Lost At Sea

After his arrival on the island, Chris had only spent a few weeks with the others before the group was separated. But he still vividly remembered how Swantje had impressed him: The Dutch woman - blonde, blue-eyed, rascally, and smaller but a lot fitter than the men - had been a true survivor and a very courageous person. The term 'failure' just didn't seem to be part of her vocabulary. Back in civilization Swantje had already been Co-Manager of a soccer team despite being only 26 years old. Here on the island she managed the group of survivors instead of those soccer players. She was the one who devised plans and assigned tasks. Within the first weeks, as it began to sink in that there maybe would not be a rescue, she had proven to be a lot tougher than her fianc�e Hendrik, who couldn't really hide how much of a strain their situation was for him. She had never faltered, never showed doubts or fear.

One evening, as Hendrik and the others had already been asleep, Chris had found Swantje at the beach where she searched another washed-ashore life raft for whatever materials or items would help them to survive a bit longer. Sitting on the brim of the small raft, her naked, tanned legs had appeared even longer than they did usually. Chris had lusted for her, but knew that she belonged to Hendrik.

"You should sleep", she had told him as he approached her, and the total sobriety of her statement made him smile.

"You know", he had said in a mocking tone, "you are, just sometimes, kind of a bossy girl."

"If you are a man and make decisions for others, then people will call you a born leader. But if you don't have a penis and you do the same they will miraculously decide that you are a bossy girl instead", Swantje had said with her typical dutch accent.

"You know that I was joking, right?" Chris had been a little ashamed. He did not consider himself sexist and didn't like the thought much that Swantje would think of him that way.

But then she had smiled and he realized she had just fooled him with her dry humor. They both giggled now, and looked at each other in the eyes, some sort of understanding dawning between them. "You know", Chris had said, "you don't always have to be so tough, Swantje. We appreciate that you are holding things together, but you are sometimes being too hard on yourself."

"If we are not hard on ourselves then we might be too soft for surviving.." She had shaken her head, her face stern again, and had run her fingers over the weird kind of harness that she had been working on - until Chris had interrupted her, a few moments ago. Back then, he had had no idea what she was trying to put together. "You know Chris, you are a nice guy. No, not just that. You are more than a nice, guy, you are... a good guy." She had to clear her throat before she could continue. "But just being a good guy doesn't even help you much in the civilized world. And here, in this place, it doesn't help you at all. Here it's all about surviving, and the sun and the sand and those Natives don't give a shit if you are good."

Chris had still been a different man then, and intimidated by Swantje's attitude he had just smiled, quite insecure, and shrugged weakly. "I don't know much, but I know that you are going to survive, Swantje. You never give up, do you?"

"No, I don't. I really believe that quitters are losers, and that's why I will never quit. You are right, I will survive. There is just no other option." She had been adamantine about it, her gaze that of a woman who would rather fight alone against a whole island full of tigers instead of admitting defeat, and Chris had never been as awestruck by any woman as he had been by her, in that moment at the beach.

"And now go and get some sleep" she had said with a thin smile. "I am the Boss, remember? I have to look after you."

Three years had passed since then. Today, while dusk turned into darkness around them, Chris followed Hendrik and the Natives as they left the clearing with the stone obelisks. Not far to the east from there, on the opposite flank of the hill, the men had set up a small camp. Fires burned between the trees there, meat was being grilled and bowls with fermented juice where being handed round. Everyone treated him with respect, even though the many glances he received showed how very curious the Natives were about him. He tied Scarlett's leash to a nearby tree and decided to always keep an eye on her, but it seemed like no one planned to try and take her away from him anymore.

The female moaned in fear when he walked away from her, and he could see the relief in her eyes when she realized he did plan to stay in the vicinity. He told himself that he needed to water and feed her later, but for now he wanted the answers he had been promised. And Scarlett was close enough to listen to Hendrik's explanation as well, which seemed only fair.

"We are about twenty men here, who all gathered to see you. But the village is much larger, more than a small town actually. It's not far from here, only half a day's march to the east", Hendrik said as they sat down. Some of the Natives sat with Chris and him, others spread to the other fireplaces. Conversations set in between many of the small groups and soon the atmosphere was relaxed enough for Chris to not feel threatened at all anymore. It was nearly funny how normal these men, whom he had feared so much, appeared on closer inspection.

Chris tried a chip of fried meat. It tasted great and he took another one. The fermented juice though was something he would need to get used to. "If they have accepted you as a member of their tribe, and if you can come and leave in the village as you please - did you get a chance to explore the rest of this place? Is it truly an island, or is there a connection to the continent?"

Hendrik sighed. "Well, if it is an island then it's damn large. When we left you, Daniel and I brought Zoe and Swantje to the lake first. The girls didn't enjoy being in the bondage of course, but it had been Swantje's idea and she was tough enough to pull through. Zoe, I think, was already done for after a day. She looked like shit, she cried and got into one or two hysteric fits. But we simply couldn't release her without the Natives becoming aggressive. Swantje just kind of... well, she couldn't talk with the gag in her mouth, but she just needed to glance at Zoe and to kind of transport her energy to remind Zoe of how dangerous the situation was. That always reminded Zoe that she had to pull herself together, but it definitely wasn't easy for her. We were soon very glad that we also had the leaves."

Chris was not surprised. "These really work wonders. Did you see the Natives feed them to their cattle?" Behind him, Scarlett shuddered and moaned, but kept listening.

"We did", Hendrik nodded. "And I decided that I wanted to persuade the Natives that we respected them - like you will be prone to do when someone can kill you at any given time. I wanted to use any given means."

Chris nodded.

"So I offered some of the leaves to Swantje. She didn't complain, in fact she seemed to like the stuff. From then on, because the leaves are easy to find everywhere, we fed the girls mostly with that stuff. And it worked well - makes them stronger and makes the bondage easier to bear for them, doesn't it?"

"Absolutely." Chris pointed a thumb at Scarlett. "She's been in her harness for two days now and she's still fine." Another moan from Scarlett, who listened to them with wide, half-dumb eyes.

"She can wear the bondage for another year and stay just like that", Hendrik said with a smile. "Sure, it never gets really comfortable for them, but they can bear it easily as long as they are on their 'special diet'. The effect on their bodies is like a fucking miracle. The downside is..."

"... that they don't exactly become geniuses", Chris finished the sentence. His curiosity was overwhelming now. "Hendrik, I don't want to rush you. But... where are the others today?"

"Well, Daniel is fine, but he's commanding a group of warriors at the village and couldn't leave to greet you. We are in the middle of a war, but I'll explain that later. Zoe is somewhere at the village too I think. She's in a workforce, but I don't see her often anymore, and in the harnesses they anyways all look the same anyways." He shrugged. "And Swantje is here at the camp. She's my fianc�e after all, so I still take her with me whenever I can, even though I could as well let her stay at the kennels in the settlement."

"She's here? Can I... can I see her?"

"Sure, if you want to. We can take your female to her. She could get some rest there and get accustomed to being with the others."

At the side of the actual camp there was a small enclosure, and as Chris approached it he caught the typical scent that Scarlett had on her as well: The smell of leather and sweat, female juices and spice was heavy in the air. It was as if, after they had been fed with the leaves for some days, the minty smell of the leaves became part of the natural scent of each female. The result was an arousing mixture of scents. Its intensity seemed to scare Scarlett, who whimpered and moaned behind him in utter despair.

There were half a dozen females here, and they all had been harnessed and tied so strictly that their toned bodies looked grotesquely transformed by the bondage. Even though none of their outfits looked exactly the same - all had of course been handmade - they all caught the cattle's arms in the same cruel back praying position and rendered their hands useless with leather pouches similar to the ones Chris had tied around Scarlett's hands and fingers. Every woman wore the same kind of heavy leather shoes that so much resembled hooves. Each of them was hooded and bridled, each was collared.

Several of the cattle were on the ground and sleeping, but the one that Hendrik silently pointed at was still awake. With a simple gesture he commanded the female to come to him, and as she trotted towards him Chris could see how fit she was and how her toned body worked under the straps and belts that restrained it. Her bondage was so tight that Scarlett would not (yet) be able to bear it, her collar was set extremely tight, the crotch-strap had slid deep between her cuntlips. From the look of it she was bald, but because she was wearing the traditional hood that every female was forced to wear it was hard to say if all her hair had been shaved off or if it had just been trimmed very short. Small scars, welts and bruises covered her ass and thighs. This creature looked deeply inhuman, stripped of all dignity and essentially degraded and destroyed to a point of no return.

The tired eyes that stared at Chris through the eyeholes in her hood were bright blue.

"Good to see you Swantje", he said calmly, with a little smile. For so long he had wondered where she was and if she was still alive, and now the answer was so darkly simple. "I've been thinking a lot about you."

The female produced a choking noise, her eyes flickering surprised. Did she recognize him? Chris couldn't be sure, but the creature's arms strained against the bonds just for a moment, some greenish drool dripped from her gagged lips, a thread falling on the naked skin of her breasts. A loud groan escaped her throat and Hendrik had to use his crop to plant a well-aimed blow against the side of her left tit, where immediately a fresh red welt appeared. The loud smacking noise hinted at how painful that punishment must have been, but the cattle just shuddered, moaned and then, reminded of her place, managed to keep its temper again.

"I'm not sure how much she still knows", Hendrik said and stroked the female's shoulder. Between her thighs, Chris saw the same wetness that had been constantly debasing Scarlett for the past days. "But she has never stopped being a little more defiant than the others. It must just be in her blood. And I'm pretty sure that she remembers you, one way or the other."

Chris found that Swantje was, in more than one way, an image of what Scarlett might become in the future: She had obviously learned to live with the bondage, had adapted to her harshly reduced freedom, had only remnants of her former willpower still telling her that she ought to resist and fight. The way she looked at him was not entirely human any more - it was more as if a hybrid between woman and animal was looking at him through these tired blue eyes, frustrated and horny, dehumanized, helpless and forever lost in herself.

And she reeked of the leaves, their smell surrounding her like a cloud. It was not completely unpleasant, but it told a story about what a big deposit of the substance from those plants had to be in her system now. And how often had she been treated with the balm during the past years?

He raised his hand to touch her, hesitated and then finally did place a hand on the female's cheek when Hendrik showed him with a gesture and a smile that it was okay.

"You said that in order to survive you would do anything", he whispered to her. "You told me that quitters are losers. I bet that you'd love to quit by now, if you were still able to make that decision."

She didn't even try to speak, but her lips quivered around the bit and she made a sound that was so tortured, so tired and drained of all power that his pity for her grew further. This creature had been broken a long time ago and did not even possess the capability anymore to grasp how total its defeat was.

"The leaves keep her going", Hendrik said and then brought the stumbling Swantje to one of the poles the Natives had hammered into the earth. "No matter what you throw at the cattle, as long as you got the leaves and the balm they'll find a way to cope. They sometimes complain, but what options do they have? And we know their endurance is as good as unlimited, so we don't get fooled if one of them gets all whiney."

He tied Swantje's leash to the pole and invited Chris to tie Scarlett's to the same one. Chris did that, and now the two females were standing right next to each other, both staring at the men with confused tears in their eyes and their legs shaking. When Swantje knelt on the ground to get into a more comfortable position Scarlett did that too. It was, found Chris, kind of sweet how she followed the other females' example.

"Swantje was still more or less herself when we reached at the old ruined city", Hendrik told Chris. "She still thought that exploring the island with us as owners and Zoe and her as cattle was the only option, but even though we all knew that we were just playing roles to fool the Natives she started to become a bit paranoid over time. She said that she felt weird, somehow. Zoe said the same, and Zoe freaked out at some point and didn't want to eat the leaves anymore. By then, we had already scouted the city and had found all the old carvings, the idols and picture stories about the people who once lived there.

"So you wanted to go on", Chris concluded. He knew well how curiosity could burn in the heart of a man. And he also remembered how he had begun to enjoy his empowerment and the grade of control he had over Scarlett. "Turning back just wasn't an option anymore."

"Exactly. And we couldn't let Zoe become all hysteric. She was dangerous to all of us, freaking out and complaining, crying and screaming and whatnot. Swantje was angry and worried too, but she didn't really protest when we force-fed Zoe the leaves. We had to, in order to finally get her to calm the fuck down. We would just force her to drink a tea we cooked from them, push some more of the plants behind her bridle and force her to suck the juice. We would do everything to get the plants into her stomach."

"So you already suspected how they affected the girls."

"Sure we did." Hendrik shrugged and smiled, looking over to the small enclosure with the cattle. "I suspected a lot, and I knew that if we wanted to keep going we needed the girls to consume as much of the stuff as necessary. Zoe calmed down eventually, when the effect kicked in big time. She was much easier to handle, and I think it was also good for her - an act of mercy so to say, you know? We couldn't release her, but the leaves made things easier for her too, and that seemed to be the right thing to do.

Then, as we reached the base of the hill, we decided we should find out what's up there. We left some personal belongings..."

"... which we found."

"... yeah, and you too should have left something that belonged to your girl, Scarlett. It is tradition to leave something there, and the fact that you forgot it nearly made some of the younger guys shoot some arrows into you. The Natives are pretty conservative." He winked at Chris. "But whatever, all's well now. So where was I? Ah yes, we went uphill and met the Natives. We were put through some tests, and the days that followed were pretty hard. But I could sometimes talk to Swantje in the nights, whispering with her, when there was no one watching or listening. I would just loosen her gag and we would exchange thoughts for a while. She still wanted to go on. She ate the leaves, she told me to use as much of the balm as possible. She told me that she did not plan to give up, that befriending these guys was our best chance to explore the rest of this land.

Zoe was already gone at that time: She couldn't talk anymore even when she was ungagged. Just babbling nonsense, constantly horny, crying and at the same time humping Daniel's leg. It was funny in a bizarre way."

Chris laughed. He had witnessed personally what the leaves did to a girl. So he could well imagine how scary the change had to have been for all involved.

"So we absolved all the tests. I had to fast for some time and then had to wrestle a guy who nearly killed me - but we're friends today, so I guess it is okay. And the girls were forced to take part in a race against other females. It was a tough time. After a few days we were exhausted, but we had proven that we could be a worthwhile addition to the strength of the tribe." Hendrik sounded at least a little proud as he told Chris that part of the story. "Swantje had contributed a lot to that. No matter how degrading it got, she wanted us to gain the freedom to continue our exploration, you know? She always told me: 'We can't give up now, or they will kill you. So you pass their tests, you get accepted. Then, when you can move freely among these Natives, you take Zoe and me away from here and we journey on, until we are out of their reach. You free us from these fucking harnesses and everything will be all right again. This is just a thing we have to get through."

Chris looked back at the enclosure. The females could not hear them from over there, especially not with the hoods tightly over their heads, covering their ears as well. But they still watched the two men from where they had been leashed to the pole.

"But you never journeyed on. You stayed with the Natives."

"We had our reasons", Hendrik said dryly. You saw the ruins down there. Did you also see the carvings and statues?"

"Sure I did. The place was once ruled by Queens and Priestesses."

"It was a matriarchic society", Hendrik nodded. "But that was before a sort of apocalypse happened. No one here remembers what exactly happened, but the people here say that some generations ago there was a civil war. My theory is that it had to do with the flowers. You saw the big ones, and the clouds of pollen that come out of them? The Natives don't really get it, but it's pretty clear that inhaling the pollen changes us over time. We get stronger, but also kind of... dominant. I don't know about you, but since I entered the forest I could think more clearly, I could make tough decisions without remorse, I could do what had to be done without hesitation. No more doubt, no more insecurity. I started to like that feeling."

Chris was baffled that he had not thought of the flowers' pollen as one reason for the change he had gone through. Now that he thought about it the whole thing made at least as much sense as anything else in this place. Hendrik's theory explained a lot about what had happened to him and what he had seen in the old city and up here on the obelisks.

Meanwhile, Hendrik continued explaining. "What I think is that the ancient matriarchic society started getting problems when a natural balance was destroyed. It probably happened because these guys cut too deep into the forest and burned large parts of the woods to create more farmland, but that's just my theory. However, I bet you one thing: When these flowers started growing closer to the city, the men's attitude towards their queens changed. That's when the unrest started. Then there was war and finally the old order was overthrown."

"Okay", Chris mused, "that's fair enough. Thanks for the history lesson. But still, why didn't you leave this place with Swantje and Zoe after you had become members of the tribe?"

"Because that war - the one that broke out some generations ago - isn't over yet." Hendrik sighed. This tribe here, they call themselves the Shadow Men. They control this part of the forest and all the land you journeyed through, all the way from to the sea. But the Shadow Men have enemies in the east and north. There are other villages and towns, and the tribes that control those would kill me if I traveled there, especially because the Shadow Men have accepted me as one of their own."

Chris laughed loud and bitter. "So you won the Natives trust just to find out that it still didn't allow you to leave this fucking place?"

"Exactly." Hendrik nodded. "We had found a way to survive, but apart from that we still had not achieved much. Daniel and I had several discussions about what to do, and finally we decided that we could stay for awhile with the Shadow men and maybe help them to extend their reach further. I figured that if they conquer other tribes then with each conquered region we would gain access to another part of this land. I still don't know if this is an island, but even if it is, Chris: If the Shadow Men win, we can explore the place and find a way out of here. Maybe even build a boat? But I can only ask that from the tribe once the war is over."

"So you've been fighting with them, aiding them in their war for the past three years?"

"Sure, and it's going well. We have conquered a tribe to the north that still followed the old way, we have enslaved a lot of their women and now we are stronger than ever before - because the workforce is growing. Once you got them harnessed and fed with the leaves you can easily subdue them. They can work on the fields day after day without pause, it's extremely effective. Our warriors are well fed, strong and wealthy, and we are slowly gaining the upper hand."

Chris was fascinated and weirdly thrilled by the thought that Hendrik had not only become part of the Shadow Men, but that he had turned himself into one of their officers. Still, looking back at Swantje, he had to ask: "Did she agree with you? Did she give you carte blanche to stay here and keep her like this?"

"Not really." Hendrik did not seem ashamed, but at least he coveyed through a stern nod that it had not been an easy decision. "I hid our decision from her, at least for some time. When she kept urging me to travel on I had to explain why we couldn't leave. She didn't take well to it, as you can imagine. She tried so hard to persuade me to leave, she said the pollen made us men as mad as the leaves affected the girls. But she had been on the diet for long and she wasn't very articulative anymore. And anyways, I couldn't free her: I had already made up my mind. It was the last time we talked. I figured she'd have it easier to cope with her role if I treated her in a persistent way."

Chris looked back at the shape of kneeling Swantje again: The female was still trying to keep looking in their direction, obviously understanding on some level that this was a special evening and a reunion of some kind, but by now she way swaying back and forth, close to just falling asleep from exhaustion against her will. "Persistent... yes, it looks like her treatment has been very persistent over the past three years."

"I take care of her as good as I can. She gets as many leaves as she wants to eat and I treat her with the balm as often as possible. One day, if we manage to win this war and the situation is better, she could be her old self again. It's possible. But that time isn't here yet."

Chris did not know what to say. He was, like Hendrik, positive that the leaves and the balm helped the females to cope with their treatment. Still, he thought, the perspective to exist like cattle for such a long time had to be annoying for them, even direful in many ways. And even though Chris had changed in many ways during the past days he still remembered his own self, and now that Hendrik looked at him and so many thoughts went through his head he asked himself if this was the right course of action, if what they discussed was indeed the logical thing to do.

It seemed so. But was that the truth, or were they fooling themselves?

"She would hate me if I kept her like this", he said calmly. "I know that she would hate me forever, hate me for all her life, for doing something like that to her."

"Well, but isn't it like, the right thing to do? If you just decide that you want to be liked by her, isn't that egoistic? She can't survive here, not if you set her free." Hendrik put a hand on Chris' shoulder. "And if they hate us later, so be it. At least they get a chance to hate us instead of being just plain dead." Hendrik was silent for a moment before he added: "We need your help, Chris. We decided to leave you at the beach before because we were sure you'd not be able to accept this life. We were assholes and you have proven us wrong. I apologize to you. But if you join the Shadow Men now, you and Daniel and I could really get things done."

Chris didn't say anything. He had been affected, as he knew now, by the pollen. And with the new, relentless kind of insight that had been given to him, he finally admitted to himself how wrong things had gone: How hidden greed and lust, self-betrayal and a very distinct kind of cowardice had brought Hendrik - and also Chris himself - to do something unspeakable to the women who had put their trust in them. Every good man would know what to do, would use the newfound clarity to turn around and try to redeem him. Because, as he realized, it was never too late. You could always make a difference.

And a good guy would do that. A good guy would find a way.But he just let go and accepted his newfound freedom and accepted that they - both him and the girl he had known as Scarlett - had been forever lost at sea.

"I'll stay for a while. Until it's safe to move on and free her. It's the best thing to do, not as a final solution but for the time being."

The lie came across his lips with so much ease that it tasted nearly like truth.