I'd just like to say thank you to Courtney for giving me a welcome shove to get started on this chapter, and for the inspiration which led to the end scene.
# # # #
The days passed. After the incident with the car, Mary Ann decided more than ever that she wanted to have a baby. She reasoned that if Gilligan was going to dice with death every day of his life then she at least wanted someone to remember him by. Of course when she told him this, even though she was joking, he fixed her with that 'I'm not sure I like what you just said' look he normally reserved for the Skipper.
Mary Ann found that she was beginning to spend large parts of the day gazing at her husband and wondering what a child of his would look like. Would it inherit his long limbs and coltish ways? Would it inherit his blue/green eyes that reminded her of the tranquil, tropical shallows on a sunny day? Would it have his sense of mischief? His thick, dark hair? His expressive mouth? His long neck, the back of which she loved to nuzzle her lips against? Or would their child look like her, short and stumpy, with eyes the colour of a mossy mud puddle? I hope it takes after him, she thought. He doesn't know how beautiful he is.
Gilligan was never aware that he was being scrutinized so carefully. His own thoughts about children were more simple. I can't wait to take my kids fishing. He had already decided it was kids, plural. If he was down at the shore, he'd pretend there was a child with him and he'd talk aloud while he cast off. Ginger caught him doing it one day while she was out on one of her walks, and smiled to herself as she listened to his garbled instructions. Always be careful, if you're fishing with somebody else, never to foul their line. Especially Uncle Jonas. Or there'll be trouble!
Their honeymoon week had ended, and they were back to spending meal times and chores and other activities as part of the larger group. Mary Ann's time of the month came and she lay low for a couple of days while Gilligan took care of her. After all the years of living in such close proximity to each other, the men had learned to be discreet around Ginger and Mary Ann for just a few days each month, and as with most young women who lived together, Ginger and Mary Ann's cycles had become synchronised. Mary Ann didn't explain the details of her cycle to Gilligan because she knew how squeamish he was, but she told him that women produced eggs each month and they got very tired when it happened, and sometimes they got stomach ache. Gilligan was mostly satisfied with this, and left her alone when she asked for privacy.
With the passing of her monthly visitor, Mary Ann went back to the Professor for advice.
# # # #
Professor Roy Hinkley did his best to overcome his embarrassment and be the best help he could be. You know I'm not a physician, he told her. But I think I know a little more than the others. You're young and healthy, you have no underlying ailments that you know of, your cycle is regular and normal. It doesn't always happen right away, although it is perfectly possible to fall pregnant the very first time one has... he'd hesitated then.
Sex? Mary Ann had said, smiling happily, perched on the edge of his table.
Yes, the Professor had replied, arching his eyebrow.
He'd pulled out a small thermometer from his supply kit and wiped it off, then put it in her mouth, under her tongue. Mary Ann swung her legs, feeling as though she were ten years old again. Her Aunt Martha would bring her to the doctors and they'd sit in the reception area that smelled of antiseptic and her Aunt would read an old issue of Home Journal while Mary Ann sat on the floor playing with the half dressed dolls in the yellow plastic bin.
The Professor removed the thermometer, wet with Mary Ann's saliva, and peered at it. Normal, he declared.
What does that mean? she'd asked.
Well, he'd said, releasing an egg stimulates the production of the hormone progesterone, which raises body temperature. Following ovulation, your temperature can increase by 0.5 to 1.6 degrees. This temperature spike indicates that you've ovulated. This is just a basic thermometer, though. It's hardly the most accurate way of detecting ovulation.
Mary Ann blinked. Are you saying I should take my temperature every day, and if it goes up, I'm ovulating?
It certainly won't harm your chances, the Professor had smiled. However, the very best way to increase your chances of conceiving, he'd folded his arms and given her his best scholarly look, is to have regular energetic sex, as often as you can, every single day.
Mary Ann had blushed scarlet.
Touche, the Professor had laughed.
# # # #
Gilligan was an attentive lover. There was no faulting his commitment to the cause. When Mary Ann had told him of the Professor's suggestions, he'd smiled shyly and lowered his gaze to the floor. Starting from when? he'd asked.
No time like the present, she'd replied, hooking her finger lightly under his chin and bringing his face up for a kiss.
# # # #
Ginger was doing her best to roll pastry for a pie. The dough she'd made was lumpy and uneven and kept sticking to the makeshift rolling pin.
"Oh!" she exclaimed loudly, just as Mrs. Howell appeared in the supply hut to see what she was doing.
"Whatever is the matter?" Mrs. Howell asked. When she saw the doughy mess spread over the table, lumps of it stuck to the rolling pin and chunks of it stuck to the table, her cultured nose wrinkled. "Oh," she said distastefully. "My dear, stick to what you're best at." She patted the movie star's arm indulgently.
"She knows I can't cook," Ginger complained. "'The Lean, Mean Cuisine Queen' was just a movie I was in once." She picked up a lump of dough and threw it down again in disgust.
"Well, where is she?" Mrs. Howell said, peering around the room through her lorgnette.
"Where do you think?" Ginger sighed.
The two women stared at each other. Ginger raised her delicately plucked eyebrows.
"Oh," said Mrs. Howell, and coughed.
# # # #
"Gilligan..." Mary Ann murmured, her eyes closed in ecstasy. "Gilligan...that feels so good...don't stop. Don't stop...right there...that's it..."
Gilligan looked up from where he was sitting cross legged at the end of the bed massaging Mary Ann's foot. "I told you not to go hiking in those shoes," he chided her with a smile. "That's something Ginger would do."
"I didn't know you'd be taking me up the mountain," Mary Ann replied as Gilligan moved his thumbs gently over the ball of her foot, which throbbed mercilessly from being wedged into kitten heels all day.
"What mountain?" Gilligan scoffed. "That was barely a hill."
"To you, maybe," she sighed.
"You know, you should be more fit," Gilligan smirked. "Like me. We should start up a regime, like we had in the Navy. I did cross country running."
"Good for you," Mary Ann replied. "I'd rather do cross country strolling."
"You new recruits," Gilligan said, putting on his little used tone of authority. "You're all the same . Wet behind the ears. Green around the gills. Feeble minded, lily livered, pigeon toed and weak willed."
"What is this, Gilligan's Boot Camp?" Mary Ann smiled, wiggling her toes against his fingers.
"Who said you could speak, cadet?" Gilligan pursed his lips and frowned, his expression so exaggerated Mary Ann couldn't help but laugh.
"Sorry, sir," she said with a mock salute.
"That's better. Say, your feet are cute. What are you doing this evening?"
Mary Ann poked him in the chest with her big toe. "Wouldn't you like to know."
Gilligan grinned. He let go of her foot and crawled his way up her prone body. "I'd like to know," he said, inching his face close to hers.
Mary Ann giggled. She wrapped her arms lovingly around his torso, kissed him gently on the lips. "I'm going to go down to the docks and find me a nice, handsome sailor to have fun with," she purred.
"More handsome than me?" Gilligan said, his eyes twinkling.
"No-one's more handsome than you," Mary Ann said gently. Massaging Gilligan's fragile ego never hurt. He was too sweet natured to ever get bigheaded.
"What about the Professor?" he went on, his gaze flitting over her face.
"Not even the Professor."
They kissed deeply. When it ended, Mary Ann gazed up into her husband's eyes and smiled adoringly at him. "Gilligan?" she asked, breathlessly.
"Yes, my sweet?" he answered in his best romantically seductive voice.
Mary Ann batted her eyelashes and pointed to the bedside table. "Could you please pass me my thermometer?"
# # # #
Gilligan yawned. He was supposed to be helping the Skipper dig another drainage ditch, but he could barely keep his eyes open. It wasn't long before he dozed off standing up with his arms crossed over the handle of his bamboo shovel, the shovel part wedged into the sand.
The Skipper stopped his own digging and rolled his eyes when he saw his crewman asleep. He crept ever so quietly over to Gilligan until his face was just inches away from the first mate's. He studied Gilligan's shifting features. Gilligan's eyes moved under their lids, his lips twitched. "No, Mary Ann," he murmured. "We already did it three times."
The Skipper's eyebrows raised. This was interesting. He folded his arms and decided to give it a few more moments. Gilligan smacked his lips together and then giggled. "Mary Ann, stop it."
The Skipper put on his best girl's voice. "Gilligan, I love you," he simpered, his nose almost touching Gilligan's.
"I love you too, Mary Ann," Gilligan answered, fast asleep. "But don't you think we've done it enough for one night?"
"But Gilligan, I can't do it without you," the Skipper crooned.
"I just want to go to sleep, Mary Ann," Gilligan answered, frowning slightly and absently waving his hand.
"But you can't go to sleep, Gilligan," the Skipper cajoled, in a girlish whine.
"Why not?" Gilligan pouted.
"Because this drainage ditch needs digging!" the Skipper yelled in his own voice, startling the first mate so badly that he woke with a yelp and got his arms and legs tangled round the shovel, tripping over it and landing on his back at the bottom of the ditch.
"Skipper, why did you do that?" Gilligan muttered, untangling his limbs from the shovel and sitting up. His hat had fallen off and he picked it up, shaking sand off it before wedging it onto the back of his head.
"Because it's two in the afternoon and you shouldn't be sleeping!" the Skipper's face had gone pink and he gripped his own shovel so hard he thought he might snap it.
Gilligan unfolded his legs and got to his feet. The butt of his jeans was covered in damp sand.
"Who says I was sleeping?" he said, indignantly.
"Gilligan, you were so fast asleep you were talking," the Skipper replied, taking deep breaths. "About Mary Ann."
"I was?" Gilligan squinted against the sun. "What was I saying?"
"Never mind what you were saying," the Skipper grumbled. "But it's obvious why you were sleeping. You're exhausted!"
Gilligan's ears went bright red. He stared at his shovel. "Oh," he said in a small voice.
"Yes. Oh," said the Skipper. "But never mind that, now. Just get digging, and we'll say no more about it."
Gilligan began digging. His back ached, his legs were stiff. He threw shovels full of sand over his head and yawned. He dug further and further down into the same spot, yawning all the while. His hole got deeper. He threw more sand over his shoulder. He began to doze off again. Finally he slumped forward and fell over the shovel handle, landing face down in the sand where he started snoring, sending up clouds of sand around his nose and mouth.
The Skipper heard the snoring and turned around. His little buddy was fast asleep at the bottom of the ditch, his arms and legs splayed out around him like a broken pinwheel. He raised his eyes to the heavens and sighed loudly and pointedly.
"Women!" he declared.
# # # #
A couple of days later, Ginger and the Professor were taking one of their now-frequent strolls around the lagoon. In the Professor's right hand he held his favourite book, A World Of Facts, from which he read aloud a selection of stories designed to thrill and amaze his flame haired companion. At least, that's what he hoped.
"The Ancient Greeks believed earthquakes were caused by giants fighting underground," he said, shaking his head. "Imagine that."
"I knew an ancient Greek once. A movie producer." Ginger smiled, lowering her heavily mascaraed eyelashes. "He tried to make the earth move for me."
The Professor frowned and pretended he hadn't heard. "A flea can jump 350 times its own body length," he went on, peering intently at the pages of his book.
"So did I, when he started chasing me around the room," Ginger said, laughing sensuously. "He could move pretty fast for an old guy."
"A crocodile cannot stick its tongue out," said the Professor.
"He couldn't keep his tongue in," Ginger smiled, her glossy pinkened lips shining in the sun.
The Professor felt warmth creeping up his neck. He turned to face Ginger. The beautiful movie star lowered her gaze and looked up at him through her thick, dark eyelashes. She backed slowly towards the foliage.
"Hummingbirds have the fastest wingbeat," the Professor said, his blue eyes shining as he watched Ginger's swaying hips.
"I'll bet they do," Ginger purred seductively.
The Professor moved a little closer to her as she took another few steps back towards the shade of the dense jungle vegetation. As she shimmied her hips she gazed at him with eyes like green fire. She was a slinky, enticing vixen, and the Professor was dangerously close to being lured into her trap. "The Latin name for tiger is panthera tigris," he said, vaguely wondering how she managed to move like rippling water.
"Rrrrrrrrr," she growled, deep in her beautiful, creamy throat, ending on a deep chuckle that almost knocked the wind out of him.
"The Siberian tiger is the largest," the Professor said, wondering what was happening to him. He was following Ginger into the bushes like a man possessed. She held out her arms and beckoned him into her embrace. At the last minute, just as the Professor abandoned all hope, Ginger stepped back onto something that yielded beneath her high heeled shoe and then moved suddenly, throwing her off balance. At the same time a loud yell of pain came from the undergrowth right next to them.
"The Siberian tiger may be the largest, but I sure know which is the heaviest! Ginger!"
"Gilligan?" cried Ginger and the Professor together.
The Professor parted the large fern leaves and there was Gilligan, huddled on the ground, completely hidden from view. He had taken off his right sneaker and was massaging his foot through his sock, his face screwed up in anguish.
"Gilligan! What are you doing in the bushes?" asked Ginger, astonished. "You're not trying to spy on us, are you?" Her smooth brow creased into an attractive frown. "You naughty boy! You're a married man!"
"No, Ginger!" Gilligan looked personally affronted. He looked back at the Professor. "I'm hiding," he said meekly. "From Mary Ann."
# # # #
"Mr. Howell? Do you have any chores you want doing?"
Thurston Howell III, reclining on his bamboo sun lounger, stopped sucking on his straw and looked across at his wife Lovey. "Lovey, my dear, am I hearing things? I thought I just heard Gilligan asking if I had any chores I wanted doing."
Lovey Howell, sitting on the lounger next to him, smiled and twirled her parasol. "How lovely!" she declared.
"You're not hearing things, Mr. Howell." Gilligan stood between the headrests of the two loungers, twisting his fingers together. "I'm really in the mood to do some chores right now. In fact, I love chores, so, the more the merrier."
Mr. Howell leaned sideways and looked up. Gilligan looked back at him with his most ingratiating grin. "Heavens, the boy's got sunstroke."
"No, really," Gilligan went on. "I'd be happy to clean all your shoes, or sweep out your hut, or feed your polo pony or launder your money."
Mr. Howell choked on his cocktail. "Come again?"
"Launder your money. In the wash tub. Get it all nice and clean and then peg it out on the line. It must get awful dusty lying around in that big trunk all day."
"Gilligan, my boy, the thought of you touching my money brings me out in hives." The millionaire flopped back onto his sun lounger and waved Gilligan away. "Now run along, would you?"
Lovey reached over and patted her husband's arm as he stared off into the middle distance, his face contorted into a grimace. "There, there," she crooned. "Everything's all right."
"Lovey, he besmirched a Howell! Launder my money! No-one besmirches a Howell. At least not before lunch."
"Well, how about a game of golf then?" Gilligan persisted. "It's a beautiful day. Come on Mr. Howell, let's have a game of pitch and putt." Gilligan made swinging motions with his arms as if he were holding a golf club and almost knocked over the Howells' cocktail pitcher, rebalancing it just in time.
"Gilligan, run along dear, there's a good boy." Mrs. Howell smiled at Gilligan, crinkling her nose girlishly. "Poor Mr. Howell needs to get his breath back."
"But..." Gilligan began to look almost panicked. He craned his neck and looked back over his shoulder. From somewhere up the jungle path came Mary Ann's voice.
"Gilligan! Gilligan, where are you? Gilligan! I know you came this way!"
Gilligan's shoulders slumped. He stared dejectedly at Mrs. Howell. "Never mind," he sighed.
# # # #
Gilligan lay on his stomach with his face buried in a mound of pillows. "Mrrry Ammm, yurrr wwrrm meeeou," he mumbled.
Mary Ann smiled, staring up at the ceiling through shining, sated eyes. "I didn't hear a single word of that," she said, swatting her husband's arm.
Gilligan lifted his head. His expression was slack, his eyes heavy. Damp hair clung to his forehead. "I said, Mary Ann, you're wearing me out."
Mary Ann giggled. She rolled onto her side and stroked the hair away from Gilligan's face. "I didn't think that was possible," she purred, cuddling up to him, wrapping her leg around his. "You're like a little stick of dynamite." She bit his shoulder playfully.
"Yeah? Well, this little stick of dynamite's got no powder left." Gilligan's head hit the pillow again. He closed his eyes, exhausted.
Mary Ann stroked his back, running her fingertips down the valley of his spine. "I love you," she whispered.
"I love you too," he murmured.
"You'll be the best daddy ever," she smiled.
"So will you," he replied.
"We'll get there, Gilligan. We will." She pulled the sheets up over both of them and snuggled close.
"I know," he mumbled, and fell asleep.
# # # #
"Six years we've been here, Professor," said the Skipper a few days later, tipping a basket of freshly harvested coconuts onto the floor in the corner of the supply hut. "Six long years."
The Professor was working on one of his experiments. He was trying to develop a new type of plant food that would help them to grow better crops as the nutrients in the soil depleted. They hadn't had much rainfall for a while, and their vegetable patch was in constant need of irrigation. He watched his liquids bubble and steam, chewing on the end of his pencil and making notes in his book. "Six years and three months, to be precise," he said, jotting something down.
"And it's been so hot lately." the Skipper removed his hat and wiped a beefy forearm across his perspiring forehead. He stared out of the window at the shimmering air. The Howells were outside, on their way somewhere, strolling around as they were wont to do. "What is it, 100 degrees out there?"
"it's been around 87 degrees for the past two weeks," the Professor said, tapping one of his beakers and making more notes.
The Skipper looked over at all the Professor's science paraphernalia. "Couldn't you come up with an invention that makes ice cream?" he asked plaintively.
The Professor smiled. "I guess it's not beyond the realms of possibility," he said, suppressing a chuckle, "but I think a healthy year round crop of vegetables, fruit and wheat is more important at the moment."
"You would," the Skipper sighed.
"Ask Mary Ann to make you a mango shake," the Professor smiled. "They're delicious."
"They sure are," the Skipper said. "As soon as Mary Ann shows up, that's exactly what I'll do."
He wandered outside. The Howells looked over and waved. The Skipper waved back. He smiled to himself. The Howells were always so cheery. He looked around the camp site. Everything was still and quiet under the late morning sun. It was so hot, too hot. All Skipper wanted to do was flop down in the shade and grab a sneaky forty winks.
"Lovely morning, isn't it, Captain?" Lovey said, as the Howells joined him. "Beautiful, in fact."
The Skipper studied the millionaires fondly. Neither one of them had broken even a bead of sweat, in fact Lovey looked as fresh as if she'd just walked out of an air conditioned building. "Am I the only one feeling the heat?" he said, pulling at the collar of his blue polo shirt.
"It is a little warm," Mr. Howell agreed. "But we Howells are made of stern stuff."
"The Professor suggested asking Mary Ann to whip up a batch of her delicious mango shakes," the Skipper said, licking his lips. "I have to say, that idea is getting better and better with every moment."
"Where is Mary Ann, anyway?" Mrs. Howell asked. "She and Ginger are normally busy as bees this time of the morning."
"Yes," Mr. Howell said. "Watching them bustling about positively exhausts me."
"I can take a wild guess that wherever she is, my little buddy's there too," the Skipper replied, "and even though I really want that mango shake, it's a small price to pay for the peace and quiet of not having Gilligan arou..." he broke off as a distant noise made them all prick up their ears.
"What on earth is that?" Mrs. Howell said, her eyes widening with worry. "It sounds like a banshee!"
The noise came again, a distant howling that seemed to be coming nearer.
"Surely it's not natives?" said Mr. Howell, putting his arm protectively around his wife's shoulders. "They're usually a lot sneakier in their approach."
"It's not natives, Mr. Howell," sighed the Skipper as the crazed banshee yelling got closer and closer. "It's..."
The owner of the mad yelling made himself known, flashing past the trio in a streak of red, white and pale blue.
"...Gilligan," all three of them said together, in exactly the same pained way.
Gilligan ran like the wind through the camp. He stopped his crazed yelling just long enough to shout "I'm not a machine!" before disappearing around the side of the supply hut, vanishing into the opposite side of the jungle just as quickly as he'd come, leaving nothing but a cloud of dust behind.
A minute or so later, Mary Ann appeared, running after him, much more slowly but no less determined. She was waving a small glass cylinder in the air, her cheeks flushed and her eyes shining. As she crossed the clearing she called his name, over and over again.
"Gilligan...Gilligan! Come back!"
The Professor came out of his hut to see what all the commotion was about, narrowly avoiding a collision with the gingham clad farm girl on her way back into the jungle. He noticed the thermometer grasped between her fingers as she disappeared around the corner. The last words everybody heard before she vanished into the undergrowth made Lovey Howell gasp and cover her mouth, and Thurston Howell clear his throat and stick his chin out.
"Gilligan, Gilligan...I'm ovulating!"
The Skipper stammered and swallowed and blushed right down to the roots of his greying blond hair. The Howells fidgeted and made little shocked noises. Ginger appeared at the door to the girls' hut, her mouth hanging open in amazement. The Professor looked at all of the castaways in turn, then smiled over at the Skipper.
"Looks like your mango shake is going to have to wait," he grinned.
