Chapter 7

CHAPTER SEVEN

E rica awoke from a confused and disturbingly erotic dream of Big Blue watching her as she pleasured herself. Shaking her head, she sat up. Her few experiences with sex had been disappointing on the whole, and she had accepted the fact that she was just not particularly interested. So why on Earth—or wherever she was—would she suddenly start having erotic dreams? And about an alien, of all things?

Between the dream and the warmth of the sun, she felt hot and sticky and she gave the sparkling ocean a wistful glance. But she had never been a very good swimmer, and who knew what lurked beneath that placid surface?

Turning to the small stream instead, she gathered up as much as she could with her hands and splashed it over her face and body. Peri thought it was a wonderful game and did his best to splash her as well.

They played for a few minutes before she decided that if she was going to explore this place, she needed to keep moving. The rocky spur at the far end of the beach looked promising. If she could manage to climb it, it might give her a better perspective on her surroundings.

She reached down to collect Peri, intending to put him back in the carrying bag, but instead he skittered a short way up the beach, burbling at her.

"Are you trying to tell me you want to walk?"

She suspected he would wear out pretty quickly, but she couldn't see any harm in letting him run around on his own. He had never shown any signs of wanting to abandon her.

To her surprise, instead of heading off down the beach, he dove for a heap of fallen vines half hidden beneath the undergrowth. Afraid that he might get caught in them, she followed him over.

The pile of pale blue strands felt unexpectedly soft against her fingers when she reached down to retrieve him. Some of them were already intertwined, almost braided, and it gave her a sudden inspiration.

"I wonder if I could use this to make a skirt or a top?"

Although she was tempted to try it out immediately, the sun was no longer high overhead and she knew how quickly night could fall. Gathering up the vines, she stuffed as many of them as she could in her bag and draped the rest around her neck. The silky strands falling down across her breasts felt unexpectedly erotic, and her nipples tightened.

"Maybe it's something in the water," she muttered.

Peri took a few steps up the beach, then turned to look over his shoulder at her, clearly impatient to get moving.

"All right, all right. I'm coming."

The smooth sand on the edge of the water made for easier walking. Peri hopped in and out of the gentle waves that washed up on the beach, and the cool water soothed her aching feet.

In spite of everything, she felt oddly… happy. How long had it been since she was last free just to go for a walk, and in such a beautiful setting?

She kept glancing out across the water, half-expecting to see Big Blue rising from the waves. Not that I want to see him , she told herself firmly, even as memories of her dream flashed through her mind.

Despite the pleasure of her surroundings, her happiness began to wane as she tired. The distance to the rocky outcropping was much further than she anticipated. Peri's energy gave out before they were halfway there, and she nestled him in the bag amongst the soft vines.

The sun was beginning to set up by the time they reached the base of the rocks, and she realized that the cliff was much taller than it had seemed from her initial position. No wonder it had taken so long to reach it.

It was also much steeper than she had realized, and she didn't intend to try climbing it in the gathering darkness.

"I guess we're camping here for the night," she told Peri as she lifted him out of the bag.

He jumped down and began investigating the tide pools. A sharp crack made her look up in time to see him breaking the shell of a small sea creature with a rock. He eagerly devoured the inside, and she shuddered. It was probably the same as eating oysters, but there was a vast difference between neatly cleaned and opened shellfish on a bed of ice and a slimy yellow something pulled from a broken shell.

But Peri seemed content with his meal so she ate a few more bites of the smoked fish. Although she knew she should be grateful to have it, a change would definitely have been welcome. But not quite welcome enough for her to try one of the shellfish.

Since it wasn't completely dark yet, she settled back against a mossy rock and tried to decide what to do with her vines. After finding a length that would circle her waist, she tried to find some shorter strands and soon realized how much she missed having a pair of scissors. Eventually, she managed to saw a long strand into shorter pieces by rubbing it back and forth across a sharp rock. After tying the shorter strands to the waist band, she began weaving the longer pieces in and out of the other strands. By the time complete darkness descended, she had created a very small front panel for her skirt.

The spot she had chosen to make camp was a shallow curve at the base of the cliff. It had seemed like a good choice in the light of day, but after dark, it was no longer so appealing.

All she could see in front of her was the water, and the constant rush of the waves obscured any other sound. The fact that she couldn't see or hear anything—or anybody—that approached made her increasingly nervous. Although she tried to tell herself that meant no one could see her either, she found herself straining her ears for any trace of sound. It didn't help that she also felt as if someone was watching her.

The rock against her back was hard and unforgiving, and she thought wistfully of the comfortable hammock in which she had spent the previous night.

"Perhaps I should have made a hammock instead of a skirt," she muttered to herself as she shifted uncomfortably in the sand.

For the first time since she had arrived here, she felt cold. The rock surrounding her gleamed with moisture as a damp breeze drifted in from the ocean. She shivered and tried to arrange the remaining vines to cover as much of her body as possible. Peri snuggled close, his tail covering his face once more, and she envied his peaceful slumber.

She dozed fitfully throughout the night and greeted the first light of dawn with a sigh of relief. As much as she dreaded climbing the cliff, she didn't want to spend another night on the beach.

Her movements woke Peri. He bounced happily back in the direction of the tide pools, while she tried to work up some enthusiasm for more smoked fish.

Instead of cracking open more of the shellfish, Peri picked up a round blue globe. She remembered that he had been eating one the previous morning, but how had it ended up here? When she followed him down the beach, she found several more just above the high tide line. They must have floated in on the waves.

She raised one cautiously to her nose and sniffed. Mmm. It smelled sweet and fruity, and her mouth watered.

Peri was still devouring his fruit—hopefully that meant it was safe. She took a small, cautious bite and groaned with pleasure. Delicious. The texture of the soft flesh reminded her of a plum, but it tasted more like a banana.

She forced herself to wait for an interminable minute, but she couldn't detect any ill effects, and she eagerly devoured the rest of it. Her stomach gurgled as she surveyed the remaining fruit, but she reluctantly decided it would be best to make sure she didn't suffer any delayed reaction before eating more.

Gathering up the remaining fruit, she returned to their resting place feeling more optimistic about the day. That was, until she looked up at the cliff face above her.

It was rocky rather than sheer, but she'd never had much of a head for heights, and it seemed dauntingly high.

"Maybe we should go a little further along the beach," she told Peri. "It might not be as steep."

He chittered up at her in what she chose to take as agreement, so she fastened her partial skirt around her waist and gathered up their belongings.

Boulders cluttered the base of the cliff where it thrust out into the sea, but she managed to pick her way through them. Peri scrambled over them with surprising ease, although he was often diverted by a barnacle clinging to the rock or a length of seaweed—all of which he promptly ate.

"I suppose that's edible," she said doubtfully, and tried nibbling on a small piece of seaweed. It tasted rather like salty, bitter spinach.

"I think I'll stick to the fruit." She handed the rest of the seaweed to Peri.

When they finally made it around the point, she discovered a small cove. Unfortunately, the rocks were even steeper here, but to her delight, a waterfall trickled down the face of the rock. The fresh water was a welcome relief, especially after her foray into eating seaweed. While Peri played in the stream, she ate another one of the fruits. Now that the sun was up and she'd had food and water, her optimism from the previous day began to return.

There had to be technology somewhere in this place, and she was going to find it. But in the meantime, she was going to treat this like a vacation. The vacation she should have taken years ago. Why had she been so desperate to seek the approval of a man who had never really cared about her? Had her father even realized that she was gone? Would he worry?

If he even cares at all, it will only be when he realizes how much work I did , she thought bitterly. A lump appeared in her throat, but she refused to give in to tears. Instead, she speculated about what she would find around the next point. A village perhaps, or even just a house would be nice. Although who would be living there? More big blue aliens?

Hopefully, they would be more civilized than her Big Blue.

She sat in the sun, speculating, letting her imagination come up with ever more improbable scenarios. Finally, she pushed herself to her feet and picked up Peri from where he was dozing against her thigh.

"Time to go."

It wasn't until she was halfway around the cove that she realized that the point for which she been heading had a froth of white around its base. She was sure that hadn't been there before.

The tide. Of course, the tide was coming in. She gave a rueful sigh and adjusted Peri's bag.

"So much for following the beach. Looks like it's the jungle after all."

She turned to retrace her steps and came to a sudden halt. The boulders she had climbed over to reach the cove were now half-covered with water. By the time she reached them, waves would be crashing against the bottom of the cliff.

Damn. That meant she would be trapped here until the tide turned. But even as she headed back to the waterfall, the width of the beach began to shrink. As her eyes traveled along the rock face, she saw what she had missed previously. The rocks at the base of the cliff were much darker than those further up. She was appalled to realize that the dark line high above her head must be the high watermark. The entire beach would soon be underwater.