I’ve lost track of time. How much longer before the boat comes? Will I be able to leave? Will I even want to leave? I’m more sober than I’ve been in months, if not years. The cool night air is making me feel clear-headed. I don’t like what I’m getting clear on. I’m embarrassed that I let Jason take me that way, and even more embarrassed that Soren knows. I feel like I’ve lost some ground to them. Like they’ve gotten a little under my skin.
Sleep comes to me without warning, creeping up on me in a blanket of semi-tropical warmth.
Soren
“Sore, look at this.”
Jason calls me to the far corner of the hut, where Aslin has curled up on a small pile of potato sacks like some kind of orphan waif in a Dickens novel. I guess she didn’t want to go to bed on the rolls, which were much closer to us. It almost looks like there are tears dried on her cheeks. Did she cry herself to sleep from shame? Or something else?
“She is cute when she’s asleep.”
“Yeah,” I agree.
“You still mad I got there first?”
“I’ll be mad if you keep referring to her as a destination, and not a person.”
“She wants you too, you know. She was so mad when she thought you’d lost interest in her.”
“I don’t know if we should be doing this. She’s not a casual sort of girl. This could turn dark if we’re not careful.”
“She hasn’t stopped talking about leaving since she got here. She wants a vacation fling.”
“I don’t think so. Even if that’s what you think she thinks, you’ll get attached.”
“Sure, because there’s no greater bonding experience than bondage and anal. Relax, Soren. This is fine.”
I don’t think it is fine. I think the moment we saw Aslin there’s been something growing between us. It’s more than attraction. It’s more than antagonism. It’s intense, and Jason’s given into it. But hey, we’ve got nothing to lose. Except, you know. Everything.
She stirs when I pick her up, then curls closer into my body. I feel a softening inside my chest, a warm welling of emotions I haven’t felt in a long time. Jason and I didn’t come to the depths of the jungle because we’re good at relationships. We’re equally terrible at them for different reasons. Yes, we’ve had women come and do the retreat before, and no, we haven’t fucked them. From the moment Aslin got off the boat, she’s broken all the rules. She shattered our professional boundaries the second she pushed Jason into the river; and the moment I put her over my knee, I think I was done.
I don’t want to hurt her. Jason might be right. She might want to go home at the end of this. What am I thinking? Of course she wants to go home. She’s not going to stay here; she's waiting for the supply boat because she hates us, and she hates being here, and… she makes a soft sound in her sleep and snuggles closer.
And I might fucking love her.
I know better than to let that thought go further than my own skull. She’d think I was crazy. Jason would laugh. But neither of those things stop my feelings from being what they are. She’s beautiful. Absolutely stunning. She’s bold, and she’s brave, and she never, ever backs down.
“Are you going to put her down?”
“What?”
“You’ve been holding her for about an hour,” Jason says, exaggerating.
I put her down on her bedroll and carefully tuck her in. She shifts a little in her sleep, but otherwise doesn’t seem to wake.
“So you’ve got it bad, huh?”
“What?” I give Jason a glower that doesn’t have any effect on him.
“You’re in love.”
“Oh, please,” I say, immediately dismissing what I was just thinking about.
Jason knows me better than practically anybody on the planet. We’ve been through more together than I can list. Tours, missions, relationships. Since we were eighteen years old, we’ve had each other’s backs. He’s closer than a brother and lying to him won’t work. I do it anyway.
He sighs. “Don’t fall in love with her. She thinks she’s too good for us. She thinks she’s too good for anyone. That’s why she’s single.”
“And why are we single?”
“Because we’re the wrong kind of twisted and we scare the shit out of most girls, and the ones we don’t scare don’t want to live in the middle of nowhere. This girl is an executive or something.”
“Or something? We should know that.”
“I thought we did know that. It was on her application.”
“Was it?”
I’m sure it was.
“How do we not know her better?” I ask the question to myself more than anything. It feels like we’re acting on a serious lack of intel right now, and we both know better.
I know I have her application somewhere. I go to my little fireproof file box, the place I keep our passports, cash, and other documents of importance. Aslin’s application is there. We don’t actually read these as much as we wait to see if the check clears. I unfold the document, smooth it out on my thigh, and start reading.