"Boy Meets Girl Meets Boy"

[PennySaver]

"Boy Meets Girl Meets Boy"

Seeking a writer.
PM me first,
or you won't know the plot.​

Clara was walking in the surf after a cooling swim when she turned and saw something down the beach that was both frightening and exciting. An inflatable motor boat was running at high speed over the waves, straight for the beach. From almost 200 yards away, it was difficult to see how many people were in the boat. Whether it was one, two, or ten, it would still be more people than Clara had seen in years.

Clara had been 3 years old when the sailing vessel on which she, her family, and their fellow settlers had arrived at the island. They'd named this place Paradise, after the 69 foot craft, Paradise Bound. The sailboat had carried 26 people, including 14 adults from all the necessary disciplines: leadership, construction, health care, farming, ranching, and more. The remaining 12, including Clara, were children who would be expected to learn the skills needed to create a new civilization on the otherwise unoccupied island.

But things hadn't gone as planned, and over the next 15 years settlers had died from accidents, violence amongst themselves, illness, food poisoning, starvation, and even shark attack and two suicides. Clara and her mother had been the last two survivors on the island, and Momma had passed away more than 6 years ago, just shortly after Clara had become a woman, aka beginning to menstruate.

Looking toward the boat, the now nearly 19 year old had two voices in her brain screaming for her attention: one was telling her to run and hide because -- as she'd been repeatedly told by her parents -- these strangers could only be a danger to her; the other voice told her to run to the boat to ask who they were and why they were here.

But she neither ran away from or ran to the boat, instead just standing in place as one of the visitors ran a line from the boat to a large tree up the shore and the other began slowly walking Clara's direction. It didn't take a genius to soon realize the nearer of the two was a man. She would realized soon that the other was, too.

 

[KingCorto]

It certainly hadn’t taken long for the world to change, Pierre though, looking over at Andrew, who was at work checking the inflation mechanism of their inflatable raft in the cramped back section of the helicopter. Looking out the window, there was nothing to be seen than blue seas. The raft flawless functionality was imperative, lest they’d both drown. Pierre reflected on how long they would last, in the endless blue. Both were very well trained, after a life in military covert operations, but the sea was endless, and would get the better of them, in the end.

But of course, the raft would work this time too, as it always did. Andrew’s experience made this second nature, Pierre knew that - they’d done this dozens of times before, and this time would be no different. They would reach their destination in good shape, with all the vital equipment dry, intact, and fully functional.

“90 seconds to drop and counting.” Came the voice over the blaring coms. Pierre was up and ready, parachute attached to the steel wire and by Andrew’s side before the count was at 70. The two men in camo fatigues exchanged glances, pulled reassuringly in the straps, and gave each other thumbs up, smiles. Then the doors opened, and the roar of the wind almost surpassed those of the rotor above. Words were impossible to use over the noise.

“30 seconds, 29, 28, …” Pierre leant out holding onto the wire. Still only blue, but below there somewhere was the island, the one that had become so incredibly important to his superiors after the start of the current crisis. The one that no one had thought about before, no one probably had ever even visited. Tied to his chest was the small but world-saving crate of transmitting equipment, well packed and waterproofed. Andrew held the raft wrapped in front of him, attaching it to its own parachute as the count reached 15, the 14, 13, 12. At 8, as planned, Andrew threw the raft. Its parachute ejected below them as the count came to 3, 2, 1, and the two men jumped.

About 40 minutes later they saw the coastline of the small island, and 10 minutes after that, they drew into the specified lagoon that had been carefully mapped during the mission briefing. Everything was proceeding to plan, the water was calm, the sun was shining, and Pierre found himself in upbeat spirits as the men waded out and pulled their raft after them onto the sandy beach.

Pierre stretched and pulled his camo jacket off. Too warm and ridiculous to wear on a deserted tropical paradise, he thought. Then he took some steps inland, onto the rise of the beach, and took a scouting look around.

It was then he saw her, taking him by total surprise, another human? Pierre roes his hand to shade over his eyes, pinched to see better. A woman? Maybe? Bewildered, he looked around. Andrew was still tightening the boat to some rocks, and wasn’t looking his way, so Pierre started walking up the beach, towards the surprising entity. A woman for sure, or, a girl, more like, late teens, maybe 20. Not the enemy, that was certain. This girl was clad only in a bikini bottom, or panties, and a worn-out t-shirt, wet and transparent from the water. Gawd, she IS sexy, Pierre thought as he approached her, feeling a tingle running through him adding to the heat of the sun. But he had to remain professional, the mission always came first.

The girl just stood there, looking at him as he approached. When in ear-range he spoke, “Hey, lady!” he started, “Military business going on, you can’t be here! Do you have a boat or something? I’d advice you return to it, and leave us to our business!”

 

[PennySaver]

Clara smiled and then chuckled at the stranger's declarations: she didn't understand what he meant about military business, as she knew not the words military or business, but his telling her that she had to leave the island -- her home -- was both comical and ridiculous, and not just because she didn't have a boat.

"I live here," she called out to the man, pointing a hand toward the thick jungle to her right. "This is my home."

She could see in his expression that he either didn't believe her or didn't care or didn't understand her. Our was here simply mesmerized by her body?

Honestly, what he was saying to Clara barely registered with her as important. She herself was mesmerized with the man. She'd never seen anyone like him, with his full helmet and layers of clothing and unknown gear, which included things Clara had never seen before called firearms.

"You are a boy, yes?" she asked naively, beginning to walk slowly toward him. There were still nearly a hundred feet between them, that gap closing only gradually. Clara peeked past this man and saw that the other man had taken note of the situation down the beach from him. She looked to the nearest male and smiled with delight. "You both are boys, aren't you? It's been a long time since I saw a boy."

Clara meant male, of course, but boy was the word she knew. She should have been frightened by this new situation: she was a scantily clad 18 year old girl alone on an island with two strange men who could, if they chose, have their way with her in the most inappropriate and brutal ways.

But the only thing going through Clara's mind was that she had a boy to talk to after almost a decade of not having had anyone with whom to speak at all.

"My name is Clara," she told him with excitement. "What's yours?"

 

[KingCorto]

Bewildered, Pierre looked back and forth, then to the attractive girl still a way from him on the beach, he had to cock his head in her direction to fully get her words. Her name was Clara, she’d said, at least something he could relate to. But what had passed before was confusing. ‘Home’? ‘Live here’? Military intelligence was nothing that he pretended to grasp the basis for, but according to it, his briefings, this island was deserted, and not sustainable for human life.

She was beautiful though, he cocked his head to the other side, opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a squeak on his radio, attached to his thick green suspenders. It was Andrew, of course, couldn’t be anyone else, the communications radio to reach HQ was still packed in the crates Pierre’s partner had just dragged onto the beach. “Who’s that?” came the stern voice, “Friend or for?”. Pierre clicked the button to respond, looking back over his shoulder to Andrew now slowly approaching. Since the could see each other, he used his body gesture, raising his arms in confusion, “No idea!” he responded, then, “Well, not foe, at least, I mean, no threat here, is there?”.

Turning back towards Clara, he saw that she’d come closer. On reflex, his hand drew to the butt of the automatic gun that hang on his chest, then it relaxed, as he held the other forward to her, “Wo-ha!” he exclaimed, “Not any closer, please!”. Taking one step closer, lowering his arms by his side in a pacifying manner, then he clicked his radio again, “I think she ‘lives’ here,” he said to Andrew, “Though that’s impossible.” Lingering, not getting a response, he clicked and spoke again, “But she knows the place, we’re headed to the highest point. Hard work through the jungle, maybe she can help.”

The response came, “Hey, that’s irregular! I’d advice against…” But Pierre wasn’t listening. He was looking at Clara, giving him the first smile since they met. She was closer, and he didn’t have to shout. “Clara,” he started, “pleasure to meet you, I’m Pierre, behind me is Andrew. Yes, we’re boys, or men, maybe more what we call ourselves.” He paused to let her process, the carried on, “Listen, Clara, we’re here to save the world. Do you know the lay of the land here? Can you take me to your home, maybe, and we could talk there?”

 

[PennySaver]

Clara's eyes widened as she heard a second voice come from the man standing before her, as if he was hiding a little man inside his clothes. She realized it was coming from the little device clipped to him, something she'd never seen before but which, at some time in the near future, Pierre would explain was called a radio.

He both told and gestured her not to get closer. She stopped, wondering if he was afraid of her. She giggled: she was just a girl, and she'd never known a boy who was scared of a girl.

Pierre said it was a pleasure to meet her, then verified that he and the magic voice man were boys. "Men, maybe more what we call ourselves.”

Clara's smile faded a bit. She was still young now, just short of 19, and she'd been much younger when she'd last heard the word men. Unfortunately for Pierre and Andrew, Clara's last experience with that word had been eavesdropping on a conversation -- a fight, actually -- between her mother and the man she'd grown up knowing as Mister Wilkes.

At that point, there were only 4 people still alive on Paradise: Clara, obviously, who'd been just 8 at the time; her mother, who Clara had only ever known as Momma and was then the only other female left; and Mister Wilkes and Frankie, the men who would that day kill each other during a dispute over who got the privilege of spending time between Momma's spread thighs.

Of course, Clara had no idea that that was what the fight was about. All she remembered from that day was Momma explaining -- lying -- that somehow both Mister Wilkes and Frankie had fallen from the South Rocks and been killed. Clara hadn't seen the men's bodies, so she couldn't have known that Mister Wilkes had beaten Frankie to death or that Momma had subsequently stabbed Mister Wilkes in the neck with a sharpened stick after he'd brutally raped her.

Blissfully, Clara knew none of this, nor would Pierre or Andrew unless they somehow managed to locate Momma's journal, which had been missing for almost a decade.

Still, though, in her last delirious moments of life Momma had warned Clara about men. She hadn't understood the dying woman's words at the time, but still a chill ran up her spine now as she wondered whether or not she should be frightened now.

“Listen, Clara, we’re here to save the world," Pierre said. "Do you know the lay of the land here? Can you take me to your home, maybe, and we could talk there?”

Clara looked between the two men, one near while one still far. Her excitement earlier had now most definitely begun morphing toward fear. She pointed past Pierre toward the island's tallest point, saying, "My home is there."

When Pierre turned his head to follow her gesture, Clara turned and sprinted for the jungle, which was less that 60 feet away. She had a head start, she was quick, and she knew the island: in an instant, she was gone!

Clara didn't look back until she was deep in the thick foliage of the interior. It wasn't a huge island: its roughly cashew nut shape was less than half a mile in length and just barely more than a quarter mile in width at the widest point, flanking the peak in which the men were interested.

But the interior terrain was steep with thick foliage, and Clara knew every inch of it. She vanished into it easily, with no fear of being found until she decided to be found.

 

[KingCorto]

Instinctively, Pierre started a dash after Clara as she turned and ran for the wood line. But it was hopeless, he stopped, the girl was nimble and fit, and set a pace unlike he’d ever seen, barefoot in the warm sand, before he knew it, she was gone. Before she was gone, he noticed her curves, again, and her butt. Gawd, Pierre thought to himself. A tight sexy teen had NOT been what he’d expected on this beach. But focus on the mission, his military mind reminded him. Hoping she wouldn’t be a challenge for it, and also hoping he’d see her again.

While he argued for sticking to the plan and camping inside the treeline, Andrew refused, argued that they needed the line of sight, to stand guard, because of the ‘woman’, as he called Clara. He had a point, Pierre on his side didn’t think Clara was a threat at all, but what did he know, and according to doctrine, Andrew was right, so they set up the tent by the boat, and shared the night; Andrew first, then Pierre, until dawn, then head out. The night passed uneventful for the guys as they slept and stood glaring into the dark jungle, lost in thoughts. Pierre’s were about Clara’s curves, wherever she might be.

The sun was touching the horizon when they were all packed and clearing camp. Andrew was a bit more soothed by the situation by now, Pierre had managed to convey more about his encounter with Clara, and Andrew seemed relaxed that she’d be no hindrance to the mission, and as for that, he didn’t post any alterations to the plan. Pierre was happy about that. Technically, Andrew outranked him, and if he’d suggested, say, that they’d stick together the whole day, Pierre would’ve had to comply. Now, as it turned out, they broke up, keeping radio contact every 30 minutes.

Where Andrew was geared to climb, his objective to reach high ground tonight, and the taller of the island’s two peaks sometime in the morning, Pierre was in shorts with a light pack, essentials. His destination lay deep in the gorge between the two peaks, from which to scout an outset point for the ascent of the second peak, lower, but steeper, they’d also need to reach that one before returning to base. Nodding goodbye and good luck, the two men set off in opposite directions, Pierre soon loosing sight of Andrew as he pushed and cut himself into the treeline.

To find a path! Now, that was unexpected! It was rough, for sure, and many times he needed to bend under bushes and clear away roots to follow it, but his trained eye found it, distinctly, and there were branches, people had trodden these parts, at least a while ago, years. It followed into the gorge, and, looking both was and stepping carefully, Pierre followed at the edge and alongside it, hearing nothing but birds and his light steps, making swift progress, rarely having to bring his knife out to open the jungle up. Birds, that was, until came the glare of Andrew’s voice, checking in. The coms worked, and there was nothing to report, fortunately, so soon, Pierre was back in tranquillity. And then there was the sound of water.

Emerging at a clearing, Pierre found himself at a pond, with a narrow and vertical waterfall filling it up, foaming and bubbling in the crystal green water. He could see the bottom clearly from his side, opposite of the fall. It was of big rocks, forming a natural and wide stairwell leading into it. Pierre checked the time. He was well ahead of schedule. And Andrew had checked in just a while ago. He could certainly take time for a wash and a dip. Removing his gear and clothes, Pierre dressed down to his nude, and keeping his pack very close to the water line, he stepped inside before pushing out, taking a long stroke to swim into the middle, where he turned and started swimming slowly back to the steps.