A Tender Embrace Read online

A Tender Embrace

  Rex Sumner

  ISBN: 978-1-909359-41-3

 

  Pat stretched his long limbs in the sun and tried to look at Silmatea's breasts without Hinatea noticing. He and Rat were out with the girls in a dugout canoe with a bamboo outrigger, taking the luxury of a day off work to go fishing, after three exhausting days looking for ore and clay deposits over the island of Vitua. The two seventeen year old boys were crewmen on the Queen Rose, the first carrack built by the northern country of Harrhein, on its maiden voyage to the fabled spice lands of Hind. They were more than two months out of Rikklaw's Port and the callow youths had hardened into tough sailors, while Pat had proven his worth in fighting pirates. He had the massive shoulders of an archer, trained from boyhood, and indeed his green eyes would watch the arrow unerringly into the target, with a gift for measuring the wind. He was a farm boy, a cowboy out of Fearaigh Province, whereas his friend Rat was a pinched-nosed, slightly built ex-thief from the gutters of Rikklaw's Port.

  Their tanned white skin was a striking contrast to the gleaming brown flanks of their girlfriends, two Polynesian girls, who were expertly paddling the canoe along the inside of the reef. Hinatea, dazzlingly beautiful with a large red flower behind her ear, was a slimly built killer, superbly skilled at close fighting with a spear and with no compunctions about despatching enemies. Silmatea was her best friend and chief crony, attractive and with a curvy figure, not much of one by Harrheinian standards but enough to catch the eye. The girls were older than the boys and made no bones about the fact that Hinatea was boss. A fortnight earlier they had joined the crew from the island of Pahipi in the Southern Ocean.

  Standing in the prow of the canoe was the final member of the team, Mot, a large sheep dog who had come aboard with Pat. She looked more like a wolf than a dog with large black patches over her eyes. Her hair, normally a little rough, was moulting constantly in the tropics.

  The boys wore their rough canvas trousers, cut off into shorts with ragged edges, bare feet and torso; their skin tanned to a dark mahogany brown by the tropical sun. The girls were nude. They disliked wearing clothes, not seeing the point of them and actually getting ill when their clothes got wet. They had submitted with bad grace to wearing clothes on the ship, but now with a day off they were revelling in their normal freedom.

  They had reached Vitua ten days after leaving Pahipi. The kai Viti, as they called themselves, were frizzy haired and dark brown Melanesians as opposed to the straight haired, lighter skinned and slightly built Polynesian Pahippians. The ship’s officers were negotiating with the kai Viti leaders for trade opportunities back in the main town from which they had sailed that morning.

  Pat idly watched a big scarlet-throated frigate bird flying low, its deeply forked tail almost touching the water. As he observed its flight, his head turned towards Silmatea and Hinatea cracked him hard on the side of the head with her paddle.

  "No look at Silmatea's tits!" she said severely. The girls had grown up with hardly any men, for constant wars and fleeing from slavers had decimated their men, and their culture shared partners around, indulging in open, casual sex. Hinatea was hardly jealous of Silmatea, and it would not have bothered her for a moment if Pat were to make love to Silmatea. However, the Pahippian girls had very quickly discovered that Harrheinians didn't think that way, and that the boys would submit meekly to chastisement for any transgressions involving other girls. So actually, she was just enjoying herself. Hinatea and her friends had taken a few days to realise that they could actually have one boy to their very own, and didn't have to share. Once this realisation dawned, the free for all the male crew had enjoyed, which also infuriated the female crew members, ended abruptly as the girls selected their men. Hinatea had toyed with the idea of having several, but decided it was too much hassle and, besides, she had noticed the Harrheinian girls only had one each. She was trying very hard to be a Harrheinian, even if they were very stupid about so many things.

  Pat rubbed his head, checking for blood. "I wasn't looking," he growled, inspecting his fingers. "That bloody hurt, and it wasn't necessary."

  "You bad boy," said Hinatea contentedly. "If not this time, then other time I don't notice." She kept paddling while Silmatea smirked in the front. The girls turned the canoe through a gap in the reef and into the open sea. Immediately, Mot started to bark excitedly, paws up on the prow. Flying fish were gliding away from the front of the canoe, and it was Mot's life's ambition to catch one of the glistening toys. Silmatea kept an eye on her, for she would jump in after one if they weren't careful.

  The canoe slowed, going parallel with the reef, and the girls were peering down into the water. Pat and Rat unpacked the fishing lines and prepared them. Hinatea called out urgently and the two girls spoke rapidly to each other in Pahippian. Silmatea stood up, a stick in one hand and a net in the other, and dived neatly over the side, with hardly a splash.

  Leaving their lines, Pat and Rat leaned over the side to watch her. The reef was like a bulging cliff and Silmatea was swimming alongside the drop off about fifteen feet down. She went past several holes, looked into each briefly, then selected one into which she inserted her stick. They could just see her jiggling it in the clear water, then she was pulling it out and something was attached to it. She stuffed it in the net, quickly as lots of quite large fish came charging towards her and seemed to attack the net. Silmatea pushed hard for the surface, still pursued by the fish, and threw the net into the boat, where it landed on Rat. It exuded a long arm covered in discs which attached themselves to Rat, who screamed and ineffectually tried to scrape it off.

  Fascinated, Pat leaned forward, grabbed the tip of the arm, carefully pulled it free and inspected it. The animal seemed to be all arms and it came out of the net, gripping his arm with several of its arms, which undulated. The discs proved to be suckers which were able to grip his flesh, while the arms all came from the base of a bag with two big eyes in the middle. It was changing colours rapidly, going from white to dark to brown to white again.

  "Careful it does not bite you," said Hinatea, leaning forward, pushing an interested Mot out of the way and grabbing the bag of the creature, restricting its arms. She pulled it back and away from Pat's arm, exposing the two big, soulful looking eyes. Bending over she seemed to kiss it between the eyes, it shuddered and went limp.

  Seeing Pat's perplexed look, she showed him a bump between the eyes. "You bite this, he dead. Very good to eat. Here, try." She tore off an arm, bit a chunk off and offered it to Pat. He copied her and had to admit it was very tasty, chewy and delicious. Hinatea turned it over and showed how the arms all came from around the mouth, where there was a hard, sharp beak like the parrots Pat had seen on Vitua.

  "We call eight legs, also best bait. See, when Silmatea catch all fish come to try and eat. So put bit on hook and you catch."

  Silmatea surfaced with another octopus, from which Rat cringed away. Mot stuck her nose into it and yelped as the octopus attached itself to her muzzle, desperately shaking her head and trying to scrape it off. Hinatea came to her rescue, killing it swiftly.

  Pat watched Silmatea underwater again, as Hinatea controlled the canoe and Rat dropped a line down, the crude hook baited with a chunk of octopus. He caught a fair sized fish instantly and was hampered in bringing it into the canoe by Mot who considered it her job to actually catch the fish, clearly hoping it might be one of her nemesis, the flying fish.

  "Silmatea look for holes in rock," Hinatea explained. "If hole has stones in front of it, then eight leg inside. He put stones in front of hole, make pretty for his house. When he go out, he push stones to one side and go other way. But you never find him on reef
, because he too clever at hiding. Change colour and look like rock. Have to find in hole."

  "How do you get him out?" asked Pat, watching as Silmatea probed at a new hole. She was able to stay under water for a long time, and Pat wondered how long he would be able to manage.

  "You put stick in hole, he grab stick. You turn stick and he hold, grab with more legs. When more legs on stick than holding him in hole, you can pull out slowly and he don't let go. If he big, kill straight away. If small bring to canoe. Must go quick as fish try to steal."

  "How big do these things get?" asked Pat, looking at the beak again.

  "These not big," said Hinatea, holding her hands a fair distance apart.

  "That's bloody enormous," said Pat, looking at the octopus and again at the distance between her hands.

  "I rest now," announced Silmatea as climbed aboard. Hinatea took her stick and net and dived overboard, while Silmatea gave Rat a quick kiss, then pushed past Pat to the stern of the boat, ensuring he was able to have a good, close look at her breasts on the way. There she took up the paddle and held the canoe roughly on station.

  Hinatea surfaced with a huge shell in her