He comes to meet you.

Just when you are about to leave the sled and continue on unburdened, you round another spur and see what is left of the Lucky Ducky rocking precariously on its perch. John has been busy: a makeshift tent is pitched along the tree line and a pile of salvaged goods lines the white sand. It is a welcome sight, but not as welcome as seeing the young man running towards you waving his arms as if there could be any chance of you not noticing him. Once again you cannot help compare him to an oversized puppy, but it warms your heart to know that you are not alone. You are going to have to be careful not to get too attached to this young man.

When John reaches you he pulls up suddenly and seems to be at a loss for words. No doubt because he realizes exactly what it is that you've been dragging on the sled.

"Damn, it's good to see you John." You try to distract the boy before he starts throwing up and gratefully shrug the shoulder straps off and let them fall to the sand. "More than once I was tempted to roll 'Mr. Fats' here back into the surf and let the sharks finish the job." He nods once and then without a word picks up the shoulder straps and pulls them over his broad shoulders. The bands had been a little too large for you but on John they look almost like a child's toy and when he bends his back to the chore you are impressed with how easily he is pulling the sled. You turn away from him so he doesn't catch you staring, but you can't help but think about what it would be like to feel those arms holding you up to his face as he patiently laps away at your sex.

"Was there any sign of the others, Ma'am?" John grunts, momentarily distracting you from your erotic day dream. You turn back to see that he has stopped for a moment to readjust the straps. The only 'others' left were Kyle, Don and of course Jasmine. With a flash of understanding you realize that this is who he is still hoping to find washed up on the beach waiting to be rescued. Who could blame him, the missionary was beautiful, sweet and probably just his age.

"No, How about you, was there anyone on the Duck?" The young man lowers his eyes, and you take that as a 'no.' You hadn't seen the redheaded American get off the boat, but at least she wasn't dead in her berth. Curious to see what he was able to find, you turn toward the tent set up on the beach. You make the last hundred yards or so back to where John set up the tent listening to the young man's loud breathing. The young man is doing his best to keep up with you even with the heavy load and you wonder how long he'd be able to maintain this pace. Back at the camp you find the water cooler with a little fresh water still splashing around the bottom. You drink handful after handful of the warm water letting the excess splash it over your face until the rivulets are running down you neck and cooling your torso. You see John has left the corpse by the other graves and is now staring at you with a slight frown on his face.

"Water's not going to be a problem after all, John" You tell him as you scoop one more handful onto the back of your neck. "I found a spring on the windward side of the island with a deep pool and even a small waterfall."

"Oh, great. That's good news Ma'am." You shake your head and sigh as you realize that all of John's work stretching out the jib into a tent was a waste of time.

"I see you've been busy." Instead of explaining that you couldn't possible sleep directly on the sand because of the damned sand flies, you instead ask him about what he was able to salvage. "What else did you find?" John shows you the trove of treasures he recovered with a certain amount of understandable pride. You hadn't really expected him to swim out to the wreck, and the thought of him being pulled under by a shark is tempered by the extra goodies he was able to recover. The ship's axe in particular will come in handy if you are stuck here for any length of time and the coils of rope will make rehanging the small sail a much easier job. Along the high tide line you see dozens of splintered planks washed up from the missing stern of the Ducky. There's no doubt about it, the boy did good.

"I guess it was too much to hope that you'd find the medical kit or any of my clothes." You seem to remember Kyle holding the med kit as he was trying to urge you to evacuate, at least he was thinking clearly that night. You turn your attention back to the tent and give John the bad news. "Well, this tent might be nice for shade, but we can't sleep here on the beach. The bugs will eat us alive once the sun sets." Speaking of the setting sun, you realize you have less than an hour before this beach is going to be plunged into darkness.

"OK, John, we don't have much time. Get Mr. Fats there as deep as you can by the other two graves, I'll see about a fire and someplace where we can sleep."

"I couldn't find the galley lighter." John sounds so apologetic you almost hug him, but instead you shoo him to the graves as you set to work taking down his tent. "Get going, If that body sits in the heat any longer it's going to really start stinking." It is a nasty job, made nastier by the stench of the rapidly decomposing body, but you've already dug two grave this morning and that is more than enough for anyone in one 24 hour period.

Carrying the salvaged sail about twenty yards further down the tree-line you find three palm trees spaced the right distance from each other and leaning out over the sand high enough for what you have in mind. Stretching the jib horizontally between the three trees will do three things, during the day it will provide shade, at night the two of you will be able to use it like a hammock and if there is another storm, it will not only keep the rain off your heads, but it should catch gallons of fresh rainwater at the same time. You pull the sail as tightly as you can to keep it from sagging. It is a good thing that this jib was the newest of the Ducky's sails, the old main sail probably wouldn't have been able to hold your weight even if you had double or even tripled the layers.

John is filling in the grave by the time you turn your attention to getting a fire going. Luckily coconut fiber makes excellent tinder and the dried out fronds catch fire easily. It is an easy matter to drag up the driftwood that litters the beach and in no time at all you have a pretty little fire going just in time for the sudden sunset.

By the time John is done, you have a small pot of stew heating in the coals and the two of you eat in silence. For a while longer you sit side-by-side as the fire sends sparks into the night sky. More than once you find yourself checking out the young man stretched out on the other side of the fire. He is good looking, not really pretty like those k-pop boys that you keep seeing on TV's when you are in port, but handsome in a rugged sort of way. Once again you remember seeing him battling the wind on the foredeck of the schooner long after everyone else had started to abandon ship. It is too bad he's stuck here with you. You can just picture John and Jasmine living on this tropical island like a modern day Adam and Eve. There was a movie you saw once about two teens, Brook Shields and some other kid that no one remembers, falling in love on a desert island. John and that naïve missionary were perfect for the rolls; young, beautiful and so eager to do the right thing.

Angry with yourself for comparing your sagging thirty-year-old body with its swarthy skin and coal black hair to someone who was pretty enough to be a movie star, and whose sweet young body was almost certainly pure and untouched. You kick sand on what was left of the coals and wipe your hands on your jeans.

"Time for bed John," You point to the jib back between the trees. "I rigged up a hammock to keep us up off the sand; the breeze will keep at least some of the bugs away." When you were much younger, actually just about John's age. Jake used this same exact setup to spend a fortnight on the beach with you while the Ducky's hull was being careened and you had gotten pretty good at swinging up onto the hammock by the third or forth night. You had sex on the swaying fabric too; slow gentle sex as the night wind cooled your sweating bodies and the hammock slowly rocked under you. It had been one of the best two weeks of your life, and for a while you thought you might even be falling in love with your old man.

What would it be like to teach John the way Jake had taught you? With those very erotic thoughts clouding your judgement you wait expectantly for John's body to slide towards yours.