Chapter 1

That Don't Impress Me Much

It was a beautiful bright morning and Satine was enjoying the feel of fresh wind blowing in her face. The rocking of the boat back and forth reminded her of a rocking chair. She had rented out a speedboat an hour ago upon yesterday's insistence of one of the tour guides who claimed it would be an unforgettable experience. It wasn't so bad really, except that there were no cigarettes. She quite liked the looking around in the vast ocean and seeing nothing but the clear horizon. A beautiful sight indeed. It had been a long while since she had felt this relaxed, this free with no other thought on her mind, but of the seagulls that flew above and the fish she could see through the transparently blue sea. She closed her eyes and let the scent of the saltwater enter her senses. Thank God, she took this vacation. This morning was pure bliss.

When she opened her eyes again she noticed something in the distance. A ship? As she accelerated the speed of the boat and headed towards that "thing", it became bigger. Much bigger than a ship. It was land! Satine looked behind her to check if her "own" land was still in sight. Barely. Should she go back? The image before her grew bigger and bigger and she discerned some type of trees, probably palm trees, on what she presumed to be an island. She was too curious to turn back now. She got increasingly impatient studying every fraction of what she could see from such a distance. Then she noticed there was a clearing before the trees, a beach, and there was something moving... it was something... or someone... jumping up and down. Maybe they were in trouble? Soon enough the jumping figure turned into what seemed to be a man doing jumping jacks. Or, was he waving? She couldn't tell. She should at least see if they needed help, although it didn't seem likely, as there was a boat up on the shore.

As the wind blew more strongly the waves began to rock the speedboat more violently, pushing it even faster towards the island. The water splashed about creating small damp circles of saltwater on her clothes. It was getting scary. She wasn't easily intimidated, but the ocean did not seem as welcoming as observed from the beach and she just hoped to reach dry land in one piece.

The funny thing was that the sun was still shining, as brightly as before, there was no reason for the weather to go bad. She glanced back to "her" land but it was gone. There was nothing in sight anymore but the island ahead of her with the jumping-jack man she could see quite well now. He was jumping and waving his arms but it didn't really seem like the place or the time to be doing jumping jacks. After all the weird people she'd met in her short life, doing jumping jacks on a beach could hardly be categorized as weird.

Satine was getting closer to the shore when she noticed numerous rocks above water, her speedboat ready to crash into them any moment. They wove a tight labyrinth in the water before her and as she took a hold of the steering handle she tried to avoid them as best as she could. Then as if by divine intervention the waves died down and stopped pushing her boat so strongly.

In what seemed to be an endless half hour her speedboat finally hit the shore as the stranger helped her out of the boat.

"Thank you," she said.

He smiled, "Thank you, I would be stuck on this island if it weren't for you," he said in an unusual accent, kind of British. She wasn't sure.

"What about your boat?" she asked pointing to the wooden boat nearby.

"It leaked through," he said regrettably.

"Tough luck! But what can you expect from these tropical countries?! I'm sure they don't have half the regulations we have back home."

He frowned, "Yeah, but at least they don't have smog and environmental problems."

Uh-oh, she'd only met this man and she had already given the wrong impression. But it didn't surprise her, she always did. Only the people that really knew her knew she wasn't what she seemed to be, but then again there weren't that many people that knew her so well.

"Shall we get going?"

She stared at him, still in her own world.

"Before the waves start again..."

"Yeah, sure..." it was time she got back anyway; she'd scheduled an appointment at the hotel spa for a full treatment of all the services they had to offer. It had been ages since she'd gone to a beauty salon – and not out of personal preference – and although her split ends didn't show in her naturally curly hair it was still time to give them a little trim. Besides, it was all complimentary. She could really get used to this paid vacation time.

Satine got into the boat, as did the stranger after he pushed it off shore. She let him tend to the motor engine. Not that he minded. He tugged at the rope, to turn the engine on, but he only got weird crackling noises. He tried again. Same result.

"Let me try," said Satine impatiently. She hated when men acted all I-know-everything when in fact they had no clue what they were doing.

She tugged at the rope once and again but without success. Ugh!! She was beginning to hate these tropical vacation spots. In the movies something always went wrong.

Satine looked at him, not knowing what to say. The speedboat had already started drifting towards open sea.

"I guess you're out of gas," he said matter-of-factly, but with no worry in his voice.

Satine's guard was already up, "Are you saying it's my fault?"

"Not at all," but seeing as they had no time to argue he jumped out of the boat into the shallow water creating a splash that almost soaked him whole. He held out his hand to her; she involuntarily took it and as she was about to jump into the water like he did, he suddenly caught the backs of her knees with his other hand and swung her into his arms; she had to quickly grab his neck in order to keep her balance, essentially hugging him.

As soon as she was aware of what had happened she started yelling at him, "Put me down, put me down!!" she tried to wriggle out of the embrace but it was useless, he was too strong. She would still not give up and continued to yell, hitting him on the chest with her fisted hands.

In return he ignored her completely and carried her out of the water. As she saw that they had reached dry land she ordered once again in a threatening voice, emphasizing each word, "Put. Me. Down!"

"As you wish, Ma'am," he said as if unaffected by the whole incident and instantly dropped her on the sand.

As she fell on the sand, ass first, she let out a cry, "Ouch!!! You moron!!"

He just looked at her and said, "You said to put you down."

"I didn't mean drop me!"

"A little technicality." He grinned.

He had nice teeth she noticed, but then reproached herself for even thinking such a thing about someone so arrogant.

He must have realized he was out of line so he offered her his hand. She scowled at him and declined it. Getting up on her own, she brushed the sand off her clothes.

He turned to face the ocean.

She did the same. The speedboat was now already far in the water pushed by the feeble waves.

"Oh well!" she heard the stranger mutter to himself.

"So what now?" she asked accusingly.

"I don't know," he replied unperturbed.

"What do you mean you don't know?"

"I don't know, I have no clue, I just got here an hour before you did."

"Well since it's your fault we're stuck here in the first place..."

"My fault?" he looked at her incredulously.

"If you hadn't been doing frantic jumping jacks I would never have come here to help you in the first place!"

"Jumping jacks?" he asked surprised.

"You know... jumping jacks," she said irritated and gave him a demonstration of a few.

"I was waving! For help!"

"Yeah, well... they looked like jumping jacks to me!"

"So you mean to tell me that when you saw me the only possible scenario in your head was that I was doing jumping jacks alone on a deserted island and you just couldn't fight the curiosity of coming to see why someone would be here alone doing jumping jacks?!!" he asked quite rhetorically.

"Well I saw your boat and assumed..."

"Assumed what? That I was a wacko?"

"Well... kind of..." she replied slightly ashamed of how stupid it all sounded when he said it.

He laughed good-naturedly and she gave a sigh of relief.

But he noticed he said, "Don't think you're out of the woods, my dear... Don't think I'll let you pin the blame on me. If you hadn't come to satisfy your curiosity of my jumping jacks you would have run out of gas at open sea and then you'd really be in trouble."

"So... what? Am I supposed to thank you now?"

"Well... yes!" he said sarcastically.

"Ughhh!" she exclaimed, punching him in the shoulder.

"Ouch!" he replied even though it didn't really hurt. He decided not to say anything else. This was going to be one hell of an adventure and it would be best for everybody if they got along as best as they could.

Satine didn't say anything either. She didn't feel like thinking of a witty remark and she had other things to think about. This wasn't a planned part of her vacation. It would certainly be an unforgettable experience. Damn that tour guide! Why did she ever listen to him?

"It is going to be a long way home," Satine concluded.