"But why?" Christophe looked to Dee for help.
"We've only just got here," she said to Xavion, stating the obvious as she followed him inside the Japanese style temple-on-the-water, Christophe at her side. A brief glance showed Josh rising from a sunken bed of cushions in the centre of the large room. Behind him there was no wall, just a vista of blue — ocean swell backed up to the horizon line. "Can't we at least look around first?" She held Christophe's hand tightly. She wasn't finished with him yet.
"You may 'look around' all you choose. Josh will return you to the cave when you're ready." Xavion nodded to their host who now stood silently to one side. "Christophe and I are required elsewhere."
Her eyes narrowed. "By Peter?"
"Correct."
"May I come?"
There was a pause where Xavion's eyes were briefly unfocused, as though the question required deep thought. Then they cleared and he said, "You'll be safer here," and to Christophe, "Wait for me on the beach."
Dee's fingers tightened but Christophe managed to disengaged his hand from hers and edge backwards, his apologetic expression melting into relief as he slipped through the door. Pleased to be escaping Josh no doubt. Dee felt her jaw muscles tighten. She listened to the creaking wooden planks as he loped along the jetty, then the sound stopped and she turned slowly back to Xavion.
"Testing my obedience?" she asked. There was no other reason for Christophe to be suddenly 'required'. The others were stronger, more capable.
Xavion shook his head. "The orders are from Peter."
"Then he is," she accused, feeling the frustration well up inside her. "He doesn't require Christophe — "
"Neither do you," Xavion pointed out, his mantle of leadership suddenly evident. "You would do well to remember that we are a tribe to be honoured, and not a menu to be chosen from."
Dee pressed her lips together. His words were a slap in the face, but they gave her some badly-needed perspective. "You're right. I’m sorry." She looked down at her trembling hands. "I've acted very badly. Will you forgive me," she asked humbly.
"You are our Wendee," he replied, and the simple phrase had a talisman effect. She felt the tensions in the room dissolve. "You, also, must be honoured. But Peter's orders have priority."
"I understand."
Xavion nodded, "As do I." His perceptive gaze raked her body, detecting the subtle twitchiness, the feverish colour. Without any covering, it was easily read. "I leave you with Josh who will see to your needs." He touched her arm briefly and she shivered, fighting down the urge to throw herself at him. But with Pietre waiting, he would only reject her.
She hugged her shoulders. Why was she so desperate? Christophe was gone two minutes and she suddenly wanted Xavion. Was she visually aroused by any man within line-of-sight? Perhaps emotions didn't come into it at all.
"Protect her." Xavion ordered, over her head.
"With my life," Josh replied softly and Xavion nodded, as though expecting the vow might need to be honoured.
He left then and Dee followed him to the door, resting her head against the sun-baked timber frame. Xavion's progress along the jetty was more sedate that Christophe's had been. He marched, back straight, stride purposeful, loin cloth shifting with each step. Muscles rippled across his back in the sunlight and her fingers stroked her own shoulders, remembering the weight of those muscles, the strength of his body against hers and how beautiful his eyes had made her feel.
She wanted that again.
Languishing in the doorway, her feverish desire grew. The already-hot sun stung her skin like the blaze Xavion had laid her beside the first time he'd taken her. Her breasts throbbed and soon her pubic pelt was on fire. She squeezed her thighs together, feeling the moistness of her arousal between them.
Across the narrow expanse of sand she saw Christophe waiting in the shadows of the Pandanus palms that bordered the beach. While she had been watching Xavion, he had been watching her.
A hiccup of emotion confused her desire. The heat wavered and almost faltered, then Xavion stopped next to Christophe. They spoke. Dee was too far away to hear the words but she could see their effect. Christophe's shoulders sagged and he turned away from her.
Was he being removed from the tribe? Would she never see him again? A pang of desolation tightened her chest, but as she watched them disappear into the shadows of the quasi-jungle, the ache faded and all that remained was her feverish arousal, undiminished.
She closed her eyes. Emotions were transitory, but the need to be touched was a constant. She had become the addict Roc had thought her to be.
"Shall we begin?" came a voice from behind her.
Josh. Not Christophe or Xavion, but the mindless throb between her legs was indiscriminate. He was a man. A body. Curiosity tightened her stomach.
"Begin what?" she asked, turning away from the scorching sun to take a step into the shaded interior. She felt immediately cooler.
Josh had resumed his cross-legged pose on the bed of cushions in the sunken centre of the room. His body was so perfect it made her eyes ache.
She wanted to look away, but forced herself to inspect him as thoroughly as she had the others, at the black, tumbled down hair that contrasted so sharply with the smooth musculature of his upper body. And those soft, thick-lashed eyes. Too beautiful to be a man's.
He gestured to the cushions in front of him but she hesitated. Caution warred with the extremity of her need. "What exactly are we to do?"
"Anything you desire."
She laughed, almost embarrassed. "Well that's interesting. And surprising." She went over to where he waited and lowered herself onto the cushions, mimicking his cross-legged pose. The silk of them was deliciously cool against flesh still stinging from the sun, and she wanted to rub herself on them like a cat. But Josh's placid gaze inhibited her. She wasn't sure why.
"Anything I desire," she repeated his offer speculatively, then asked, "What about rape? Pain? Humiliation?"
"As you wish."
Dee looked away from his level gaze. Her question had been facetious, yet he had insisted on taking her words at face value. His serenity in the face of her frustration should have been infuriating, but it wasn't. His stillness-of-being soothed her and she found her shoulders relaxing.
"How would you use me?" he asked, without a flicker of apprehension.
She shook her head. It wasn't Josh she wanted to hurt.
A cushion found its way into her lap. "I did want something," she admitted, twisting a silky tassel around her finger, wondering if she would tell this beautiful, untouchable man about the fantasy she'd concocted on the way to his retreat.
"What was it?"
She shrugged. "It's not possible now."
"Would you like to talk about it?" His gentle eyes encouraged her, and whether out of anger at Pietre or curiosity about Josh, she found herself agreeing.
"All right," she said, taking a breath to settle herself and to align her thoughts. "But will you answer me something first. If Christophe was still here and I told you to take him, to… penetrate him…" She paused, struggling with the explicitness of her words.
"Go on." His gaze seemed suddenly intense — his eyes not the pools of tranquillity they had been, but engaging, locking on to hers.
"Would you do it?" she asked. "Would you take him against his will?"
"If you desired it."
She let out a breath. "Then it's just as well he's gone because I would have… I did desire that," she admitted, not able to meet his gaze.
"May I ask why?"
The tassel wound and unwound its way around her finger as she studied the waves. "I'd rather you didn't."
"As you wish."
She glanced back. "You're very compliant."
He smiled.
"And easy to talk to," she admitted, wondering why she didn't just tell him about her fantasy.
After watching her for a moment, he said, "You may tell me now," and she thought, why not? Maybe he could make sense of it and explain it to her.
"All right. I'll try," she said, hoping it wouldn't be embarrassing. He gave her an encouraging nod and she began, "I've seen the way you look at Christophe. The way your eyes follow him."
She paused, searching for words. "I can almost taste your desire for him — the same desire I have for him. Not that of a woman for a man, but…" She frowned, went on, "I look at Christophe the same way a man looks at an inexperienced young girl he wants to initiate into the secrets of pleasure. As I myself have been initiated. I don't want his touch," she explained. "I want to be aroused by touching him. Can you understand that?"
Josh nodded again and she felt he did understand.
"I want to take Christophe," she said, "to teach him the pleasure." Her fingers bit into the plump cushion and her knuckles whitened. "I'm filled with the impossible desire to take him as a man takes a woman. To lie over him and…" her eyes searched the room, searched Josh's. "I want to subjugate him with the ultimate masculine power. Penetration."
There was silence at the end of her speech and Dee wished he would smile at the pomposity of her words — wished she could — but Josh was taking it very seriously and was clearly moved by her desire.
"This initiation of which you speak obviously had a profound effect on you," he said.
"It did." She looked down at her fingers, now limp on the cushion, and saw again the trembling young hands that had made no attempt to fend off her 'master'.
Such power he'd wielded over her. How she wanted to experience that power for herself. "I wanted to recreate it for Christophe," she said, then smiled. "But I am ill equipped."
"You could experience it vicariously."
"Through you." She nodded. "Yes, I wanted that. I wanted you to take him, regardless of his feelings."
Their eyes met.
"I would have done it, Wendee."
"We would have both enjoyed it. But…" she shrugged.
Josh nodded solemnly and there was an awkward moment.
"So… What are we doing?" she asked.
"Anything you — "
"Desire," Dee cut him off. "Okay, I think I understand that part. What I want to know is what can you do?"
"Anything — "
She held up a hand, waiting until she was sure he'd stopped before resting it over her eyes. "Let me think."
"Make yourself comfortable," Josh offered, and as she prepared to lie amid the cushions an idea came to her — an idea inspired by her fantasy.
"I know what I want," she said, and unfolding her legs, spread them wide to span his knees before lying back and stretching her arms over her head to form an X with her naked body.
Her eyes were closed. "Tell me how you would do it," she instructed, her voice deliberately low and husky. "Tell me how you would touch Christophe."
There was silence and Dee imagined him staring at her body, seeing her sex open in front of him.
Her arms and legs felt light, as did her head, but her loins were heavy, engorged with the trembling that would soon be a pulse.
"First, I would scent the air," Josh said, his voice deeper than it had been.
"Do it," she commanded, and felt the cushions beneath her move as he rose. There were muffled noises, a match striking, then she felt him return. Almost immediately the heady fragrance of incense intruded over the brine of the sea.
"It is done," he said and Dee smiled. She was visualising Christophe spreadeagled on the cushions and herself crouched between his legs. He was naked, his eyes closed, his flaccid penis resting against his stomach. She wanted to touch it, to touch him, but…
"What next?" she asked.
"I would rub his body with scented oil."
"Good. Let's do it."
Warm oil trickled along her legs and up onto her stomach. A moment later Josh's palms slid along her shins and up over her knees, his thumbs trailing along her inner thighs. Slowly, very slowly.
Dee's own palms tingled as she imagined herself caressing Christophe. And when Josh's thumbs met and trailed through her pubic hair on their way to her stomach, her breath caught in her throat. Above her head, her fingers curved inwards to encompass the rapidly forming erection her fantasy had produced.
Her tongue emerged to wet her dry lips. "Talk to me," she commanded. "Tell me what you're doing."
"I'm touching Christophe's chest," he said, his voice now as husky as her own. "I'm massaging it," and his palms rose to cover her breasts, kneading them expertly, rolling the nipples between thumb and forefinger, tweaking them until she moaned with the pleasure. "I'm stroking his arms, his sides, his hips."
Josh's hands, slick with oil, followed the path of his words and she trembled with the ecstasy of his touch as those sure hands slid around her hips and cupped her buttocks. She thrust her pelvis upwards, imagining Christophe offering his tremblingly hard penis for her kiss, a warm, melting kiss that would draw the pleasure out.
Were Josh's eyes closed as well? She felt his hands fumble as he rolled her over and spread her legs again, pulling her onto his lap where her buttocks rested against his stomach. There was no fabric to separate their skin and she could feel his penis hard against her belly.
A trickle of warm oil ran down her back and she shuddered as the large hands smoothed it into her skin, massaging her shoulders and the back of her neck before working their way down to her parted buttocks.
"I'm calming him now," Josh said, his voice heavy with the weight of his laboured breathing. "I want him to be prepared."
The hands began kneading her buttocks, fingers delving between them, randomly at first, then in a definite rhythm. Once a slippery finger intruded into the tight pucker of flesh that shielded her final virginity and she stiffened. But the other hand was beneath, caressing, coaxing, stroking the stiff button of flesh that sent waves of pleasure through her body and she relaxed against the intrusion, imagining herself stroking Christophe, calming him, preparing him.
Then Josh slid her off and onto her side on the cushions. She felt hard legs come up against the back of her own. The intruder slipped out and a strange tingling the base of her spine distracted her from the heavier presence nudging her puckered entrance.
"Relax, little one," she heard Josh saying. "Let me in. Let me do it," he crooned against her ear. "I won't hurt you. I promise." And in her mind she saw Christophe's frightened eyes close, his lips part on a sigh as the phallus of her fantasy slid smoothly inside him, tingling his body from the inside out in a wave of pleasure that was unlike anything he'd ever experienced.
The pressure withdrew slightly and the pleasure grew stronger. Her breasts ached and her sex-flesh throbbed from it, but she left them untouched. She wanted to experience this sensation alone, not confused by the triggering of other responses.
"Yes," she sighed, "He's enjoying it. He wants it." And she felt Josh's hands move to her hips, holding them steady as he slid back in, sending the tingling up her spine to explode inside her brain. It was so… different, so good. She squeezed her knees together and fought to hold the image of Christophe in her mind but the pleasure was so strong, building so quickly. Behind her, Josh's breathing grew louder.
The in-out tingled all over her body, making her want more, making her moan, "Do it harder. Please. He wants it." And Josh complied, driving slickly in and out, faster and faster, his fingers manipulating her hips back and forth, push-pull, in-out until the moment came and she lost the image — lost Christophe writhing against Josh and there was only white, a flash of painful white behind her eyes as her spine arched and her hips shuddered uncontrollably.
Josh held her hard, still slapping against her buttocks, prolonging the explosion until he too shuddered and lay still.
Then for a long time there was quiet.
Softly, into that quiet, Josh said, "You love the boy."
Dee almost laughed. "I don't know anything about love," she said, and some perversity of natured caused her to add glibly, "If I had, I wouldn't have ended up here."
Josh shook his head. "Fate brought your generous heart to us," he contradicted. "Fate, and Peter's discerning eye."
Dee bit her lip, humbled by his compliment. "I don't know that I've shown much generosity since I've been here. The only — "
"You do not hoard your grace, but offer it freely to all. What is that if not generosity?"
Nymphomania? Dee wished she could see him. It was hard to imagine his words had been issued with a straight face, but by their tone she had to accept they had been spoken honestly. "You're the generous one," she told him. "I can't imagine anyone else seeing my actions as more than self-serving."
"Then perhaps that is why Fate brought you to us, and not to 'anyone else'."
Dee smiled, liking his logic. "Perhaps."
"I still think you love Christophe," he persisted, "and perhaps Peter believes this also."
Dee forced herself to consider that. "You think Peter took him away so everyone could have an equal turn?"
"For the good of the tribe."
It made sense. She had become overly fond of Christophe — favouring him above the others. Had they felt resentful? What about the twins? After one brief skirmish on her sleeping platform, she'd all but forgotten them.
And Mack. Brutal though he was, he belonged to the tribe. Perhaps she should have made an attempt to gentle his sexual behaviour. Did he ever kiss? She tried to imagine kissing him. Soft kisses. The thought made her lips quirk into a wry smile. It might have been fun.
But Christophe had captivated her completely, distracting her from her purpose, blinding her to her appointed 'duty' within the tribe.
"Maybe Peter did the right thing," she admitted, much as she hated to. She hadn't come to Never Land to find someone. She'd come to forget, to lose herself in the many.
Besides, out of sight, and scent, Christophe was a faded shadow of himself, not a strong enough presence to feed the obsession she'd developed for him. Especially not while she lay in the arms of another man.
Yet there was more to Christophe than her body's reactions to him. Even with the desire diminished, she felt… something.
Behind her, as though reading her thoughts, Josh said, "You've developed a bond with the boy."
"I feel… emotions for him." Lord, that had been hard to admit. "Not love of course," she hurried to explain, "but…"
"Affection?"
She nodded. "Yes, he — "
"Arouses your maternal instincts."
She baulked at that. "Just because I care about him — "
"You are confused in your feelings though, are you not?" Josh demanded.
"Yes, but I don't think I'm mothering him." She laughed, a little embarrassed. "I'm mean, we've kissed. I've…" she broke off, annoyed to find herself blushing.
They lay together in silence and she listened to the sound of Josh's breathing, felt it on her back. What was he thinking?
Finally he spoke, but the words appeared to have no bearing on their earlier conversation.
"Would you die for me, Wendee?" he asked.
"Die for you?" Was this another test? She felt her blood go cold. "How?"
"I'm speaking theoretically," he explained. "If you could save my life by dying, would you do it without thinking? Instinctively?"
Perhaps this was a test of a different kind.
She searched her feelings, and as she did, a primitive level of awareness within herself was wakened. The tribe was based on more than mere food-sex-survival. They weren't individuals looking out for themselves. There was an inter-dependence between them that needed to be tested, to be known and relied upon.
They'd need to know where she fitted in.
For the first time Dee felt a real belonging within the tribe. And that belonging required absolute honesty.
"No," she said, "I wouldn't do it instinctively. I'd stop. I'd think."
"Would you die to save Xavion?"
Dee couldn't imagine a scenario where she might need to protect Xavion — he who had declared himself her Champion. But the answer was the same.
"No."
"Mack?"
She shook her head.
"The twins?"
She paused, and he had to reminded her, "Instinctively."
"No, I wouldn't. Not instinctively."
"Then consider that Christophe is being attacked and that you have a weapon. He is injured, bleeding, and will die unless you help him." The voice in her ear was devoid of emotion but Dee shivered with the horror of the scene his words painted. "Instinctively remember. Do you leap from the shadows and fight or stay hidden and live?"
Dee's stomach lurched and she closed her eyes. "Fight," she admitted, the single word coming out on a hollow breath.
Behind her, Josh sighed. "It is as I thought. The mother-love. The fearlessness of the lioness who protects her cub. It is not the love of a mate."
Dee dragged her thoughts back. "No, it's not love," she agreed, "But it's not…" She grimaced in distaste at the thought. "Mothers don't do… what I've done with Christophe."
"Some do," Josh contradicted. "The cub grows, becomes a lion. He mates. Perhaps with the lioness who bore him. It matters not. Lions are not monogamous and neither are we."
"We're not animals."
"The difference," Josh said, his voice slow and clear, "is that the lioness forgets the cub and responds to the lion. In her mind, he is no longer of her flesh. Yet you, Wendee," he paused as though unsure how to express himself tactfully. "You take flesh not of your own and make it cub instead of lion. Child instead of mate. Why?"
She shook her head. Confused. She wanted to deny his accusation, but despite her turmoil she could sense truth in his words. "But why would I — "
"Have you borne children?" he asked suddenly.
"I… No." For some reason tears pricked her eyes. Josh was touching her inside, deep, where she had no protection. "I could have once," she whispered, "but…" Unexpectedly, she choked up.
"Wendee." His cheek touched her back. "I should not have asked. The past is of no consequence here. Forgive my intrusion." His smooth, heavy muscled arms enveloped her, pulling her close to his chest to comfort her but her heart was heavy, soaked like a sponge with the tears of the past.
Yet, perversely, it wasn't the child's death she was mourning. It was…
She took a deep, shuddering breath. "Can I tell you something," she whispered, knowing instinctively that she could share this burden with Josh. That he'd understand.
"Of course."
"I think I know why I'm drawn to Christophe." She spoke slowly through a tight throat. "He reminds me of someone I knew. Someone I was falling in love with. But this person… left me and I was very angry with him. I think that's why I want to hurt Christophe. To get back at…" Dee found she couldn't even say the name, "the other."
There was no face inside her mind to haunt her, she had erased that, but the pain of that loss was still a heavy ache in her chest. She shivered and Josh held her closer.
"We have this in common then," Josh whispered against her skin. "Christophe reminds me of a past outside this world. I try to forget…" He paused, "but his eyes… They are the eyes from my past." Dee heard anguish in his voice and wondered at it.
"Can't you go back?" she whispered and felt him shake his head.
"No. The past is dead…"
"But surely if you — "
"…at my hand." He said each word carefully, as though translating it into an unfamiliar language. And perhaps it was for him. Perhaps he'd never spoken of this before.
She felt his arms tighten and she snuggled against him. Their roles had reversed. He wasn't comforting her now, but clutching her as a child would his favourite toy.
Strong as these men were, they needed her. She understood that more fully now. Not just for sex, but for her compassion, her companionship and the intellectual stimulation they could share. For all the things a partner — a mate — would provide. Yet she was in the privileged position of being mate to all, not merely one. The lone lioness in the pride.
It was a life she could never have imagined for herself, but now that she had it, she knew she would risk anything to keep it. What amazed her most was that she might never have known what she had to lose, if Peter hadn't 'interfered'.
She could see now that at every step he'd taught her a lesson — showed her an insight into her own nature and those of her Lost Boys.
In that moment Dee vowed never question his judgement again.
"There is no past anymore, Josh," she said with a conviction that went bone deep. She might die on this island, but she was determined to live first. "I belong to Peter. To the tribe."
"You are our Wendee," Josh affirmed. "There can be no doubt."
And in Dee's mind there was none either. Peter was a God and his word was law. She suddenly wanted to please this God who had brought her to his promised land. She tilted her head towards Josh and asked, "What does Peter want me to do?"
"To act from your nature. That is all," Josh replied.
Dee closed her eyes for a moment and thought. Then she let herself feel.
She felt… Josh's hard body against her back, his deflated invader still imprisoned within her body, his arms around her.
Anything you desire…
She licked her lips. "Will you kiss me?" she asked.
"Of course." Carefully he turned her shoulders, settling her head onto the cushions so he could lean over her whilst maintaining their sexual connection.
He brushed his lips over hers. She kept her eyes open, watching.
"Does it disgust you?" she asked, "Kissing a woman?"
He pulled back. "Would it disgust you to kiss a woman?"
"I don't know." She smiled, surprised. "I've never done it."
Josh looked as though he were about to say something, then didn't. He simply watched her for a moment, studying her eyes, her lips. Then he lowered his head and kissed her properly, deeply, and she felt her body stirring.
His body also stirred. She felt the strange tingling prickle across her buttocks as he swelled inside her.
"You kiss very well," she sighed when he relinquished her lips and pulled back to look into her eyes.
"I practice," he said, then asked, "Again?" nudging her hips with his and creating a delicious shiver that tightened her nipples into hard, rosy buds. He lowered his head and sucked one, softly at first, then with a strong rhythmic pressure that had her writhing and moaning helplessly.
Her buttocks wriggled around his hard shaft, increasing her pleasure so much that when he stopped sucking the nipple and returned his attention to her mouth she barely noticed.
He had begun the slow in-out again, whispering against her lips and kissing her hard. Then he held her hips tightly and drove into her again and again until she couldn't kiss, she could only make strange panting cries as the white wave rushed towards her. And then it was there. Josh slid a hand off her hip and clamped it over her mound, squeezing as he shuddered into his own little-death and she felt the wave crash down on her pushing the air out of her lungs with a hoarse cry as the hot sensation licked over her.
Then… nothing.
And gradually into the nothing she heard panting. Then she felt her brain throbbing inside her skull and a prickliness about her skin, as though she had pins-and-needles all over her body. "I think I'm going to faint," she said, incredulous, adding, "If you can do that with a woman I can't wait to see what you do with a man."
He laughed, withdrawing from her at last.
She slid onto her back on the cushions as the final echo of the strange tingling spasmed across her buttocks. For a second it felt odd, as though she had no control over her lower body, but then the feeling passed and her body relaxed. So much so, that when Josh spoke a minute later she was almost asleep.
"The twins will be displeased with me if I have worn you out."
She smiled, not opening her eyes. "Just give me a minute," but the gentle lapping of waves lulled her and she couldn't seem to open her eyes. "Sorry. So sleepy," she mumbled.
There was a slight pressure on her forehead, dry, soft… lips? It withdrew and he said, "We'll be safe here for some hours. I'll wake you before dusk."
"Mmm." She slept.