Kal, Male, 37

	- Narrator, disaster survivor and castaway

	- 6'1, 190lbs, straight, shoulder-length dark-brown hair

Kate, Female, 36

	- Nina's lover, pre-disaster wife of Kal

	- 5'8, 150lbs, pale skin, shoulder-length curly red hair

Nina, Female, 25

	- Kate's lover, pre-disaster triad with Kate and Kal

	- 5'4, 115lbs, light-brown tanned skin, straight shoulder-length brown hair

It took a couple of days or so before I was coherent again. The meds had me sleeping nearly every minute of that time, broken only by moments of being fed broth and water. The times I woke without prompting I'd found either Nina or Kate next to me, on my right, often cuddled against my body, holding me softly. It felt wonderful compared to how awful the rest of me felt. The moments lasted only seconds each time, and the darkness of my nightmares would quickly crash down and drown out my thoughts.

I recall others in the room, maybe three or four times over those first couple of days. I was much too groggy to pay attention. Once, it was a short woman, possibly a doctor, another time there were two men in military uniforms. I remember voices but not the words. Whatever they'd wanted, Nina and Kate had handled it.

I woke one morning to find myself alone. I didn't feel panic, thankfully, just loss. For the first time in days I was able to clearly remember Bailey and the others. I felt sick at the loss, heartbroken. We'd been under attack on the island when I'd gone black, and I had no idea what had happened to them. The loss was crushing.

I cried, on my back, tears running freely. Sobbing hurt less than before and I let myself descend into the misery. My legs felt heavy as I forced myself to try to rise a bit. My left arm still ached, no longer in a sling. My head still wasn't right, but I had to start doing something, anything, to get back to Bailey. It was all I could think about.

I knew I couldn't easily walk out of the room. My feet felt numb, my legs were swollen. The wheelchair was nearby, and I slowly managed to drop my feet over the edge, using my foot to pull it closer. When I had it positioned as close as possible, I pushed myself off the bed and dropped down into the seat quickly. It jarred me and sent spidering pain throughout my body. It took a moment to catch my breath.

With only one good arm, I knew it was going to be very difficult to maneuver. Slowly, I inched the chair forward, using the bed to correct my direction. I made the door, opened it, and wheeled myself forward into a small living area. Sounds to my right drew my attention. Sizzling and running water echoed in my head for a moment before I turned toward the kitchen.

Kate was leaning over the sink, steam rising from a small skillet on a one-burner stove to her right. She wore only a nightgown, and despite the enormous weight of what I'd been through, the fears that boiled in me, I couldn't help admiring the way the thin, light blue garment hugged her curves softly. It had been a lifetime ago that I'd last seen Kate like that, and I admit I paused just a few seconds to take her body in once more.

She turned, noticed me, eyes widening. “Kal! You should stay in bed, really. You need rest.”

My throat was a bit thick, both from emotions and the abuse my body had suffered. “Had enough rest. I need to get back. Back home.”

Kate frowned, sad, the lines on her face more pronounced than when I'd seen her last on the cruise ship. She didn't so much look older as more weary, more troubled. Kate knelt down, put her hand on my knee. “Kal,” she said sadly, “there's no more home. It's gone. At least for people. Just like most everywhere. There's no home anymore for anyone.”

I shook my head, took her hand, felt the warmth in her flesh as our fingers slid together so naturally. “No... no... I mean... the island... I have to go back.”

Kate's head leaned to one side, “why? You're safe now. Why go back and be all alone?”

In that moment, it hit me really hard how my two worlds were crashing together in a way I couldn't control. Memories, emotions, raw fear and pain, the horrible losses, things I'd given up and learned to live without, rained down brutally on the life I'd established on the island. The life with Bailey, with Keekah, and Amy and Gale and... everyone there. The life I was ready to live with my child.

I cried again, and Kate brought her body up and against me, took my head in her hands, my cheek against her breasts, tears wetting her nightgown. She let me go on a while, kissing my forehead, touching me very softly, gently. Kate still cared about me, I could feel it strongly then, and that made it all that much harder to try to deal with what now faced me.

My tears slowed and she leaned back, tears in her eyes as well. “Why would you want to go back? Wasn't it horrible, being there? So terrible? So lonely?”

It took all my strength to manage a weak, “no.”

Her eyes said she was confused. “No? What do you mean, 'no'? Tell me.”

I was out of tears or I would probably have broken down again. I didn't answer her, instead, I asked, “how did you survive? How did you not die on the ship?”

The smell of meat just on the edge of burning hit our noses, and Kate jumped to her feet, yanked the pan off the stove, and set it aside. She returned, said, “let's go somewhere more comfortable,” then wheeled me a few feet into the small living room, sliding my wheelchair so that it faced a ragged, frequently-patched leather chair. Kate sat and exhaled.

“When I lost sight of you, I tried not to panic. Nina was unconscious, bleeding. I managed to scoop her up just before another explosion rocked us. I dragged her into the hallway. It was chaos. People screaming, crying. Bleeding and dying. I thought Nina was dead, but I dragged her forward. I didn't know what to do or where to go. The ship fell over to one side at some point, and I pulled her along the wall.

“We made it to a deck opening just as the ship righted a bit.” Kate told me that there were several horribly injured people clinging to railings, some missing arms or legs, others covered in blood. Some were in shock, sitting very still, others crying out in heart-wrenching agony. “The worst was the young boy... he... he was... oh, God...”

I wanted to hold her then, felt myself drawn to comfort her, to sooth Kate's pain. I couldn't get out of the wheelchair, so I said gently, “shhh... ok... I know... How did you get off the boat?”

She drank from a glass, swallowed her anguish, and continued. “A couple, a man and woman, had managed to swing a lifeboat out. The ship moved again and I had just managed to get Nina into it with them when it tilted. I grabbed onto the side, then fell.” She had crashed onto a wall, and the raft had settled onto the side hull of the ship, rocking wildly. “When the ship shifted again, I managed to climb into the boat. The man was desperately trying to free it from the ropes. The release was jammed. We got lucky. When another explosion went off, it jarred the rigging holding it in place and caused it to tear free. The boat slid down the hull and we landed right-side up.”

Kate told me they collected a couple of people as the boat drifted further from the burning ship, saw bodies everywhere. They tied in with two other boats, and eventually a total of twelve were lashed together. They watched, stunned, as the ship continued to break apart and burn, people clinging to wreckage, people crying and screaming. Hearing her account made me very glad to have passed out not long after I had climbed into my own lifeboat.

“We saw a couple of other boats drifting away from us, but the water pushed us along too quickly. There were only forty-seven of us. Forty-seven who survived the ship.”

Kate was silent a moment, sipped her water carefully, the pain drawn on her face like shadows. Her voice was a touch stronger when she continued. “We drifted for a day or so. We had no water, no food. Two people nearly died. Nina didn't wake up but she seemed ok otherwise. We were rescued by a US Navy cruiser which was in the area. We stayed on board for two weeks, blind to what was going on in the world. We put in first in Melbourne, which is where we found out that the world had gone mad.”

She told me that they didn't know much, really, about what had started the war. The military officers which oversaw the refugees told them nothing, and they were left with rumors and hastily-drawn hypotheses. “Even now, what started things isn't exactly clear. The best I can manage is that the group now known to us as Great Society had planned on ridding the world of most of its population so that it could start again and make the planet into one that fit its ideology.”

“Ideology?”

“Supposedly fundamentalist Christian, end-timers, heavy-handed, fire and brimstone for the smallest offenses. They've been feeding the flames of wars all over the world for two decades, just under the radar, at least to those of us not in intelligence circles. According to rumor and to some small bits of real information that have come out, they managed to blow up over sixty cruise ships, two hundred passenger airplanes, countless court houses and university dorms, docks, trains, anywhere they could kill people and undermine security. It only took four months for them to bring governments to their knees, and that was just the beginning.”

“How is that just a beginning?”

“We think they are the ones that introduced the no-mores.”

“No-mores?”

“Mosquito-like bugs carrying a virus that causes rapid death. I don't know much about them. Some think that GS had been engineering them for years, working on both the bugs and the virus they carried, until it was almost perfect, and may have timed their attacks to happen only weeks before the release. I don't know. All I know is a lot of people have been killed. Most... most people have been killed by them. Very few survive a single sting, and almost never is there just one sting.”

I could only nod, numb. I certainly remembered the hawk-bugs, the 'no-mores,' quite clearly. They'd nearly destroyed all of us on the island. “Why would they do that? Wouldn't they just have killed off their own people?”

“I don't know. Nina has heard some of the Marine officers discussing the possibility of a vaccine, that maybe GS had planned to inoculate its own people against the virus. But they failed, for some reason.”

“Failed? How do you know?”

“Because we've fought their militias, and they fear the no-mores as much as we do. Because they cover their cities like we do: with mesh, complete enclosures. They stay away from open ground whenever they can. The fact that they sent a dozen boats North, where you were found on one, says they had to have had a very powerful reason to do so. It had been months since GS had made an overt move. Something compelled them to go North.”

I let that stew a moment in my head. It was a lot to take in.

Kate, looked back at the kitchen, said to me, “hungry? Think you can handle a bit of real food finally, how about some chicken and peas?”

I nodded, my stomach had been growling for some time.

She stood, paused, then moved to my side, threw her arms around my neck, and kissed my lips. I lost myself in that moment, let her wet tongue bring me a few seconds of peace. It was Kate, no doubt about it. I no longer felt I was hallucinating. My good arm instinctively snaked around her back, pulled her tight to my face. She moaned lightly, let her lips linger, then pulled back slowly. “I love you, Kal.”

My mind was still not right, and I couldn't return the sentiment. Instead, what I said was, “forty-nine.”

Kate stood straight, cocked her head. “Forty-nine?”

“Forty-nine people survived the ship.”

She pursed her lips, said, “ah. Right. You survived... and... another?”

I nodded. She knelt again, suddenly very interested. “What happened to you, Kal?”

I replied, “I'll trade you my story for some chicken and peas.”

She managed a smile, agreed, and disappeared behind the wall of the kitchen.

I sat silently, noted that there were no windows in the small apartment. My two lives struggled in my head, my thoughts torn apart by what to say about Bailey and the others. By the time time Nina came through the door, I'd had time to feel my stomach spoil, my worries about how to talk about my time on the island, about my relationship with Bailey especially, had me feeling nauseous. Nina's delight at seeing me turned quickly to concern as I leaned my head down and retched.

Kate bolted to my side, Nina there as well, holding me gently as I fought for air. It was too much. Nina slid a bowl under me, but I was dry, thankfully. I continued to gag and pant, the full weight of what I had to tell them making me ill. How could I tell them that I'd fallen in love with Bailey, with Keekah, with Amy. That Bailey was heavy with my child. That I'd spent the last many months freely enjoying sexual love with the young teen girls. How could that be ok? How could I make them understand how vital it had been, how natural, how wonderful? How would they see me as anything other than a predator? How could they know?

It took a while for me to catch my breath and accept the cup of water Kate handed me. Nina saved me from the need to reveal my secrets. “I think you need some food and then sleep. Too soon for you to be out of bed, Kal.”

I nodded weakly and neither of them asked me for more. Kate helped me eat the chicken and peas. It tasted quite good despite the bitter bile that had tried to rise. I only ate a little, my stomach in no condition to do much, and I was already becoming sleepy again by the time Nina wheeled me back to bed.

Kate followed us, helped get me onto my back. I watched as Nina stripped off her clothes. I'd not noticed the dark-blue uniform she wore. It looked a lot like the ones I'd seen on Garron and Norris. Kate kissed my lips, said quietly, “I have to get to my late shift, Nina's here for the night. Get some sleep, Kal. I love you.”

I tried to smile, managed little movement. She stroked my face a moment. Someone had shaved me, I realized, the barest stubble on my cheek and chin. As Kate slipped out the door, Nina slipped under the covers and held me in her arms. Once more, her soft breasts pressed into me. I could smell her. Warmth and sweat wafted into my nose and I knew it intimately. Nina smelled much like she had, and despite my weariness and pain, my penis almost rose to the aroma. Instead, I let out a sigh, put my arm around her shoulder, and let my mind spin around while the confusing emotions threatened to turn me into a crying baby once more.

- - -

I woke in the night to the softest of sighs. At first I thought I'd imagined it and started to slip under again when I heard it once more. I was alone on the bed, could hear slight movement coming from the floor. I managed to slowly turn over onto my right side, inched closer to the edge.

Kate was on her back on a plush rug, nude, her legs spread wide, Nina's head between her thighs. I watched as they made love, gentle motions, soft movements. Kate's sighs were light, careful. Her body barely writhed, only barely rocked, Nina's movements in her crotch so slow that it almost looked like she was sleeping.

Kate's head rolled to the side, away from me, her red hair shifting sensually, her hands falling softly onto Nina's head. Kate bucked, a small moan in the otherwise quiet room, then another moan. She stiffened, Nina's head moving now, up and down Kate's privates. I could smell wet pussy, that wonderful aroma, and it struck me quickly that I knew it was Kate's. After all that time, after all the things I'd been through, I still knew the smell of her vagina. I wished badly I was well enough to make love to her.

Kate's body shuddered, her head turned back toward me. Her eyes were closed, her lips parted slightly. I heard her suck in her breath, she tensed, and then her back arched as a wordless cry sat on her lips. The barest of sighs escaped as she climaxed, Nina's head between her legs, her gorgeous breasts pressed into the air, nipples hard. I was an extremely arousing sight.

She fell back and panted, her eyes opened and saw me. She sat watching, and for once I wasn't sure what her look meant. It mixed pleasure and guilt, an unspoken question, a set of doubts. She breathed heavily for a moment before Nina's head rose, the brunette's lips and cheeks wet and sticky.

Nina spotted me, managed a small smile, kissed Kate's thigh, then rose, helping the redhead to her feet. Kate slid into the bed next to me. I smelled her sex strongly, felt an intense urge to take her. But the pain in my head returned in force as my blood pressure rose, and my penis jerked a couple of times before my body gave up. Kate kissed my cheek as Nina slid into the bed on the other side.

They wrapped their arms over me, kissing my lips in turn. I felt sleepy again, couldn't quite push away the thoughts of Bailey, and Amy, Keekah and the others. I laid back, the women nestling against me, warm, the smells of their bodies wonderful in my nose. I let my right hand slide down Kate's body to rest on her thigh. It was wet, slick, and my hand naturally found itself cupping her hairy bush, a finger settling onto her clit. Kate sighed but didn't push me for more.

My left arm was incredibly stiff but I managed to move it slowly, so slowly, to rest my hand over Nina's wet, shaved pussy. In my hands were the genitals of two women I'd loved for so long. Loved and lost and had let go. That love crashed back. Hard. It wasn't just that I was touching them that way. I had pushed the feelings so far down I thought them gone, but being next to them, hearing their voices, smelling their bodies, feeling their love for me, and each other, it all came crashing back. I still loved them.

I let that sink in. It wasn't easy as tired as I was in that moment. As hard as I'd fought to keep from feeling love for Kate and Nina after I'd accepted they were gone from my life. Harder still given that they didn't know about Bailey. If I'd have believed in God, I'd have prayed in that moment that my young, pregnant wife was alright, that she'd survived the attack on the island. My wife. Which one was my wife, now? Here... out here, wherever I was, wasn't it Kate? Would she accept that I'd married another, a young teen? What did that mean for Kate, my first wife, the one I'd sworn to be with until death? I felt the hollow fears boiling into my stomach and I fought terribly to push them aside. That, too, was not easy.

I was awake a long time, soft, tender flesh in my fingers, my mind torn by how the things I valued had come and gone, how what I'd given up had been found again, and what I ached to have back was beyond my reach. At some point, sleep took me and I dreamed of the island. They were all there and together we danced and sang, made love, drank island wine, and enjoyed the simple things together. Once or twice, I think Kate and Nina had slipped into the dream, but I don't really recall. Somewhere in that dream, I determined to tell them both the truth, and one way or another, I resolved to get back to the island and, hopefully, resume the life there. I wondered if Kate and Nina would come with me.