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, 26

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

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

For a few days, I mostly slumbered. Kate and Nina got me up a few times, helped me walk around as the feeling returned to my legs and feet. The small apartment they shared was in a modest complex, three old buildings around a small grassy area. The first time I felt the sun on my flesh, it brought a smile to my face. It had been far too long.

I noticed the cage immediately. As far as I could see, a fine wire mesh covered the town, thin columns of metal bracing it above the tops of the buildings. I'd found out that we were on the island of Tahiti, in French Polynesia. Nina had told me about how they'd been moved from Melbourne to join up with other survivors who were hunkering down while the militaries of the world ramped up and fought each other. Suspicions had overwhelmed actual information, leaving large nations sending fleets and aircraft wings and marching armies against enemies new and old. It all served a purpose, it seemed, which Great Society had long worked to engineer.

Tahiti became a base for some US Navy personnel and served as the camp for what remained of the US Marine Corp. There were other nations there, as well, each with a compliment of both military personnel and civilians. The town of Papeete had quickly become overcrowded as the cage was put in place, and mesh protection was soon added over other towns on the island, allowing refugees to spread out. The relative isolation of the Southern Pacific islands became the natural refuge of people trying to survive.

During our short walks, we passed throngs of people, often milling about. I noticed a decided lack of young men and women, the civilians mostly people over fifty or under fifteen. Most everyone else had been pressed into service of the Progress United forces, as the hastily-constructed alliance was named. Some were training on the island, stationed near the apartment complex in Papeete. Others had been shipped to other towns on the island, some to Melbourne where much of the surviving United naval forces were based.

The walks took me past shops which had been turned into communal living, parks where tents and gardens had been established. Kate noted that the original residents had quickly adapted to the influx of military and civilians alike and had led the way in intensifying farming, establishing large sections under the cage for local crops and select animals, such as chickens and pigs. The chickens were practically underfoot all over, and I never went far without seeing the spoor that came with them.

The military in town was largely centered around Port Autonome de Papeete, a deepwater port capable of accommodating the needs of the Navy ships. The apartment complex where Nina and Kate resided was technically military housing. Kate had been pressed into medical training when she showed an aptitude with first aid and was a volunteer on base. Nina, who had always been a natural on the water, took a crash course in navigation and became part of a patrol squad which kept an eye on the island chain.

There was no real commerce in town. The drastic conditions that had driven most of the new residents left no room for so much as barter. By necessity, Papeete was an authoritarian commune, with people generally assigned their roles and provided with enough food, water, and shelter as necessary. An older US Navy Admiral had become acting mayor when the situation became chaotic, the French Polynesian government (given authority by what little remained of the French government) ceding control to the Americans who had saved many lives and rescued many of its citizens from neighboring islands. Despite the military presence of more than three dozen nations, and refugees from almost twice that many, the largest non-native population on the island was from the United States.

I grew winded easily. My legs, though better, were weak, and the more I learned about what the world had lost, the likely billions of people dead, the cities destroyed by bombs and bugs, the more I longed to retreat to the one place I felt comparatively safe. Even under the cage, surrounded by calm people, by big ships and powerful weaponry, by two women I loved, I grew desperately homesick for the Island of the Phoenix. I had to know what had become of the people I loved there, and I longed to hold Bailey in my arms again.

Kate and Nina hadn't pressed me about my time on the island. I found out later they assumed I was suffering mentally from being stranded alone, as well as from the physical trauma, and that they had believed it pained me greatly to be asked for details. What they didn't know was that I needed time to work up the courage to talk to them about it. Obviously, my time there was nothing like what they had expected or could have imagined.

I woke one morning to a sensation that had been absent since I was taken from the island. Soft lips slid up and down my mostly-erect penis, soft hands touching my thighs, my chest, tender lips on my stomach. My eyes opened to see Kate's head slowly bobbing, my cock between her lips. Nina was nuzzling my neck gently, her body pressed into mine, her hands cupping my balls as Kate sucked me.

No other thoughts crept in for some time. I let myself sink into the sensation. My head remained a bit distant, but without pain, my body tired but willing. I throbbed in Kate's mouth, her movements I knew so intimately, and she had always known how to make me feel loved with the simplest strokes of her lips and tongue.

Nina slid down and Kate pulled me from her mouth. The brunette took me between her lips, sucked me gently, and I felt myself tensing, boiling very quickly. I groaned in pleasure as the women shared my cock, one mouth then another stroking my sensitive flesh.

It took only a minute for me to feel my semen burning up my shaft. Kate had me inside her mouth, her tongue darting around the head of my dick before plunging me deep into her throat. I groaned again, my hips rose against her face, and I felt her brace herself for what was to happen.

Nina's fingers massaged my balls as cum shot from my penis, splashing into Kate's mouth. The redhead swallowed as I ejaculated, the flood of semen in her mouth gagging her once before she recovered. She never let me slip from between her lips. I came in long, slow spurts, filling her throat with my salty, warm jism.

My body radiated pleasure as my cum slowed, Kate humming softly as she sucked me dry. She pulled away, swallowed, and shared a sticky kiss with Nina while my penis throbbed and withdrew. I closed my eyes, swimming in the sensations, and felt the women pull up beside me, kissing my skin and my lips. I tasted myself in Kate's mouth, my pungent cum stuck in strands on her teeth and across her tongue.

We lay like that for some time, I may have even drifted off again. When I was next aware, they both slept next to me and I remained still for a long while, unwilling to disturb them.

- - -

It was my seventh day staying with Kate and Nina that I decided the time was right to open up about my island life. We were sitting near a small garden a half-mile from the apartments. The plot featured all sorts of vegetables that I couldn't identify but which looked healthy and robust. Nearby, two tenders were watering the crops, one plant at a time. It was a very peaceful scene.

I spoke softly. “I need...” I hesitated only once. “I need to tell you about what happened... on the island.”

Kate and Nina sat together to my right, Kate nearest, heads turned toward me as I started. “I washed up on an island... after the cruise ship blew up. I don't really know how I got there, my boat drifted close enough that I was able to paddle to shore. At first, I was alone. I made a small camp out of a container which had floated in, next to a fresh water stream. I was in shock, hurting, and though I remember those hours very clearly, I tried hard at that time to ignore what I was feeling. For you two. I couldn't accept that you were gone, not yet, but I know that I had already begun to put some distance between myself and those emotions. I had to survive, and I couldn't until I'd compartmentalized that.”

The listened without interruption as I collected my thoughts.

“There was another, a survivor from the ship. I found her a day or two later, unconscious, alone. I helped her as best I could, but there wasn't much to do besides keeping her warm and wetting her lips.”

When I paused, knowing I was getting very close to the part of my tale that I feared revealing the most. Feared isn't really the right word. And it wasn't shame or guilt. I loved Bailey, without reservation, and I didn't doubt the rightness of it. But I had no idea what Kate and Nina would think when I told them about our relationship.

Kate broke my silence, saying only, “Bailey.”

My eyes rose. “Yes. How... how did you know?”

“You've mentioned her a few times, when you were sleeping and a couple of times when you were still recovering from the head trauma. I wondered if you were delusional, but now... it was Bailey you found.”

I nodded, “yes. She... she came to after some hours and she was scared. At first. We were both in shock. Both too-aware of what had happened on the ship, and what we faced on the island. We... we grew close very quickly.”

Kate's reaction was muted, Nina leaned back, thoughtful.

“She... Bailey was twelve, then.”

Neither spoke, and I forced myself to the confessional part of what I had to say before the words caught in my throat. “We... became intimate.”

I let that sink in, unable to go further until they reacted. I had to know what that knowledge would do to the conversation.

Kate spoke first. “Became... intimate... with a twelve-year old girl...”

“Yes.”

“Kal, I... How? Why? A twelve-year old?”

I exhaled slowly, fearing that her reaction was already going where I wanted it desperately to avoid. “Yes, Bailey was twelve then. I know... but... How can I make you understand...” I exhaled again, paused, said finally, “there, all alone, we'd both lost everything. Everything. You two were gone from my life, and that pain... that pain threatened to overwhelm me. She'd lost her mom and sister... we were both scared, trying desperately to find a way to get help, to survive. We... grew close quickly. We needed each other, and... we became intimate.”

I let that linger a while. Nina leaned forward, lips pursed, said, “I don't want to judge you, Kal. I know you, deeply, better than anyone but Kate. I know your heart, and I know you would never cross that line otherwise... but a twelve-year old? It seems... like you crossed a pretty terrible line...”

I nodded. “'Seems.' Please. I know this is a lot to take in, and I'm asking more than I have the right from you. I need you to understand my situation, and hers. Please, let me go on.”

Nina nodded and leaned back, Kate remained pensive and her mood unclear on her face.

I told them about the days together with Bailey, how we'd built the camp, scavenged for supplies, how we'd found Gale's diary, and then how we'd come to be visited by Keekah. “We couldn't speak her language, nor she ours, but we bonded with her quickly. The three of us grew close together. The emotional need... it was powerful, so powerful. I'd lost so much, you two assumed dead. I needed to be emotionally close to them, and it wasn't just me. Bailey and Keekah, they needed me. Wanted me. The loved me as much as I loved them. It was... beautiful. For all of us. It felt so right.”

I told them about the boat that had crashed, how the man had nearly killed us, how Keekah had saved our lives by killing the hostile man. I went on, describing how we'd located Gale, and how she'd become part of our group, how she'd had reservations about the relationships I had with the girls, but had come to accept it and see the beauty and love we shared together. I described the bomb that nearly killed me, how the girls and Gale had cared for me, how they'd been so sad that I might not recover.

“The girls weren't girls the way you would think of them so here. On that island... there was no room to be a child. There were tremendous responsibilities which taxed our bodies, our minds, our emotions. And with those adult responsibilities came adult desires, for companionship, for comfort, for love. Together, we found that what we had was wonderful, that the love we shared kept us going, made us strong.” I was over-explaining, feeling exasperated. “I can't begin to let you understand what I mean... I don't know how...”

My head was swimming suddenly, and I leaned over the edge of the bench, vomiting, feeling very ill. Kate held my shoulders, offered me a rag once I'd finished.

I regrouped, forced away the nausea, and continued my tale. I got to the wedding. “It felt so right, Kate. I... I know you and I are married... 'out here.' But what was the right thing? It seemed all of this was lost to me, and it was for a very long time. My love for Bailey is as real as my love for both of you. I wanted her to know that I was hers, and she mine, and when Keekah performed the ceremony... it was beautiful. Bailey was the happiest person I'd ever seen that day, Kate, the happiest since you cried at our wedding all those years ago. I wish you could have seen her, that day. You'd know what it meant to her, to me.”

I moved on, suddenly rushing to get out my story, not pausing to let Kate or Nina stop me to ask questions. I know I skipped things, forgot events that mattered, but my mind raced on, trying to get to the end. I told about the Hahonokoans, the injuries Keekah and Tok had suffered, finding and falling in love with Amy.

And I got to the second point I was fearful would lead to harsh reactions from Kate and Nina. “Bailey became pregnant with my child.” I let that sink in. Silence, looks of incredulity but not hatred. “It... we'd talked about it... the possibility, and she accepted it. I... I didn't want her to become pregnant, so young, so far from modern medicine, but on the island... it was ok. Once we knew, we were both joyous... she's... if she survived... when I was taken... she's due in just a few weeks...”

Tears had formed in my eyes, and I fought back my clenching throat. I had to press on. I described the bug attacks, how we'd barely survived, how Poln's acorns had saved our lives.

Kate stopped me at that point. It wasn't sex with young girls or the multiple partners I'd had that made her interrupt. “Acorns? How did they save your life?” When I didn't respond immediately, she was insistent. “Kal! This is fucking important. Progress had been trying to find anything that can help against the bugs, anything that gives us a chance. Tell me!”

I described how we'd accidentally discovered the repellant effects thanks to Poln, how we'd risked our lives to find out of they worked.

Kate swallowed her thoughts a moment, and I pushed into the silence to finish telling my tale. “It was almost idilic. Those of us who had survived so much had grown so close. I can't... I can't think of the words to let you understand that. I want to so badly I'm sick over it. I need you... you both... to understand me. To understand what it was like being there. I don't know what happened, exactly, that I ended up on a GS boat. There were gunshots, Karana barking, Amy screamed, and I went black. I don't know why they didn't kill me, why they took me with them.”

I looked Kate and then Nina in the eyes. “I have to get back. Bailey and the others... they need me... my child will be born soon... I have to get back...”

The women sat quietly a moment, appeared stunned. Kate broke the silence. “Kal... I don't know what to say to you. I can't... I can't really understand this... that this is real. I... Look, Kal... we've rescued other people who were stranded alone on islands over the months since the war started, and they... they aren't always right, up here.” She pointed toward her head. “Sometimes they make up elaborate stories... about people they met, fantastical tales that didn't match what was seen when they were found... I think... I think maybe... maybe you... have suffered too much... this can't be real...”

I nodded solemnly. “I know... I know it sounds that way... I... I can't do anything more than tell you the truth, as I remember it. I know it is real. Very real. Bailey is having my child. Keekah, Amy, everyone, they were really there. I... I know you doubt me, that you don't want this to be true, maybe you hate me for what I've said, what I've done... but it is very real, and I have to get back to them.”

Nina spoke quietly. “I think we have a lot to think about, Kal... this is... a lot to take in. Let's... let's get back to the apartment, it's getting too hot to think out here. Let's... Let's reserve judgement, ok?” She was speaking to Kate. “Maybe we just need to think this through, maybe... I don't know... I'm stunned. Stunned.”

I had nothing more to add to her thoughts. Even as I'd spoken those words, describing my experiences and the people I loved, it sounded two-dimensional, perhaps delusional. I knew what I said clashed strongly with the person they'd known before the disaster, that what I described had me crossing lines that neither woman could, or would, accept was true. I knew, and I bowed my head in resignation. I'd had my say, told them the truth, and what was to happen was in their hands.

Regardless of their reactions, and I knew it might destroy any relationship I had with them, I doubled my resolve to return to the island and find out what had happened there. I offered a silent prayer to no one in particular that they had survived and that my baby was still growing in Bailey's womb.

- - -

Kate left for her shift not long after we returned to the apartment. Nina sat quietly in a chair while I reclined on the couch. We'd eaten part of a loaf of old bread and some boiled eggs but it was all tasteless in my mouth. I could see the conflicting thoughts on Nina's face, but she said nothing and I did the same.

It was no more than an hour after Kate left that a knock on the door announced the arrival of three uniformed Marines, as well as Norris and a man wearing what I can only describe as formal robes. Norris explained their presence. “This is Admiral Canty, acting mayor of Papeete. I come to understand your story is more interesting than it first appeared, Kal. May we join you? We've brought a bottle of rum, perhaps you are well enough to partake?”

I shrugged, sat up from the couch and made room for Norris and Canty. The Marines stayed outside the door after it was closed. Nina brought out small cups and poured rum for everyone. I was hesitant to drink any, so I held my cup motionless while Norris started talking.

“Tell me about acorns.”

I nodded, my guts churning, wondering how much of what I'd told about Bailey and the others had been passed on by Kate. “The acorns... they repelled the hawk-bu... uh, no-mores.”

“Repelled. How?”

“I don't know how. You eat them, the bugs stay away from you. That's all I know. It was dumb luck that I survived them.”

“You ate the acorns, hmm. You don't look too starved, Kal. Not for a man who spent over a year on an island, alone, without provisions. Acorns?”

I was unwilling to disclose anything about the others on the island, hoping Kate hadn't told those details. I'm not sure why. I didn't quite trust Norris, and I felt extraordinarily protective of my family there. I didn't want anything or anyone destroy my home and my people. “There were hares, and lots of shellfish. Berries, other things I could eat. The acorns... were just part of it.”

“You say you were on this island, the bugs came, and the acorns repelled them. I'm having a very hard time believing this, Kal. A very hard time. Researchers, both ours and those in the GS, have been working day and night to find a way to protect people from the no-mores, and you're claiming that eating acorns was the magic bullet?”

“I am.”

He was silent a moment, passed a flat look with Canty, then a sympathetic look with Nina. “I appreciate your time, Kal. If I need anything further, I'll be in touch.”

They finished their rum and stood, opened the door, and were gone quickly.

I sat stunned. “They don't believe me.”

Nina sat next to me, took my hand, held it carefully. “Kal... you have to understand... people aren't... normal... after being away like that so long. It messes with your head. And you had a concussion. Those things... make it easy to see why someone believes they are telling the truth... but... I don't know, Kal. I'm having a hard time with it myself.”

“You don't believe me.”

“I don't know. I want to. Somewhat. I want to believe you are telling me the truth. I think you believe you are, but... I don't know. I don't... the girls, Kal... your believe it, I know. It's understandable... natural, really... to invent grandiose stories when you're so isolated, to believe you're talking to people who aren't really there...”

I was angry and growing angrier. I hated to be doubted, hated what Nina was saying about me. “It is real, Nina. All of it. I wasn't alone on the island. I didn't invent Bailey, or Keekah, or any of it. Bailey is with my child, the bugs really did come to the island, and Poln's acorns really did save our lives. I can't help that you don't believe me.” I fumed. “Regardless. I'm going back, with or without your help.”

“Kal...” she began.

I rose, cut her off with my hand. “I need to walk.” I jerked the door open and stepped out into the fresh air, letting it slam behind me. I stood a moment, tried to collect myself, to quash the anger. I put one foot forward and before long was moving away from the complex and toward the North shore of town.

The waterfront area was surreal. All along the beach there were watercraft anchored in the open. The mesh cage extended only to the edges of the line of homes and former businesses, the beaches and water beyond uncovered. I felt caged again, trapped. My breath caught, I had to get out. I started running down the mesh line. Running isn't the right word, more of a shuffle. I wanted a door, a gate, anything that would take me outside the mesh.

The first one I found was locked and I was unable to open the single metal-mesh door. Further down, to the East, there was another, also locked. I started to grow rabid, frantic. The third gate was locked but loose, and I managed to jimmy it with a tough stick just enough to click it open, and I raced out onto the beach, slamming the thin door behind me.

I fell onto my knees, crying, desperate to get out of Tahiti. I eyed a small Kodiak-style boat and immediately swam out to it. I pulled myself inside, searched for a way to start the motor. It was locked down, a key nowhere to be found. In my desperation I located a paddle. I yanked up the anchor and managed to turn the small vessel out toward the open sea.

I wasn't rational in that moment. Maybe Nina was right, maybe I was crazy. Maybe it all was my way of staying otherwise sane, alone on the island. Maybe Bailey and my child were overgrown wishful thinking, maybe I had imagined it all. In that moment, though, I had one thought and that was to get back to the island where my family's fate was unknown. I had no idea where to go, where to find the island, but that didn't stop me from paddling for several minutes into deeper, choppier water.

My arms gave out and I slumped into the boat, exhausted, desperate. I tried the motor again, could find no way to fire it up. My heart pounded, sinking, terribly afraid of losing myself further in my panic.

A grey patrol boat raced up the shore toward me and pulled along side. Five Marines held rifles on me as another spoke through a megaphone. “Do not move. Do not move! You are in restricted waters and we will shoot you if you resist.” When I didn't so much as twitch, the woman continued. “We will pull along side. Do not resist.”

It took only seconds for the boat to bump against my own, and only seconds more for two Marines to roughly take my arms and hustle me onto the patrol boat. The Marine who had directed me with the megaphone launched questions at me quickly as I was put in plastic restraints. Her voice was all business. “Who are you? Why are you stealing the boat? Where are you going? Who do you work for? Are there any others on the island? Who are you?!”

I didn't answer. Couldn't. If my head wasn't right before, when I'd told Nina and Kate my story, it certainly wasn't right then. Whatever had compelled me to paddle my way out had forced me to remain silent, not so much from a willful desire to stay quiet as from an inability to think logically, to take her questions and turn them into answers. She gave up after a time and we raced toward a dock, pulling up quickly.

I was yanked over the side and escorted up a ramp and into a small building. They pushed me into a chair and bound my legs with restraints. I slumped in my seat, numb, in shock. I wasn't thinking about anything but Bailey and the others. I considered trying to break free at one point, forgot the restraints on my legs, and seconds later, Marines were muscling me off the floor from where I'd fallen on my face, my nose bloody.

I was moved twice, the maze of paths and hallways lost to me, before I was finally reunited with Norris. He stood, shouldered by two tall female Marines, both with pistols drawn and ready. I was in a small room, sitting on the lone chair, when he finally spoke.

“Seems I've underestimated you. Suddenly I'm not sure where your loyalties are pointed, Kal. Seems to me that someone working for the GS might be willing to risk his life to take what he knows about our setup here back to his superiors. Seems to me, though, someone well trained enough to do the job would have come up with a better plan than a paddle to escape. I don't know what to think about you.”

I said nothing.

“Regardless. No more chances, Kal. I've given you a leash and you destroyed the good faith between us. You're now in custody as an enemy combatant. I think you're crazy, frankly. I don't know how much of what you say is true, how much of it you believe, and what risks you pose to our security here. No more freedom for you. Until we have time for you, you stay under our care. You do what you're told. You answer questions asked, and you behave. Maybe we'll have time to put your story to the test. Right now, though, there's a cell waiting for your attendance.”

I grunted as the Marines yanked me to my feet, the restraints keeping my motions to a very short shuffle. More hallways and paths followed, and I was tossed roughly into a small cell, much like the place I'd found myself when Kate had first come to me.

Like before, the room featured only a bed and a table and nothing else.

I was all alone again.