A Faraway Shore

The deafening roar of water. It swallowed her every sense, filled her ears to bursting. Cora didn't know if the surface was above or below her, but she knew she had to swim, it was her only chance.

The Grand Dame clipper ship had made it safely from England, 'round the tumultuous Horn and onward into the vast Pacific Ocean to bring Cora to meet her betrothed, a colonel in the Royal British Navy and a man as unknown to her as the vast stretches of sea between them. He had been posted to guard the fledgling breadfruit plantations of Tahiti, and he had written to her and her family, promising a secure home and prosperous existence there.

As her pale legs kicked toward the surface, Cora's racing mind grappled between instinct and the unbearable sensation that she was destined to die just as she reached the threshold of her future. She'd not set foot on land in months and now she would she never smell the exotic flowers or touch the swaying palms promised to her in so many letters.

After three months at sea, just as the sunset silhouette of the Tahitian Islands came into Cora's blue-eyed focus from the creaking bow of the great ship, the looming clouds that had followed them for days and rumbled far in the distance seemed to grow ever larger. A wind picked up and tangled Cora's brown curls -- pricking her skin with goosebumps and thrusting her nipples into the silk lining her corset. But it was the first drops of rain that had sent Cora to retire in her stately room below deck.

Late in the season for a cyclone, it proved furious nonetheless. While Cora lay dreaming of redeeming the tomboyish ways of her youth and proving to her father she could make a fine wife, waves transformed the ship's gentle rocking into something increasingly violent. It was when a servant shook her awake that the reef suddenly tore through Cora's sleeping quarters and her world went black, senseless but for the rush of water.

Though seconds seemed to drag into hours and the pressure of the current seemed an anchor that threatened to pull her ever downward, Cora knew she must keep kicking. With one, last thrust of her finely muscled legs -- legs honed from climbing the gnarled oak trees of her family's country estate -- Cora broke the surface and gasped for air as the driving rain stung her face. Then, as if by miracle, an arm grasped her waist and held her aloft the waves.

Some merciful mermaid, some sea angel it seemed, was pulling her along. When Cora felt the sand dig between her toes, she let her mind drift back into unconsciousness. She was alive. She had found Tahiti.

Indeed, it was rather Tahiti that had found Cora.

It was the smell of some strange wood burning that awaked her, and then the feeling of a warm poultice that had been set on her shoulder. How many days had it been? Had her husband found her and set her in a fine bed?

But the softness upon which she rested her head was no pillow. For when Cora opened her eyes, she saw only smooth brown flesh. Thighs. They peeked from a palm frond skirt. And another smell, something muskier than the fire crackled her senses. It all became alarmingly clear.

"My God," Cora thought. "Have I been thrown from the frying pan into some savage's fire?"

She jerked fully awake with the realization, flying off the lap and scuttling to a corner of the small hut. Catching her breath, she surveyed the heathen before her.

But this creature was no fierce warrior as the books she'd read mentioned. Instead Cora beheld a soft, coffee-brown, doe-eyed girl of perhaps 18 or 19 years of age with a mass of luxuriant black hair that tumbled in waves to just below the youthful tips of her bare breasts. Cora's eyes lingered perhaps too long there, whether from shock at the savage's indecency or memories of girlhood curiosities, she wasn't entirely sure.

Cora didn't have long to ponder this before the girl tentatively moved toward her, offering the split half of a breadfruit. Hunger before fear, Cora greedily dug in. But within a few bites, Cora bent and heaved outside the hut. Nausea swept her and she felt a fever like none she'd ever experienced. Her shock had masked the pain from the infection blooming in her shoulder where the reef had torn her flailing arms.

She slumped back against the floor. Delirious, helpless and alone with this savage girl, Cora had no choice but to submit to the pull of a deep sleep.

When she came to again, it was to the taste of some warm, honeyed substance dripping down her throat. She turned her cheek, still sleep-dazed, and again the musky smell, the warmth of flesh on her face. When Cora opened her eyes, she saw where the palm fronds parted to reveal only darkness between smooth, tawny thighs. There, the smell was strongest. A woman's smell, now Cora was certain of it. Had she recalled her modesty she would have blushed, but she was too weary to care.

Her hazy eyes scanned upwards to survey the tiny, femininely-rounded belly, the rhythm of inhaling and exhaling ribs, and those breasts. Strange that a savage would have such a fine bosom, like the Roman statues at Bath. But these breasts were more beautiful than stone, their molasses-colored nipples stood on soft mounds of the areola. And then, something more: a droplet of translucent white at the tip.

As the remembrance of the honeyed taste rushed back to her fevered mind, the sweet-faced savage sensed Cora's eyes, and she cast a gentle smile, flashing her even white teeth down at the strange, pale woman. Then, in a wordless gesture, the heathen girl gathered Cora to her breast and pressed a nipple to her parted lips.

"Roman Charity from Roman breasts," thought Cora. Who was she to deny it, even from a savage. She was thirsting, starving. She wanted to live. She was no ordinary, weak-willed woman, she had none of the softness of her sisters growing up. She would do anything to satisfy her will, especially her will to survive. Even if it meant swimming through a tempest or nursing from a savage.

Cora suckled the sweet peak between her rosy, chapped lips. But even as the vital fluid began to trickle down her throat, Cora could not tear her mind from the sensation of the nipple growing fuller and firmer in her mouth, the sensual brush of a breast against her cheek.

Feeling Cora's vigor grow, the girl spread her slender thighs and urged Cora closer to her body. It was between the palm fronds, through the tattered remnants of her night shift, Cora felt the sticky moist heat of the girl's womanhood pressing into her side.

Sucking with more enthusiasm and emboldened by her delirium, Cora pressed her hipbone into the girl's sparsely-furred mons. As though possessed by some primitive fertility goddess, she began to rotate her hip more firmly until she could feel the wetness soak her skin through her shift, until she could feel the stiff nub of the clit rising to meet her grinding thrusts. Ever wordless, the girl's breath began to quicken and beads of sweat emerged from her rich brown flesh, soaking Cora's hair and nightdress.

But for Cora it was though the girl was no longer there, just a moist cunt to pound, a full nipple at which to feed her furious lust. How often had she dreamed of doing such things to her childhood friends? Her comely governess?

Suddenly, Cora was pulled from her frenzy when she felt the nipple withdraw. Ashamed of her behavior, Cora froze in the girl's lap and for the first time, held the gaze of the girl's large, knowing eyes with their sooty lashes. And as one unfamiliar word tumbled from the her voluptuous mouth, Cora felt the small fingers thread through the downy chestnut hair between her own thighs, the first touch from any other save herself.

"Nemai'i," she'd said. A name? A request? Permission? Cora didn't know, but she decided it would be the girl's name. A word to call into the night as the delectable savage spread her nether lips apart, tested the firmness of her clit, tugged at the pink folds of her labia and then thrust her searching fingers inside, breaking the barrier of her womanhood.

But the cry of pain was stifled when Nemai'i's mouth covered Cora's, tasting of some unknown fruit. Tentative at first, Cora parted her lips as she'd parted her legs to let the delicate tongue explore within while Nemai'i used her fingers to probe Cora's spongy interior as she played her thumb at the very root of her clit --pressing and flipping it to and fro.

Struggling for breath as under the sea, only drowning more sweetly, Cora broke the kiss to cry out into the balmy air as wetness flooded Nemai'i's hand.

Still weak, Cora pulled herself up from the matting of the hut, sand sticking to her back. In one fluid motion, Cora discarded the remains of the shift and smiled at Nemai'i as the girl playfully backed away into a corner; she crawled toward her and reached a pink hand out to the quivering thighs.

"Long, pianist's fingers," her governess had once said. "I'll put them to good use now," Cora thought as she slipped them under the palm frond skirt to where moisture gathered along the crease of Nemai'i's inner thigh. So long she'd dreamed of touching paradise, and here she was, with fingers slipping into the damp heat, exploring it at last.

To be Continued...