Primitive

Chapter One-1

Chapter One

With the sighting of land – green like the springtime valleys of my home, green like fluorescent leaves shimmering in sunshine, green like tendrils of ivy wet in the morning – my heart soars. After weeks on an eternal sea of navy water that looks often like seaweed and mud, occasionally like a pristine azure sky, I am anxious to view something other than the tedious expanse of horizontal planes made by water and sky. Being on dry land means that my feet can feel rooted to something again, that my stomach won’t turn queasy after eating and that I don’t have to share my living space with my stepsister, Lydia.

I look out on the sight of our new home seeing its jungle rising before me, its mysterious foliage drawing me to it. My imagination has spent so much time building fantasies of my life here. Romantic ones – of meeting a dashing rebel with a heart, who’d sweep me off my feet, marrying me in the jungle and then sailing for years from one exotic port to another.

I know we’ll be isolated on this remote island. Adam Sebring, my stepfather, is making this South Sea island the place to grieve the passing of his latest wife, my mother, Anna. Theirs was such a short relationship, barely a year together before an aneurysm ended her life with an unexpected abruptness that posed an enigma for us all.

At eighteen, I could well be on my own, my years wouldn’t have prevented that. But I have to face the reality of my experience with life. I’ve been sheltered, and have allowed people to shelter me. Mother held on to me with a gentle grasp honed with iron. Her will was mine, her thoughts my thoughts, and her tenderness mine too. We spent so much time together that it’s been almost difficult to breathe without her. I miss her and all those thoughts and feelings that became mine. I don’t know what to think or feel anymore.

I was jealous of her attention to Mr. Sebring – I’ve never been able to call him Adam or father. Both options were given to me. I refused them both, at least until we made this trip. Though now, for some reason the moniker of ‘father’ is becoming easier to use. I suppose because I gave myself to this journey of his, consenting to be a companion for his daughter, the black-haired libertine, Lydia. She hardly needs me. In fact, I’m sure she despises me just as I despise her. We are so unalike.

Lydia is bold, sometimes crass, but with a charm and eroticism that easily attracts men. She’s coy with them near, like a deliciously sweet dessert of cream and chocolate. Her smile engenders men’s lust easily, as does her full bosom and lush thighs and the flawless tan skin that looks as lovely naked as it does dressed. Her eyes can be mean; they’re so cruel when she’s angered. But with a young male pup to play with they are like molten embers that seduce, while confusing and deceiving her prey into thinking that she is some rare and tender lover with arms to embrace and a warm s*x to satisfy.

She is eighteen like me, but six months older, which gives her reason to refer to me as her ‘little sister’. Each time she says that, I cringe. She speaks of me as if we’ve lived together all our lives, when we hardly know each other. She’s impertinent enough to believe she knows me. She’s figured out that I’m weak and mousy. Several times on this trip, she spat that to my face when she was annoyed with me. Little does she know how I feel about her, what contempt my mind heaps on her. I keep my thoughts away from her scrutiny. She’d crush them into dust.

I envy her however. How her dark hair shimmers like a sheet of black glass in the sun. My golden hair flies in a catastrophe of curls I can never tame. So light-skinned, I look perpetually pale and flawed next to Lydia’s smoothness. My skin does not tan, so I have to wear sunscreen, sun hats and clothes to cover my arms and legs. Though I’ve noticed that on this trip, my skin has darkened with all the concentrated and inescapable sunlight. Still, next to Lydia, I’m as pale as a ghost. She seems to know how much this annoys me. Her features are well defined: high cheekbones, a sharp nose and wide-set eyes. Mine are more vague and nondescript. My eyebrows are white and as are my lashes, though I’ve been told that my eyes are so large it makes up for that. I wear some make-up just to be seen, but there is no make-up that could bring my radiance up to the degree that Lydia’s shines naturally.

I have accepted this. Knowing that I’ll never be the raven-haired beauty, I don’t have to fuss with myself and worry what men I attract. I’ll let the right man find me, the one that is not impressed by appearances, but who will understand my nature and love it for its own quality. Then too, I don’t seek lovers but a husband. A constant man who will belong beside me my life long. I do have to be careful what I say to my stepsister. She deliberately hinders any effort I make to start a romance. It happened on shipboard the first week just out of San Francisco. The young sailor was friendly to me from the start, his smile perfectly intentional. We talked several times privately, but when one of these conversations was noticed by Lydia, she began to swoosh her ass for him, batting her lashes like some sweet coquette. She took all her attention from two other, perfectly charming sailors, to concentrate on this one. And, as if she didn’t have a clue that this man was interested in me, she chattered like a blue jay in my presence, ‘confiding’ in me about her secret love. I knew immediately that I’d have to be more furtive with my own secrets. However, for the remainder of the trip, there wasn’t another man as interested in me as this one had been. By the time Lydia had cast him off, he seemed to have lost his regard for me. I wasn’t sure I respected him anyway, considering how he’d been duped. And then too, it’s silly to think that I could find a good husband in such inconstant circumstances.

Reaching the small port on the tiny island rescues me from a dozen awful scenes I’ve imagined, having to do with Lydia being pushed overboard, or her red blood shed as I drive a kitchen knife into her gut. I don’t know why she hates me since I am no match for her talents. But I have every fiber of my being engaged in the process of despising her from her wretched soul to her skin. Knowing this hostility isn’t healthy, I welcome the distance we can maintain once we’re off the ship. Father tells us we’ll live in two huts, a large one for him alone, another with two rooms at either end of our living room, one each for Lydia and me.

The port of Kiachi is the only village on the island. Though such a small island doesn’t need a lot of commerce. There are native people living in pockets here and there, fishermen, and a few westerners like my father. These “white men” came for various reasons: usually to escape a part of civilization they couldn’t abide. My stepfather is here to grieve and do research on exotic plants. He plans to pour himself into his work, while taking his two daughters out of the mainstream of reality for a year to experience a culture that is completely removed from American hamburgers, movies and the fast pace of city life. He promised us after a year – he did say maybe two – that he’ll take us back home where we’d both enter college. He considers this a treat few young women would ever experience and we should be overjoyed with the opportunity.

Lydia finds it hateful with so few men around.

I think of it as stepping back in time to something primitive. I take it with a good degree of resignation, knowing that I’m not ready to be independent in the world. Even if I barely know my adopted father, he is someone to cling to until I’m able to grieve for my mother myself and dredge up the courage to step into an intimidating world.

It isn’t as if the other world doesn’t occasionally come to us. Weekly, ships sail into our port and bring supplies. Young good-looking sailors crew these ships and Lydia often has her pick of interested boyfriends. I’m not sure she has s*x with them all, but she certainly gives me the impression that she beds them regularly, or is at least willing to.

To further our education, father selected a number of school books he expects us to study. He’s brought dozens of American and English novels, plenty of texts on botany, and books on a variety of other topics he thinks would be useful for us to read. It is an informal study. Lydia and I have both graduated from high school. But father insists that we not let our minds go to waste. It was his original plan to quiz us on our studies. So far, this hasn’t happened. Father seems to be pouring himself into his work with such fervor that we hardly see him.

***

Though my animosity for my sister remains, being in our own rooms we seem less likely to be hostile to each other. For the most part, I keep clear of her and she of me. But she’s suggested that we hike together to the stream to bathe. When she first mentioned it, I was initially worried. But bathing in the stream is a good idea, since our water resources are minimal. For the past few days, we’ve had to take sponge baths, or spend an hour dragging buckets of water to fill an aluminum tub. Father promised that he’d have the situation handled soon. But I have my doubts.

Taking off with Lydia leading, we trek along a well-worn trail into the jungle behind our house. Father has already told us where we can go and where it’s dangerous. He had a complete tour of the island with a guide the day after we arrived and seems to know by instinct where we’ll be safe. He found a secluded lagoon he thought would be a good place to swim. He even checked the water and found it fresh and unpolluted. I suppose it helps to have a scientist for a father.

When we arrive at the lovely lagoon in the midst of the jungle, I find myself musing about this vine-covered glade, seeing the tall tropical trees overhead, with their broad leaves swooping down like great hands to protect me. They drip water from a recent shower that splashes my skin. I feel a small shiver and shake it off. Already Lydia has removed her sundress. I’m shocked to see that she isn’t wearing anything underneath. Her body is long and supple stretching in the sunlight. Her back is to me, so I can see the soft skin of her bottom glisten with a little bit of sweat and a drop or two of moisture from the trees. She turns to me.

“Get naked, Camille!” she exclaims and then jumps into the water. Her splash reaches far, making several big drops on my dress.

I’m a lot slower to get into exposing my body, even if it’s only for the jungle and my sister’s eyes. She’s seen me naked many times, being unabashedly immodest. I’m not. I carefully put down my towel and soap, and then remove my dress folding it neatly on a rock beside the pool. I’ve worn my bathing suit, which seems appropriate, since we have no idea who might happen on us.

“Good god! You’ve got to be kidding, sis,” Lydia exclaims coming up for air to see me teetering on the water’s edge getting up enough courage to jump. “Take off the suit, you ninny. Who the hell’s going to see you out here?”

“You don’t know we’re alone,” I snap back at her.

“We’re in the water. Geez, you’re such an uptight prude. You need a good rape.”

“Stop talking like that!”

She shakes me off like a gnat and dives back into the water so I can see her naked ass break the surface going out and then return into the depths. Her body moves in liquid waves catching the sunlight filtering through the trees. As she shimmers, her legs and arms almost look as though they are no longer joined to her body, then they come back together and she swims in unison. I finally leap into the water feeling the liquid rush inside my swimsuit as if it’s getting inside my skin. It’s cool in comparison to the heat of the air, but something easy to get used to. In places, there are currents of warm water that play games with my body temperature. Part of me wishes I could be as bold as Lydia, going sans clothes. But I’m not that licentious. I find her wanton displays vulgar, though under the water with no one around I can almost imagine this a perfectly private sanctuary. I have to remember that it is not and forget removing my own swimming suit.