Islander

by Peter Loaf

- do not use without the author's permission.



Dear Diary

I probably shouldn't have trusted him. I guess that goes without saying. I mean, when an older man hires a young woman to be his only crewmember on a long ocean voyage, she knows there will be ample opportunity for hanky-panky. I didn't mind, much. After all, I wasn't a virgin or anything. So what if my duties might include a little frigging in the rigging? I'd taken the precaution of having a birth control implant so I wouldn't get pregnant for at least the next two years.

He is not what you'd call ugly, not at all. He looks and talks kind of like a cross between Michel Cain and Peter O'Tool.

A girl could do worse than a guy like him. Handsome, well built and rich, at least rich enough to own an eight-meter yacht, all fitted out and provisioned for ocean cruising.

It wasn't like I was leaving anyone behind. I'd had a fight and breakup with George, my boyfriend from college. My folks had both died in a plane crash six months before, leaving me all alone in the world. Except for crazy old great aunt Hilda up in Michigan, there was no one who would miss me. My friends from college had all married or started their careers after graduation. I'd been just drifting for months, living on the settlement from the crash, going nowhere, doing nothing.

Then, just when I'd begun looking around for a job, I met Henry Champion, solo sailor and author of several books about his adventures at sea. He was holding court at a fashionable bookstore/coffeehouse overlooking Charleston harbor. He was talking about his books to a group of literary women. I'd gone there, hoping that I might find someone looking for someone with a degree in English Lit.

What I found was Henry. Listening to him describe life at sea under sail I realized how attractive it all sounded. The idea of visiting exotic ports, of seeing the whole world from the deck of a sailboat, of having the wind take me wherever I might want to go. Henry made a good living at it, paying his way with his writing and going everywhere there was water to sail upon.

I listened to him tell about how he sailed and trucked his boat right across South America, from Peru to Argentina, setting the all time record for altitude in an ocean going vessel. He described the thrill of sailing four kilometers high in the Andes on Lake Titicaca and then fighting his way through the deserts, mountains and jungles of South America until reaching Buenos Aires.

While he was talking I'd been sitting there, thinking how pointless my life had become, staying put in the city of my birth, accomplishing nothing much and living upon the deaths of my dead parents. When the talk was over I hung back, watching the ladies cluster around him, offering him that which solo sailors always seem to need most when on land.

But he seemed oblivious to their offers of carnal delight. He chatted them up, signed their books and kept glancing at me in a way that made him seem somehow dangerously attractive.

When the last of them had finally left he turned to me, came over and asked if I would like to go out to dinner with him. I found myself saying yes and we left the store together, looking for someplace nice to eat.

Over some wonderful sea bass, he told me about the next voyage he was planning. He said he was tired of solo sailing and wanted to take on a crewman who could help sail the boat and especially cook. “I can feed myself, you understand, but I get so tired of fish stew I sometimes get to the point of simply eating iron rations, you know, that military 'Meals Ready To Eat' crap?”

Taking the bait, I said I had worked my way through college, first as a cook at the school cafeteria and later at some of the better restaurants in town. I think I also suggested that I could act as a stenographer/editor for him, mentioning my degree in literature.

As an additional enticement to hire me, I blushed, wiggled, gushed and sweated out a cloud of sex pheromones.

I was shameless.

The next thing I knew I was out in the harbor inspecting his boat. It had two curtained bunks, a head and a small galley in the main cabin. Forward of a bulkhead was the sail stowage and a small hold full of provisions and equipment. Beneath the cockpit was a second hold full of stuff he didn't bother to open up and show me, saying it was just more of the same.

He lied, oh how he lied.

I put my stuff into long term storage, rented out my parent's house, packed my bag and simply sailed away, trusting this complete stranger with my life.

For the first two weeks we were pretty busy. He wanted me to stand watches so he could sleep and to do that I had to learn how to sail. It was the terminology I found the hardest, ropes were not ropes they were sheets and lines. Sheets controlled sails, lines tied things together. I learned that a boat never goes anywhere, it fetches its destinations. I learned how to trim sails and steer a course, how to tack into a wind and that the ocean has natural laws that must be obeyed if you want to get old.

He even gave me lessons with the sextant, despite the GPS system he had aboard.

I learned that, despite the maritime rules that a boat under sail has the right of way, you better be ready to give the big ships room or risk being run down, un-noticed in the rush for corporate profit.

Henry seemed to like my cooking well enough, even though it took me a couple of weeks to learn the tricks of cooking on a stove gimbaled against the movements of a boat at sea. Soon I was turning out meals like a pro.

I kept wondering when he was going to make his move, sexually. But he did nothing overt. He stood his watches, conning the boat about eighteen hours a day. I worked as cook, bottle washer, maid and deck hand as needed. He would take the watch from sunset to about noon the next day, letting me sleep at night. Then, giving me the watch, he'd set the self steering gear and go below. It was my job to keep an eye on things so that we didn't get run down by a passing ship.

During the day I wore cut-off jeans and tight tee shirts. Not needing one yet I was always braless. (I was thinking it might encourage him to see my tits bouncing around under my shirt) At night I wore a silk pajama shirt, transparent panties and a come hither smile. Before I would climb into my bunk each night I would go up in my jammies and cuddle with him in the cockpit, looking up at a billion stars wheeling across the tropical sky. He always allowed this, but did nothing about taking it any further.

I was beginning to wonder if perhaps he was impotent or something. Then, I began to wonder if he was gay. I didn't know what the problem was but the longer he went without sex the more it worried me. Was I alone with a priest or something worse?

Just as soon as we'd cleared the shipping lanes he finally did make his move. I awoke one morning to find him fastening a four inch iron grating to my bunk, trapping me in a cage I could not hope to escape.

I was in shock, what was he doing? I could not believe how much he seemed to have changed. It seemed to me that he was, in some ways, like a werewolf, watching his next meal through the bars.

I pleaded with him to let me out, but he only chuckled and said, “Strip!”

“What?” I said, not believing my ears.

“You heard me, strip. I want you to take off your pajama tops and panties and hand them to me.” he said, waiting to see what I'd do. Then, losing patience, he reached in through the grating and griped my wrist. I screamed in shock and tried to get my wrist back but he only pulled my arm out to the elbow, bent it up and shackled it to the bars, forcing my body to remain close to the grating. Ten seconds later he'd caught and pinioned my other hand like its mate, forcing me to press my chest against the grating, forcing me to stick my silk covered tits out through the bars.

“In the near future you will learn to obey. Until that happy day you will suffer.” He said, opening the front of my pajama tops and placing a pair of clamps on my nipples, the connecting chain holding me even tighter to the grating. He then unlatched the grating and pulled it open slowly, giving me time to scramble out of the bunk. Latching it to the mast, he positioned me perfectly for my first flogging.

He used a wide strap at first, then switched to a whippy cane after he'd gotten me warmed up. As he worked me over he told me that I was now and forever his pony girl. My purpose in life would be serving as a helpless beast of burden and as a vessel for his lust. He chuckled as he told me that from then on I would be used any time he might desire me.

He told me that in time I would even learn to love being a sex object.

I screamed and cried, sobbing to be let free, begging that the whipping stop. He told me that out there, between the shipping lanes, was the one place left on earth I could scream to my hearts content.

I took him up on that. I started screaming early and didn't stop until it was over, both the flogging and the buggery that followed.

When it was over my pajama top was never going to be a problem again. There was nothing but a pile of pink silk scraps, cut off of my body and cast aside. My back had been welted from calves to shoulders, my anus had been fucked raw and he'd left the dildo in my vulva, jack hammering my brainstem's pleasure centers.

After a while he came and put me away, removing the dildo and helping me to back into my bunk/cage and re-locking the grating closed. He then unshackled my hands and relieved me of my sleeves, all that remained of my pajama top.

While I'd been out of my bunk he'd stripped it of everything save the bare mattress. At my feet was a bed pan beside my head was a pair of tubes I could suck for water and liquid food. That was the extent of my world.

Except when he was training me. Then, on his command I would reach back through the bars and allow my wrists to be re-shackled.

Attached that way I could do nothing to resist.

I'd seen the fixtures, the heavy hinges and latches on my bunk and the mast. I'd seen the four corner restraint rings beneath my mattress. I'd figured they were for converting the extra bunk into another hold when he was sailing solo.

And hold it did. It held me all the way to Tristan Da Cunha, the most isolated place on earth. 2800 kilometers due West of Cape Town, the flat-topped extinct volcano was sheer walled and only two ten square kilometers total. It was deserted, inaccessible and until we got there, uninhabited. It was guarded by high cliffs all the way around, none less than 200 meters high. Up on the rock's mesa was the promise of a garden of Eden, un sullied by any man's footprint, probably since the dawn of time.

I'd stood there on the tiny beach looking up at the cliffs, wondering how he intended to climb them. As usual, I was harnessed and helpless, my hands shackled up into the middle of my back. On my ankles was a set of short hobbles. In my mouth was a bit gag, strapped to a horse's head harness, complete with blinders.

All around me were the contents of the two holds, lying on the beach at low tide. The high tide line was three meters above the beach. I could not see what was in the fifteen sea-bags but I hoped it was waterproof survival equipment.

For behind me, sinking into a calm sea, was his yacht, burning brightly in the morning light. Surrounding us was the stink of the rubber raft aflame on the beach.

His only explanation was that he'd been a sailor too long. “It's time I found my land legs.” He said roping up and putting on his mountaineering gear. And, looking up at the wall, he continued. “Last time I was here I took lots of pictures of these cliffs, from several angles. I think I can reach that ledge in about a half an hour. If I do I will throw down a line. I will need you to tie it to the cargo bags so I can haul them up above the high tide mark.”

I protested, wiggling in my bondage and gabbling my fear of being left here to drown.

He chuckled and said, “Oh I won't let you drown, Dobbin my love. You are the most precious cargo of the lot.”

He then turned me around and released the shackles on my wrists and ankles, saying, “Don't try to run away, high tide comes in four hours. If we are going to survive this day I need you to help me.”

I looked at him and knew that he was my Master. I found myself promising to help him get us off this tiny beach. He nodded, turned and began his assent up the slimy rocks. I could not see what he was using for handholds but he seemed to have his path all worked out. A narrow ledge here, a small chimney there, a long stretch of driving in pitons and rigging slings, he inched up the vertical face. Then, reaching the crack that got him to his goal, he climbed up onto a small shelf of rock a few yards above the high tide mark.

Throwing down a length of climber's rope he shouted that I should send the heaviest sack first. I tied the climbing rope to the biggest sea-bag and away it went, clanking and bashing the rocks as it rose into the air.

I stopped wondering what it was when I saw him rigging some sort of gantry that would keep the other packages away from the rocks. One by one they ascended, minute by minute, the waves crept up the beach behind me.

When the rope came down the last time I had wet feet. As he instructed, I attached the rope to the breast ring in my body harness. As I ascended, dangling from his rope I looked out at the endless ocean, wondering if I would ever leave this island alive.

We camped that night, lulled by the crashing surf so close below us. It was warm so we didn't bother with the tent. Instead, we shared a sleeping bag, him nude and me back in my shackles but minus the pony harness. About dawn he made love to me as he'd never done before, fucking me silly, treating me to pleasures I'd never before known. Layering the Mastery on as thick as syrup.

The next morning he opened one of the other packs and produced a military grapple rocket attached to a three hundred meter coil of climber's rope. He sat this up at the outermost edge of the rock, aimed it skyward and lit the fuse. The grapple rocket went up trailing the line behind. When it cleared the cliff top the trade-wind bent it over the island. Henry told me to cross my fingers and pulled on the line, dragging the grapple through the unseen jungle in hopes of finding an anchor point. When it caught and held I breathed a sigh of relief. I didn't think he had another rocket in his pocket and I didn't want him to have to climb that rock without a safety rope.

When the rope seemed solid, Henry secured the other end to a piton he'd driven into a crack, then attached a device onto it that looked like the world's smallest bicycle, fitted between two huge sprockets and equipped with handles instead of pedals.

He attached a boson's chair to the device on the rope, sat down and began to crank his way up the face of the cliff. I watched him go straight up into the air, his arm muscles bulging with the effort. It took hours but he was going up a lot faster and safer than he would on the rock face. When he seemed a tiny speck against the deep blue sky I had to turn away in fright. I knew that he did not know if his grapple was going to carry the load. He was sitting five hundred feet in the air with nothing but rocks below him.

After a while the little cable car returned, pulling a second rope and dangling a cargo net below. I loaded the remaining sea-bags into this trolley and sent them up, one by one.

It took every ounce of my will power to put my own little butt into that canvas sling. When he began to haul me up I very nearly lost my lunch. (MREs of course) By the time I was 50 meters in the air I was screaming my lungs out. I mean I'm a skydiver but that height is terrifying when it's just a canvas sling between you and falling. I still had my will to live so I managed to hang on all the way to the top. For the last three hundred feet I concentrated on the wall passing before me. It was coming closer all the time.

I guessed that he'd attacked the wall here because of the way the cliff had just enough overhang so that his system would work. Again he'd rigged his portable gantry so the trolley could deliver the goods over the top.

When I was done hugging good old tera firma I turned and looked down into Eden. The place was virgin, never before explored. Our own little valley of the lost.

In all the world, we had only the gear and supplies Henry had been able to haul up that horrible cliff.

I knew that if this didn't work we were both dead. I didn't want to die. I went to my knees before him and confessed my need to be Mastered.

I guess you could say I was in love.

We built a cabin, cut some trails, plowed and planted a garden and moved in. There was plenty to eat, the island had lots of small game. Other than the sea birds, the only land predator seemed to be a small fox.

I don't love floggings. But neither does my Master. Once I stopped resisting him, he'd become like my groom, petting me, massaging away some of the soreness, fucking me sweetly several times a day.

I have no say in the matter, but I could use another taste of the old pepper. I'm not saying I am a pain slut, but it is getting so I do things wrong on purpose just to get his full attention.

For a while now his favorite game has been pony girl chase. He lets me go, sometimes naked and sometimes in full pony harness, complete with bells. I am given a head start and then he'll come hunting, armed with a lasso and a hard on.

Another thing we like to do is go for long rides around the trails we've cut. After we had no more use for the elevator rope he figured out how to release the lower end and pull it up. Then he dismantled the gantry and reassembled the parts into a pony cart. There is nothing in the world like pulling a pony cart loaded down with my Master, his whip in his hand my bare bottom in his eye.

We saved the rest of the MREs and eat sea birds, eggs, monkey meat, ground squirrel meat etc. There seems to be all sorts of fresh tropical fruit and veggies growing wild in the fertile volcanic soil.

Tonight I am being punished. I didn't bring up enough water for his bath. So instead of sharing his bed I'm spending the night in harness, tethered in my stall.

When I get tired I lay down in the fresh, still green hay he had me cut today. As I drift off I realize I am sleeping better here than I'd ever done at home. I have no problems. My Master makes all the decisions. My only task is to carry out his wishes.

Most of the time I am simply his servant, doing chores and caring for my man. The time slips away, day after slippery day. I am with a man who's saved up a half a lifetime of celibacy. I guess he decided it was time to catch up.

Oh lucky me.

Notes:

1) My apologies to Tristan Jones, the real solo sailor who crossed South America in an ocean going vessel.

2) Inaccessible Island (part of the Tristan Da Cunha island group) is pretty much as described, save that the cliffs aren't that continuous. It has never had a permanent population but has been used as pasture for both cattle and pigs. At this time, it is a wildlife sanctuary administered by the British government. It has no mammal life at all, now that the pigs and cattle have died off.