I woke up tangled with Vanessa and the sheets in her bed. What I wanted more than anything was to pick up where we’d left off before, but she was already rolling out of bed, away from me. Someone was knocking hard at the front door and it looked like the sun was up.
I got my shorts on before she was dressed, so I answered the door for her.
Two men stood outside, looking like they had terrible hangovers. One was just recognisable as Admiral Buck minus his newspaper hat. He was also missing an eyebrow and he’d acquired a lot of makeup. The other bloke was the idiot who was lucky to be alive.
“Is Vanessa home? I was told she lived here,” Admiral Buck asked loudly, squinting at me.
“She does. I’ll go see if she’s up.” I left them at the door to see if she was dressed yet. She was; wearing a polo shirt buttoned up to the top and pants that came down to just past her knees, she was sitting on the edge of the bed, brushing her hair into a ponytail. She went into the bathroom and washed her face, before following me out to the front door.
She leaned against one side of the doorframe, her arms crossed in front of her chest. “Good morning. What do you want?”
“Matt here wants to apologise for saying bad things about you last night.” Buck shoved Matt forward and backed away.
Behind them, I could see Vanessa’s formidable deckies watching with interest from the deck of her boat. If she killed him, they’d take him and dump his body somewhere in the deep, without a qualm. Those two are cold and inhuman, like no one else I’ve ever met.
Matt was mumbling his way through a semi-unintelligible apology. The only word I definitely understood was “sorry”, which he repeated often.
When he ran down, Vanessa spoke. “You’re sorry?” She didn’t sound particularly enthusiastic about the idea.
Matt nodded emphatically.
She grabbed him by his shoulders. “Not yet you’re not.” She brought her knee up between his legs, so hard she actually lifted him off the ground. I winced in sympathy. He made a wordless squeaking noise that sounded like distant dolphins. “Every time you look at an attractive woman and you start getting aroused, you’re going to hurt. Then you’re going to be sorry. Maybe even sorry enough to make me feel better, because I know you’ll never do it again.”
She let go of him and he crumpled into a heap on the path.
Her deckies found this hilarious. I could hear their laughter, from the other end of the jetty.
“You,” she addressed Buck.
He stayed a safe distance away. “Me?”
“You get your mate here out of my sight before I hurt him worse. He’ll want some ice on that.” She turned and stalked back into the house, shutting the door firmly behind her. She sagged against the door, her eyes closed.
“Wow. I hope I never offend you,” I blurted out. I uncrossed my legs, slowly.
She looked up, opening her eyes. Her smile was rueful as she stood up. “Me too, because I’m not sure I could do that to you. Well, at least it wasn’t as messy or as final as using a broken bottle,” she said matter-of-factly.
“One of the guys told me something last night...” I began, hesitant but dying to know. “About the deckie Skipper had before me.”
“What did they tell you?” Her voice had turned low and cautious.
Oh shit. Shouldn’t have said anything. It’s too late now.
“They say he fell off a cliff, but that he offended you not long before he fell.” I tried to match her cautious tone, but it just came out sounding scared.
“He suggested I was a whore and offered me twenty dollars to sleep with him. When I refused and tried to walk away, he touched me without my permission. I did the same to him as the idiot this morning. Instead of being incapacitated, this only angered him. He tackled me to the ground and he attempted to remove my clothing. My deckhands were nearby and came to my assistance. Maria kicked him in the face, which I believe broke his jaw. Belinda wished to remove some of his appendages and, without being aware of our location, he backed away from her. He fell backwards off the cliff and did himself further damage. He requested our assistance, but I forbade my deckhands from touching him further, either to assist or inflict additional damage. I informed him that if I ever saw him again, I would kill him. Belinda indicated that if she saw him again, she would remove any unnecessary appendages. I’m not sure whether he remembers this, though, as he injured his head in the fall and appeared quite hazy regarding the details before he fell, when he was questioned the following day.” She delivered this entire account in a tone devoid of emotion, without looking at me. She took a deep breath and met my eyes. “I don’t believe there were any other witnesses, though I am certain that some of the fishermen who were present in the club that night suspect the truth, or some of it.”
“The idiot called you a whore and tried to rape you. I’m surprised you didn’t want to kill him on the spot, too.” Like the guy last night, who only made an insulting comment. Good thing she didn’t have her deckhands with her last night.
“He attempted to remove my clothing. That is all. I did want to kill him, but I resisted the urge. I left him bleeding in the water, my gift to the sharks.” She shrugged. “It’s none of my concern that the other fishers chose to assist him.”
I imagined the dickhead deckie as like Dean on drugs, desperate for the first decent girl he saw after a long stint in the bush. He’d lived in my shack, done my job…hell, he’d probably watched those old porn films about Debbie. Now I understood why Skipper warned me to keep away from her. Even more amazed, I wondered why she’d picked me.
“You have no idea how happy I am you decided to sleep with me instead of leaving me to be food for sharks,” I said.
She gave a tiny smile. “Well, if you were to call me a whore, I might reconsider feeding you to the sharks. I’m sure the tiger shark we caught on the weekend had some mates who’d like revenge.”
I’d been the only one in the water when she went for the shark with a knife. Did she seriously go after it to save me?
“Fuck, I wouldn’t want you to be a prostitute. I’d never be able to afford even five minutes with you, if you were. I’d have to rob a bank to get anywhere near you.” I looked at her in stunned awe. “And when I think of what we’ve done together...shit, I must be the luckiest man alive.”
Vanessa looked puzzled for a moment before she laughed, sounding relieved. “I can think of something we haven’t done yet.” She bit her lip. “Would you like to join me in the shower? Unlike the one on the boat, the one in the house is big enough for two.”
I followed her out of the kitchen as she started to shed her clothes.
She adjusted the showerhead so that the spray hit the wall. Then she stood with her back to that same wall, her knees apart. “Ready, Joe?”
I stepped into the shower with her. Oh God, this is a dream I don’t want to wake up from.
When the hot water ran out and the shower turned icy cold, I knew I was awake. But I was still inside her and we weren’t stopping for the world. I let the shower freeze my arse off, because it didn’t matter. The rest of my body was on fire with love for Vanessa.