pointless. And that love was not something that she lost forever when she lost her mother.

Suddenly, I felt her stumble, and my awareness came back to the present. We were walking around the deck to the stern. It was late – probably just after midnight. The evening was warm in the sheltered rear of the ship. Stars filled the darkness of the sky, and the moon, which must have been setting somewhere to our west, etched a gleaming edge to each wave behind us.

Saralinda pulled me to a stop. I glanced back and noticed that she was staring across the deck to the aft rail. I followed her gaze.

Kate was wearing a thin wrap that was pushed up onto her back as she held the rail. Behind her, Tony, with his pants and shorts dropped to his ankles, was slowly fucking her from behind. His hands were caressing her sides, and he'd lean forward to nuzzle her hair and her neck. Kate was moaning in pleasure. It looked like a nice night for an outdoor fuck. I was wondering what Saralinda was thinking about this, when she whispered in my ear.

"Is that Tony?"

I nodded.

"Who's steering the ship?" She sounded alarmed.

I chuckled softly. "Probably Sid," I whispered back to her.

"Oh, okay," she said. I let her watch for a couple more strokes, then nudged her onward towards my room.

It wasn't until after we'd changed, peed, brushed our teeth and had gotten into bed that she said anymore about what we'd seen.

"I thought Kate was, um, with Gary tonight?"

I shrugged. "Maybe she was, earlier. Maybe she ran into Tony on her way back to her room. Kate likes to spend the night alone, usually – she says she can't sleep well with someone else in her bed. I'm just the opposite, so I often go to Gary's room late at night."

"Does Kate, um, keep a schedule for Gary? I mean, like, do you get him on Tuesdays or something?"

I snorted in laughter. "No, it's not like that at all," I told her.

"But, he does, like, sleep with all of his 'domestic staff', doesn't he?

I shook my head. "It's not really like that. We're not "his" women. We sleep with whomever we please, whenever we please. I'm almost positive Tori hasn't ever slept with Gary, for instance, or any man for that matter.

"Now it is true that Gary chooses to fill his boat with people who like to have a lot of sex, and he usually wants people who like variety in their sex lives. You're kind of discouraged from pairing up exclusively with someone on board, though it happens."

Exhibit A – Joanne and Burt. I pushed that out of my mind for now.

"I'll admit that probably all of the females on the boat except for Carol and Lin and Tori do have sex with him pretty regularly. He is pretty good looking, and he's sweet, and he's a great lover. Right now, though, it's mostly just Joanne and me that actually sleep with him. Simone used to, a lot, before she found Tori."

"So, if I stay on Furthurmore, I won't have to sleep with him? Saralinda asked softly after a few moments of silence.

"No," I said quietly back to her, squeezing her hand in reassurance.

"But I could, if I ever wanted to?

I laughed quietly. "I would think he'd be delighted," I said. "You're very pretty, and I know he likes you."

"I'm a virgin."

I blinked at the non sequitur. When I didn't respond, she went on, slowly, quietly.

"My father – he always told me I was awful to tease him with my dirty ... He called it my 'dirty cunt'. He told me no man would ever want to put his dick inside my 'sin hole'. Sometimes he'd pull me down so I was lying in his lap, and he'd pull my skirt up and pull my panties down and he'd, like, look at me there. And he'd tell me how dirty I was there, and he'd spit on my ... my cunt. Sometimes he'd put a finger inside me and wiggle it around, then pull it out and force me to lick 'all the slime' off of his finger. Sometimes he'd put other things inside. And then he'd spank me and spank me and spank me. I could always feel his thing hard underneath me. Sometimes, he'd – you know – come while he was spanking me. He'd come in his pants. And when that happened, he'd get so mad, he'd yell at me and pull my hair and beat me."

She said all this without inflection, as if she was reading the stock prices out of the newspaper. I took her in my arms and kissed her forehead and rocked her and rocked her. I think I was trying to comfort me. I squeezed her, probably too tight. Finally, I couldn't stand it any longer.

"Why didn't you leave? Why did you stay with that monster?" I was almost yelling at her. I was almost angry at her.

She started trembling, trembling, and then she bit me. Hard. On the shoulder. I pushed her away and held her at arm's length. We were both crying now.

"I had nothing! He didn't let me graduate from high school. I didn't have a job. I had no friends. I had no money. I had no car. I had nowhere to go." She spat each piece at me like she was trying to hurt me. And then her face crumpled and she collapsed against me and clung to me like a frightened baby.

But when my arms went around her, she flung herself off of me and curled into a tight ball on the far corner of the bed. I was afraid she was going to go into a psychotic state, with us still hundreds of miles from the nearest hospital in Hawaii, and probably with no antidepressants to treat her with. I had to do what I could on my own. I went to her and stroked her and rocked her and hushed her, but it seemed to make it worse. She started to make this keening noise that got louder and higher. It was the sound of a soul ripping.

Suddenly, she twisted and grabbed my wrists and dug her nails into me.

"Do you know why I didn't leave?" she screamed at me. "I didn't leave because if I did, and my mother came home, she'd have no way to find me!"

The reality of that statement knocked the wind out of me, like a punch to the gut. I gasped. But with that, she'd reached a climax of a sort, and she relaxed her grip on my arms

"She'd have no way to find me. No way to find me at all..." She slowly went limp.

Then her eyes focused on where her nails had been digging into the soft flesh on the inside of my wrists. There were curved indentations from her nails, each one turning from white to red as the blood returned. They throbbed.

"Oh, Moira, I'm so sorry. I'm so, so, sorry. I never meant to hurt you. Oh, please, I'm sorry ... Don't send me away. I didn't mean it."

Her face was turning ashen.

My hand reached out to brush her cheek tenderly. "I know you didn't mean to hurt me. It's okay, Honey. Hush, It's okay. I'm not mad at you."

Saralinda burst into tears like a mewling baby. Real tears. And she reached for me and clung to me. I moved us slowly back up to the head of the bed, and maneuvered us under the covers, comforting her all the time.

It took a long while before her crying stopped and her breathing slowed. It took a long while for me to let go of my anger against her father as well. At first, all I could do was wish that God would rain down his vengeance upon the bastard. But as I rocked her, I remembered that vengeance wouldn't undo what had been done.

"Iaammmphh"

"What's that?" I asked.