The moon is swollen. Like my rib. Tonight, waves are swelling too. Poseidon lifts higher, slams down harder. My arm bangs against my bruised blue side. It’s no less painful, no matter how many times.
I want to sink.
‘You okay?’
‘Yeah.’ I wince. ‘My rib’s just flaring up tonight.’
‘You’ll be off watch soon.’ AJ’s smile catches in the moonlight.
I nod, as if my body hurts any less below deck.
The night is held back from black by moonlight. Beyond us is deep blue like ocean mud. Swells are outlined with silver pen. I’m cradling the bulge of my bruise now. Enduring the pain is the slightest bit easier with my right hand cupped under my left armpit. But then we hit two waves that have doubled into each other. We drop down the back of one wave and crash into the oncoming swell. Water surges across the bow and I’m washed off my seat into the cockpit, landing on my left side. I cry out. This pain has yellowed. A stab with a hot knife.
AJ helps me back to the bench seat, sits me beside him. We’re both drenched and, despite the heat, I’m shivering. He wraps one arm around me.
‘How are you so cold? We’re in the tropics!’
We lift on another wave and I notice something beyond the bow of the boat—an enormous barrel, maybe, glowing under the moon.
‘Did you see?’
We surf down into a dark trough and it disappears.
‘See what?’
We rise and I point: ‘There!’
AJ jumps up. ‘What the hell is that?’
Suddenly a whale’s tail lifts out of the sea some thirty feet away from the barrel, thirty feet closer to us than the bulk of its body.
‘Holy shit!’ AJ rushes to the helm. ‘Hold on.’
I grip a lifeline as he throws the wheel starboard and we surf down the back of the wave at such an angle the yacht keels over. I hear plates fly out of the cupboards downstairs, smashing in the galley. I locked the cupboards. I know I locked them. There’s yelling below deck.
At that moment, the tail comes down at the water with a cold, violent slap, like a hand across a face. Wet with tears. The whale raises its head to the surface and exhales through its blowhole. The clouds open up.
Fish guts rain down from the heavens.
Below deck: ‘This shit fucking reeks.’
‘You two aren’t sleeping in the bunks, you’ll stink them out,’ Cam says, getting into his wet-weather gear.
AJ scoffs. ‘Where else are we gonna sleep?’
‘Sleep in the bow cabin.’
‘There’re sails in there, idiot.’
‘So move them, idiot.’
Vlad sits up in his bunk. ‘Chill, boys, alright?’
‘Whatever,’ AJ mutters. He grabs my hand. ‘Come on, Oli.’
I follow AJ into the bow cabin. And in the moment before he shuts the door, I notice Cam glaring at me from the other side of the galley. His eyes are so sharp. They could puncture skin.
AJ moves the sails to one side of the bed, clearing enough space for one body. The boat lurches and we knock heads. His quiet laugh brushes my cheek. ‘You okay?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Good,’ he whispers, his hand sweeping my matted hair off my face, eyes smiling in the dark.
He touches my chin, gently lifting it with his thumb and forefinger. Our lips brush.
AJ is slowly. And then he’s all at once.
All at once he’s a tongue shoved down my throat. He’s a hand reaching under my sodden top. He’s a cold hand gripping the flesh of my breast like he’s squeezing blood from a lemon.
And suddenly all the colours of desire, all the hands touching, and quiet words, and dimples, and eyes smiling, are extinguished like a burning wick put out with the pinch of a thumb and forefinger. AJ is a sharp pinch. Callused skin. Pinching darkness.
I push back and wedge the word, ‘Wait,’ in the thin corridor between his mouth and mine.
‘I’ve been waiting to kiss you for so long.’
‘AJ, stop.’
He kisses me again, pinches my nipple so hard my vision is blotted pink.
I’m choking on flesh.
‘You’re so fucking sexy.’
I steal a breath. The air is thick and wet.
‘AJ.’
‘Mm.’ He grins, licks his lips. ‘I love the way you say my name.’
‘Please.’ I can feel my throat constricting, tears welling.
Behind his shoulder, light sneaks through a tiny porthole. But down here, it isn’t smooth silver. It’s barbed grey.
I miss her. I miss the moon so much.
‘Please …’
He silences me with a kiss.
Silenced with a kiss. Swept off my feet. Up against a wall. We’re supposed to dream of that, aren’t we?
I wriggle … writhe.
He thrusts his body so hard against mine I see stars and my starry-eyed kiss becomes my pants pulled to my ankles, the air as shocking as deep winter between my legs. I pull my pants up. And then I’m pulling them up again, and then again, and then again. I form a sentence with my bones; write a sentence with my body.
And then he turns the page.
I exist?
Is this what rape is? Am I about to be raped? Why aren’t I fighting back? Fight back! I am! No you’re not. Fight back. Fight back! I can’t move. I can’t breathe. Say something. I can’t breathe.
He sticks a finger in me.
This story has so many beginnings.
There was the first time I saw AJ, when he was up the mast, looking down at me from above, whistling at me, and I was smiling inside. The time he helped me with the washing-up and our hands touched and I wanted it to last longer. The time I lied about having had sex at sea. One finger down. The time I fought with Adam in a restaurant and ended up shit-faced on an old man’s boat. The time I caught my dad cheating on my mum. The first time he shut her up. There was this afternoon at dusk, when AJ switched with Cam to do the darkest-hour watch with me, and I felt really good about it. There was Cam’s piercing stare and the shutting of a door. And then there was the kiss I’d wanted. A kiss I’d sought, a kiss I’d invited. Of course I did. He’s great. AJ’s a great guy. I like him. I liked him. The clouds open up.
Fish guts.
My spine is grinding against the hard wall of the hull. The body of the boat. Battering oncoming swells. He rips my underwear. Wedges his leg between my thighs, opening me up. Flesh cleaved apart. He undoes his fly. Bites my neck. Wriggles out of his shorts.
This is happening.
Is this really happening?
This is really happening.
And then, just like that, a thought bubbles inside me. It’s a beginning; a new beginning; my beginning. The beginning of the story I tell myself in order to survive.
If I have sex right now, it’s my decision. I’m deciding this. I’m going to have sex. I’m going to have sex with AJ. I’m deciding this right now. This is mine. I’m choosing.
I’m choosing.
We choose to breathe, don’t we?