Chapter 6

Morning arrived, and they all awoke roughly around the same time. In the huddled closeness under the lean-to for the night, Julie had moved close to James and in the morning, he awoke to find himself spooning behind her, his hand full of soft t-shirt covered titflesh. Natalie was watching him closely as he awoke and released Julie, which only caused her to stir. Stacy was the last to awaken. James walked out to the edge of the surf and emptied his bladder into the ocean. A minute later, all three ladies were doing the same, squatting down and trying to keep their clothing from getting wet from either liquid.

James pulled apart two breadfruit and handed them out before sitting down to eat.

Once they'd eaten, James announced, "I have been thinking hard about how Jessica and I didn't see eye to eye, how we fought for control, and also our situation here. I do think we're going to be here on this island for an indeterminate amount of time. And I want to do more than just survive. I want to work so that eventually I don't have to work all day just to eke out an existence. I want to build a better place to live—a hut or even a little house maybe. I want to have a fire that has hot coals that stay warm and dry all day so that when I want a fire, I don't have to rub sticks together or use up one of our precious matches. I want this place to be a paradise that it can be."

Julie nodded, "That sounds nice."

James scoffed, "It takes a lot of work to do what I'm talking about. And I just dealt with one Jessica who wasn't willing to do any work to survive. I'm ready to just walk off with a good portion of the supplies here, not so much the food and water, but some of the other stuff ... and just be on my own. I'm not willing to go through another round and round like with Jessica."

Natalie cried, "You want to abandon us?"

James shook his head, "I don't want to. But I will."

"What exactly are you saying, James?" Julie asked.

James stood up and walked down towards the surf, then turned around and walked back. After a moment, he asked, "Do you all agree with me that we're probably going to be on this island for a long time?"

All three women nodded.

"I think you all currently see me as a leader, and you're willing to follow my leadership, at least for now."

They nodded again.

"For now isn't good enough for me. I'm not going to work my ass off and build us a nice place to live, teach you all how to fish and take care of yourselves and such only to turn over one morning and find one of you pointing my gun at me. I'd just rather not," James explained.

Stacy shrugged, "Then what do you want to do ... leave us?"

"I could. It wouldn't necessarily be like I'm totally abandoning you. I'd move off down the beach a ways, maybe half a mile. We could be like neighbors—neighboring countries even. Maybe every few days, you bring something to trade and we trade and talk. I give you fish, you give me some fruits you collected. Like hundreds of years ago, just a couple of different villages that traded news and goods and lived peacefully together, but apart.

"You can see the hut or the house I'm building, and you can choose to copy what I've done and maybe I even show you a thing or two about building it. We can share the pool, or I could even try to find a way up the hill so I get my water from above the falls and then you all can have your privacy when you swim and bathe."

"You really want to leave us?" Julie asked incredulously.

"It's one option I'm considering," James answered.

"Do we have any say in this?" Julie asked.

James considered it for a moment, and then said, "I don't know."

Julie said, "You mentioned how it was hundreds of years ago."

"Yeah?" he said.

"It wasn't really like that then."

"What do you mean?"

She answered, "Hundreds of years ago, men basically owned women. Women were mostly treated like property—highly valued property, but property."

James looked at her oddly, "Are you suggesting—"

"Yes," she answered quickly.

He blinked, "For all three of you?"

She shrugged, "Well, me for sure."

James' eyes blinked rapidly in shock.

"What are you two talking about?" Stacy asked.

Before James could say anything, Julie said, "We'd be his women—his property."

Both Natalie and Stacy continued to look confused, so Julie said sharply, "His wives."

Natalie's mouth dropped open, and Stacy just hushed, "Wives-zuh? Like, plural?!?"

Julie nodded.

After several long and silent uncomfortable minutes, Julie said, "Sir, why don't you start building the signal fire you were talking about. We'll go refill all the water and get the clean laundry. Maybe by then we'll all have time to think about things."

James nodded his consent, but said, "I need the multi-tool."

Julie tossed it to him, then she had the Smith sisters help her gather up all the water pouches and the bucket and they disappeared into the jungle.

Stacy was folding the dried clothes and had James' underwear in her hands when she said, "This is nuts."

No one said anything in response, so Stacy simply gathered up the clothes and said, "I'm going to go talk to him."

Natalie stood up, but Stacy held up her hand, "Alone, please."

It didn't take long to fill up the water, so Julie suggested they look for some nearby banana plants as well.

After searching for nearly half an hour and gathering a small pile, they decided to head back. They'd have to come back for most of the bananas, but they found a nice cool place to stack them.

Julie was loading herself up with water pouches when Natalie asked, "Does it hurt?"

With a confused look, Julie asked, "Does what hurt?"

Natalie shrugged, "Uh ... you know ... like, the first time?"

"Oh!" Julie giggled. "That. Ummm ... yeah, it hurts, but it's not like a bad hurt. It's sort of a good hurt—if you're into that," she blushed. Then she sighed for effect, "Listen, Natalie. Do you want to have sex with James?"

Natalie flushed and glanced away.

Julie smiled, "Yeah, I thought so. He's a good looking guy with a hot body and a very nice looking dick. You know, you two weren't exactly stealth hiding behind that bush yesterday."

Natalie's eyes snapped open in astonishment, "You knew?"

"I saw you when we came out of the water. When your sister came out from behind the bush too, I figured you were both back there. The fact that you didn't interrupt us right when we came out of the water made me think one or both of you were probably wishing you were in my place."

Natalie smiled, "Maybe a little bit. You think Stacy ... uh ... her too?"

Julie smiled wanly, "Nat—can I call you that? I've heard your sister call you Nat."

Natalie nodded.

"Nat, I don't doubt that Stacy will choose to be with James, but she would never abandon you. My guess is that she's back on the beach right now making a deal with him."

"What kind of deal?" Natalie asked.

Julie shrugged, "She'll mention that she saw us together yesterday and that she doesn't care if she has to share him with me. She'll do anything he wants as long as you are spared."

"Spared!? But I didn't ask her to do that!" Natalie spat. Before Julie could do anything, Natalie darted into the jungle and was gone.

"Fuck me," Julie cursed. In the end, she could barely carry all the water herself, and even then she had to walk slowly in order to avoid too much spillage.

James had barely gotten started building a large square wooden base in the high sand about fifty feet away from where the lifeboat lean-to was located when Stacy came back with her arms full of clothes. He continued arranging the largest and thickest pieces of wood in a base only watching her out of the corner of his eyes. She unloaded the clothes back into the chest and then approached him.

"I know Julie will choose to go along with this idea. Don't worry about how I know, she didn't exactly say anything, but it was mostly her idea. And it didn't take me long to figure out that it makes sense. You're a dude, and if we're really going to be here more than a few days or weeks, then it would be testing the rational limits of any man with a sex drive to be in constant proximity of three young women.

"Hell, you've already seen all three of us naked. We should be grateful you haven't tried to rape us already. If one of my friends walked down the hall past my boyfriend's room naked—just for half a second, he'd be all over her. Your self-control is admirable. Really."

James considered this, but shrugged, "Uh ... thanks."

"I'm serious. You're a nice guy. And I'm sure out in the real world, you're probably one of the good guys—probably never cheated on a girlfriend, you're honest most of the time, etcetera."

James nodded and shrugged, "Yeah, I guess I am. Or at least I try to be."

"Nat and I can't survive on our own if you take Julie with you. We'd have to trade with you every damned day probably. We'd be more like the charity cases you give food and look after if you two took off and lived separately from us. I don't want that for myself or for my sister.

"But I also can't just sit here and let you manipulate your way into raping my sister."

James held up his hands, "I'll admit, I'm a domineering guy sometimes. I'm forceful in my relationships. I go after what I want and I don't put up with drama bullshit most of the time. But I'd never rape anyone."

Stacy frowned, "You know what I mean. She's smart enough to know that the best way to survive would be to just give in to what you want, but it's not the same thing as with Julie and I."

"Why's that?" James asked.

Stacy looked away and was strangely quiet.

James stood up and approached her until he was standing right in front of her, "Why is that?"

She looked up at him, completely ashamed, "Because I would have fucked you anyways. And I know Julie did yesterday—I saw it."

James noticed she said 'I saw it, ' and not 'we saw it, ' but he wasn't going to point that fact out. He was intelligent enough to realize that if one sister witnessed him fucking Julie yesterday, they both did.