ISLAND

Chapter 13


Sara squeezed her eyes tightly shut before she'd even tried opening them. The sunlight...

Her eyes suddenly sprang open in surprise. Oh, yes, she thought, that is sunlight. She had seen it occasionally through the restaurant windows, but had not been out in it in months.

Cherise was still asleep, still using Sara's lap as a pillow. Sara sat up carefully, not disturbing her, and just watched. After all the terror Cherise had been through yesterday, it was so nice to see her sleeping peacefully today.

It wasn't nice to see the whole front of Cherise's body covered with bruises, a few of them crusted in caked blood. Sara's fury flared anew at the idea that anyone could dare to treat Cherise the way those assholes had.

Cherise's eyelids flickered at last. She looked up at Sara first, then twisted her head to look at her surroundings. They seemed not to be what she had expected. "Mmmmmgh?"

Got to get that gag out, thought Sara, but first I'd better get us some food. She has to be starving. And parched. She has to see as soon as possible that I'm going to take care of that.

Sara got up carefully, laying Cherise's head on the ground. As she stood, Cherise gave her a panicked look. "Mmmmgh! Mmmmmmgh!", and shook her head violently.

It just seems like it should be natural to be able to explain things, thought Sara. But I haven't been able to talk to anyone for four days, and now I want to say something to Cherise herself? There's no point in even trying.

Sara held up her finger in a gesture usually meant as "Hold on, stay right there." Cherise, of course, had no choice but to stay there, but Sara also meant the gesture as "Don't worry, I'll be right back, I promise."

Cherise seemed to take it that way. At least she stopped panicking.

As quickly as she could, Sara located a peach tree -- she could spot them quickly by now, even before she saw the peaches -- and also ran across a tree full of those nuts she'd read about. She gathered up as many of both as she could, holding them against her stomach with both arms, and hurried back to Cherise. Showing them to Cherise, who nodded eagerly, she knelt and pried Cherise's mouth open a little wider to get a look at the knots.

It seemed it should have been easy to untie them, but they were so soaked in saliva that the entire wad of rope seemed welded into one piece. Sara wondered how Wild Hair had been planning to untie it, then thought, Oh, probably a knife. Wish I had one.

For ten minutes, Sara tried to tease the outermost knot loose, growing almost frantic with worry. If I can't get this out, she told herself, I can't feed her. She'll starve. She probably can't even drink -- I don't think she can swallow very well with all that in there.

At last, she got one knot undone, then reached a little farther into Cherise's mouth to try for the next. Luckily, the ones farther in hadn't been tied quite so tightly. In another few minutes she had the rope out altogether.

Cherise spat out some excess saliva, and worked her jaw back and forth. After making a raspberry sound with her lips, she finally looked up and said, "Thank you, Sara. Thank you so much for everything. Everything!" She started to cry again.

Sara helplessly stroked Cherise's hair again, wishing nothing in the world would ever make her cry again. She finally caught Cherise's eye with a peach, and gave her a questioning look.

Cherise said, "Thank you, I know they're moist, but is there any way I could get some water first?"

Sara shot to her feet. She listened for running water, and realized that since it hadn't been raining for hours, all of the streams may have drained into the sea. She looked for ten minutes, and finally found a pool that looked fresh, in a sandy bed. She scooped up a double handful and walked carefully back to Cherise, and held it next to her mouth. Cherise opened her mouth, and Sara tipped the water in.

Cherise nodded, and said, "Maybe I could try a peach now."

Sara fed her six of them, turning them as Cherise bit off pieces. Sara tried to open up one of the nuts next, but it resisted any pressure her fingers could muster. I'll try later, she decided.

Somewhere within her, a part of Sara awakened, flushed, tingling, wet between her legs and growing more so, wanting, needing. Cherise was right in front of her, the focus of her fantasies every day and night for years, now lying there naked, helpless, completely real. Cherise was right here, right now. Sara was conscious of wanting nothing more than to kiss Cherise, to wrap her arms around her and hold her, rub against her -- especially to rub her mound against her, rub her sex against her. It would be so much more powerful than any fantasy she had ever had.

She pushed the aroused Sara, the Sara who wanted Cherise so much, into a windowless stone cell and locked her in behind a steel door. She could never let herself take advantage of Cherise that way. Raping Cherise, using her body for pleasure, was what the men had wanted to do yesterday. Sara couldn't let any such thing be done to Cherise, ever. Not even, she thought, by me. Especially not by me.

She saw Cherise looking up at her, seeming to want to say something, and she realized Cherise was blushing. "Sara, ummm... I really need to pee, real bad. I got so tired of having to lie in it afterward, yesterday. Is there some way...?"

Sara, somehow, didn't find it embarrassing at all. Cherise had a need. It was Sara's job, her one and only job, to take care of Cherise's needs.

She lifted Cherise up by her arms near her shoulders, to stand on her knees. There was no way Cherise could balance that way, so Sara continued holding her steady. She reached down and pulled one of Cherise's knees to the side, opening her legs so the pee wouldn't run down her thighs.

Cherise, her face reddening still more, finally let go a stream that Sara, her head turned away and eyes closed to give Cherise as much privacy as she could, heard pattering on the ground. When Cherise was finished, Sara lifted her and set her back on the ground a few feet away.

"Thank you, thank you again, that feels so much better." She made a half-giggle sound, which to Sara was a wonderful thing to hear. "You probably never thought that was going to be part of the deal." She looked up at Sara again. "You don't... I guess you must not have anything you could use to get all this... stuff off me?" She thumped her hands against the ground behind her, making the chain jingle.

Sara, feeling totally helpless -- here was Cherise with another need, and now Sara was failing her -- shook her head, blinking away tears.

"Hey, no, I understand, really. I... maybe you could help me, though. My legs are so achy from being like this. All day yesterday on that wagon I kept trying to push my hands down past my butt so I could straighten my legs out, and I never could do it. Maybe you could help...?"

Sara nodded eagerly, glad to see the goal moved closer so that it was in her reach. She went behind Cherise, pulled Cherise's hands and feet outward, away from her butt, and pushed gently against Cherise's shins, trying to make her bend at the waist. She wanted to say "Now push!" as if Cherise was delivering a baby. Cherise seemed to get the idea anyway, pushing her hands downward, getting them to slip slowly, slowly down along her buttocks. At last they cleared her butt and reached the back of her thigh.

Sara helped Cherise sit up, leaning her back against a tree. Cherise bent double, making it possible to straighten her legs all the way, despite her hands still being inseparable from her feet. "Oh, Sara, that just feels wonderful!"

Sara beamed at her, joy washing through her.

Cherise sat back upright against the tree, pulling her legs back once more, but no longer forced to have them bent completely double. "Thank you, thank you. I'll never stop saying that."

And suddenly she began crying again. As before, like a small, heartbroken child. "Sara, I was so stupid, stupid, stupid..."

Sara quickly sat beside her, holding her face, turning it towards her own face so Cherise could see Sara shaking her head, No, no, not stupid, no, never stupid. Sara put her arm across Cherise's shoulder, pulled Cherise's head closer to rest on Sara's own shoulder, stroking Cherise's hair as she had before. It wasn't in any sense the horny Sara escaped from the cell. Sara felt no sexual arousal, only a desperate need to comfort Cherise in any way she could.

Cherise, her head still resting against Sara's shoulder, began talking in a low monotone between sobs and sniffles. "I just... I don't know, I don't know how I was so stupid. I think I was going stir crazy in the restaurant. It seemed like it would be fun to get out, I'd feel better. And he seemed so sweet, so sincere. And... Sara, I hadn't had a man inside me for months, and I just thought it would feel so nice, so welcome. And then I'd come back to the restaurant after, and nobody would know I'd been gone. Stupid, stupid..."

She took a deep breath, fighting against the tears. "I fought them, of course. Maybe that was stupid too. I never had a chance to beat them. But I wasn't going to give them what they wanted." She raised her head and looked at Sara. "That was the important thing. I knew I couldn't get away. I knew my real life was over, and they owned me and would never let me go." Her voice shook, and a fresh set of tears welled out of her eyes.

"I did grab one of my wristbands, after they tore it off, and I wadded it up in my hand. They didn't see it. I dropped it outside, in the street, so maybe Bart could find it. I don't know what I was thinking, though. Just finding a wristband wouldn't tell them anything."

Sara wanted to tell her that the wristband had told her everything, that she was here because of it. But she only continued stroking Cherise's hair. It seemed to calm her a little.

Cherise's voice became strong. "But I swore to myself they'd never get what they wanted from me. Never! I wouldn't work, I wouldn't do anything they wanted me to do. And I thought... well, it seemed to make sense. Of course, I'd had so many plans." The tears came again. "I had things I wanted to do with my life before I was eaten. I was going to get my degree, and stay on at the university to teach. Get married, have kids, you know, all that. I knew..."

Crying overcame her for a moment, then she went on. "I knew all that was over. I'd thrown it all away. But I could keep one thing. A woman should always be able to decide when she's snuffed, decide when she's eaten. I had that, and these guys couldn't take that away from me. That's what I told myself. I'd show them I wasn't going to work, so that there was nothing they could do but snuff me and eat me. I still had that power, I could make them snuff me."

She shuddered violently. "Sara, I always hated pain. I'd cry when mom took me to see the doctor, because I knew he'd stick needles in me. But yesterday, when they tried to get me to work and I wouldn't do it, I knew they'd hurt me, and I knew I had to go through it if I wanted to be snuffed. I knew it'd be bad. I thought it'd be like that girl in the square, in front of the restaurant. I guess it sort of was, it was different but just as bad. I knew I was letting myself in for that. But I just told myself, it will hurt, but then they'll snuff you and the pain will be gone and you won't even remember it."

That, Sara understood now, was what she'd seen in Cherise yesterday. That determination to resist their commands, despite being scared enough to piss. She nodded.

Cherise began crying aloud once more. "Sara, I was so wrong! They weren't going to snuff me! They were going to sell me to a breeding farm! That one thing I thought I still had, that I could decide when I was snuffed, that was gone too! Because I couldn't just tell them in the breeding farm I wasn't going to work! I could never hurt a baby! I could never neglect a baby! I'd be their mother! I'd have to feed them, keep them clean, hold them when they cried, do everything they needed their mother to do, and I could never stop! The breeding farm people, they'd decide when I stop. And I'd just spend twenty years like that, crying every day remembering everything I'd thrown away." She began crying harder. Sara could do nothing but hold her, hoping she was doing everything for Cherise that she could.

Cherise closed her eyes and buried her head deeper into Sara's shoulder. After several minutes she seemed to pull herself back together. She looked around again. "Where are we, Sara? Are we almost back to the restaurant?"

The dangers of lying about that were obvious. Sara bit her lip, gave Cherise an "I'm sorry" look and shook her head.

Cherise was on the edge of another crying jag. "I want to go home." Sara nodded, and stroked her head once more.

Cherise took a deep breath. Looking back up at Sara again, she said, "Bart sent you to find me though, right?"

Sara had to steel herself to tell the truth again. She wished Cherise didn't have to know, so soon, that there was no one else out there to help them, that the two of them were on their own. She shook her head again.

Cherise obviously found the implication of Sara's answer astonishing. Wide eyed, she asked, "You just grabbed some clothes and came out to find me on your own??"

Sara nodded emphatically.

Cherise stared up at her. "Sara, I am so, so, so grateful, but why would you take that kind of risk?" She started shaking her head immediately, remembering Sara needed to be asked yes-or-no questions. "I'm sorry, I know you can't..."

During the few seconds it took Cherise to start that sentence, Sara felt something inside that she could never quite describe later. She called it a loosening-up, a lifting within, as if a door rusted shut had suddenly sprung open, as if a bird without wings had suddenly taken flight... none of her descriptions ever did justice to the experience, or ever could. There were no words for suddenly having the words back.

But it seemed so right. Because it allowed her to say the one thing she had always wanted so much to say. Maybe it happened because it was the right time to finally say it.

Cherise stopped cold, mid-word, seeing something happen behind Sara's eyes.

Sara's eyes held Cherise's, not wanting ever to let them go. And, in a voice husky from both disuse and emotion, she said slowly, "Because I love you."

Sara knew it was a beginning, not an end. Nothing would ever stop her speech again. She knew, positively knew, before she said another word, that she would never stammer again.

Cherise looked back at her, mouth hanging open, staring unblinking. "What?"

Sara leaned closer. "I love you, Cherise. I always have. I always will."

Cherise still wasn't blinking. "Always... But I thought..."

Sara went on, "Always. From that first instant that I saw you, I knew..."

Cherise surprised her by smiling. "In Mr. Malloran's history class?"

It was Sara's turn to stare. "You remember??"

"Of course I remember! I..." Cherise looked down at last. "I mean, I really remember. The last detail. I was looking up at you, and you tripped, nearly fell. Right next to me. Something told me... It was weird, I'd never seen you before, but it was like I knew you'd be really important in my life. I thought I should get to know you, but... Well, you'd never talk to me. I thought it meant you didn't like me, so I didn't press." She suddenly looked up at Sara. "Oh, but it wasn't that, right? You just had your... problem?"

Sara shook her head. "No. I mean, I'd never had it before that. It started that day. I got the same thing you did, that feeling you were really, really important, and it came on too intense for me to handle, I think. Something like that. I'd just completely forget how to talk when I'd try to say something to you. And it was just this summer that it started getting worse, I couldn't talk when you were even in the room. And a few days ago I just seized up totally. I kind of lied about that to Bart. It hadn't really happened that way before. I couldn't understand it. It was like some force had hold of me, like it took years for it to get that much control of me, but it was somehow important to stop me from talking..."

A thought flashed through Sara's mind, so astonishing she nearly fainted.

If I had been able to talk yesterday, the thought told her forcefully, then I couldn't have saved Cherise. If I had been able to talk when I found out Cherise was missing, if I'd been able to talk when I ran towards Bart's room to tell him, he would have had Derek and Sid man the doors before I could have got to one. I only got out because I'd run back to the storage room to write a note, so it was Ashley who told him instead of me. Whatever it was that fouled up my speech as soon as I met Cherise, it's the one thing that made it possible to rescue her.

"Sara? What's wrong? Is it back? Can you not talk anymore?"

Sara struggled to clear her mind, and shook her head quickly. "No, no, I'm okay. I was just thinking something. It's a long story, so I'll save it for later." Much later, she thought. When I can get some sort of handle on it.

Still off balance within, Sara was suddenly aware once more of holding the object of her unbridled love so close. She didn't realize she had leaned in to kiss Cherise until she'd done it.

She was instantly appalled at herself. No, no, she shouted to her horny self, I told you no! I can't do that!

Sara saw Cherise looking at her, seeming shocked. Sara opened her mouth to apologize.

It was Cherise who moved next. It was Cherise who leaned forward, her lips parted, pressing them against Sara's lips, fastening on them, nibbling them, staying locked with them.

Sara moved her lips against Cherise's, pressing harder, feeling the pressure in return, moving her right hand behind Cherise's head, resting it there, gently holding her near, hearing Cherise echo the soft sighs she herself was making.

Sara thought: I'm kissing Cherise I'm kissing Cherise I'm kissing Cherise! And it was like... her birthdays as a child. The cookies. Those birthday cookies Sara's mother had made, that Sara always ate slowly, savoring them, because they fell apart on her tongue and covered it with sweetness, with butteriness, with cinnamonness, and life stood still while the cookie coated her tongue. Cherise's kiss was exactly that way.

But no more than this, Sara promised herself. A kiss is a kiss, but more would be wrong.

They broke apart at last. Sara breathed in air that hadn't come straight from inside Cherise, and that was a loss, but she could deal with it.

Cherise was smiling. "Well... wow."

Sara laughed. "Yeah." Time had stopped standing still, with the parting of their lips. But Sara knew her life now was not the same one it had been before the kiss.

Cherise frowned suddenly and looked around. "So if you came to find me on your own... then..." She looked back at Sara. "There's... nobody out looking for us. Right? I know Bart said if any of us went missing they'd never look for us outside the town." The look she gave Sara said she fervently hoped that somehow this would be an exception to that policy.

Sara suddenly had a sense of how scared Cherise must be right now. Sara knew very well the constant sense of danger generated by being a woman deep within Purity Island, far, far from any help. How much more terrifying that would be, she told herself, if I were manacled and helpless, unable to move on my own.

Sara reached behind Cherise's ankles and took one of Cherise's hands. Cherise's fingers immediately curled around Sara's. Sara said softly, "I know it's scary. But I saw you yesterday, in the cavern. I saw you stand up to them, even knowing how much it would hurt. You're the bravest person I've ever seen."

Cherise looked up sharply, and Sara was glad to see a smile spread across her face. "I'm the bravest you've ever seen? Try looking in a mirror."

Sara felt herself blushing. She smiled back. "Let's not start arguing about who's braver. What we need to do is figure out a way back."

Cherise looked as though she was at the edge of crying again. Instead, she nodded. "Okay. Tell me how you got here, to start with. You followed me across more than half the island without getting caught. So how?"

Sara started recounting events and strategies. She wanted to skip the part about being trapped up in the tree, but told herself that if they were really going to collaborate on a plan, Cherise had to know what the dangers were. She started talking.

As if talking were the most natural thing in the world.



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